Devising a collection management policy (CMP) has been a step into the big picture. I better grasp the role of the library, the collection, and the teacher librarian (TL) and the potential they have to fulfill the teaching and learning needs of the school community.
Initially, daunted by the task, I was faced with a library that had no CMP and a TL and principal who didn’t know what one was.
By following a variety of collection and user-centred techniques for collecting qualitative and quantitative data (Arizona State Library, 2008: Bishop, 2007; National Library) a tangible snapshot of the collection was revealed. Talking to all stakeholders and looking at school policies helped me gain an understanding of the needs of the learning community and what role the collection did, was expected to and could play. This is something that had never been done before. It became very clear that the better the quality of the evaluation, the more effective the CMP would be.
Something I noticed was the discrepancy between the ideal and reality. The principal believed the role of the collection was to inspire teaching and learning, excite and engage the students, lead the uptake of IL and higher order thinking in the school…all good stuff! But then I assessed the collection and saw that the library had no budget, the collection was dated and had no digital collection, the untrained TL was allocated only 1 hour to do all management, the system had been down for 6 months with no resolution…not good stuff! It brought home the importance of the advocacy role of the TL in a school climate of decreasing funding and competing financial demands. I think the CMP is a valuable tool, not least to help gain the principal’s crucial support.
My favorite line in my CMP has to be “the library exists to…foster a lifelong connection to the power of story”. On reading of numerous CMPs I was surprised by the lack of any mention of connection to story or its ability to move, inspire, evoke, comfort and enlighten. Story is in our bones. It gives us the power of connection to others and to self, helps us visualize what’s possible, lets us see other perspectives and understand the world. As poet Murial Rukeyser said “the universe is made of stories, not atoms” (Song & Beaver, 2010). As the tradition of storytelling moved from an oral to a written one the library took over from the elder as the keeper of stories. As the heart of the library it is the TLs job to put the right story in the right hands at the right time. Grow the word story to include information and digital tools, and “putting the right resource, in the right hands, at the right time” seems to aptly encapsulate the role of the library, the collection and the TL. The digital/information age is great at getting kids to connect with their heads. Let’s not forget the role of story to get kids to connect with their hearts. Let’s not forget the role of library as keeper of the stories, in whatever format!
References
Arizona State Library. (2008). Collection assessment and mapping. Retrieved from http://www.lib.az.us/cdt/collass.aspx
Bishop, K. (2007). Evaluation of the collection. In The collection program in
schools : concepts, practices and information sources (4th ed.) (pp. 141-
159). Westport, Conn. : Libraries Unlimited.
Lee, J. (2009). The power of story – What’s old is new again. Retrieved from http://vimeo.com/4382940
National Library of Australia. (2004). A Guide to the collection assessment process. Retrieved from www.nla.gov.au/libraries/help/guide.html
Song, T., & Beaver, M. (2010). Whispers of the Ancients: Native tales for teaching and healing in our time. Michigan: The Universitiy of Michigan Press
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