Evaluation Plan To Improve Our Reference Section

I am going to focus on the print materials of my Reference Section.The present condition of my traditional reference section is a total of thirty-five books. Our collection includes six dictionaries, a thesaurus, three atlases and the remaining books are special topic encyclopedia books. My collection reveals, that according to Reidling's General Guidelines for replacing reference materials (p.24), my entire collection is out of date. Unfortunately, my library budget for this school year is zero dollars from the school. This constraint makes it exceptionally hard for me to tackle the issue of replacing materials. According to my school district's Teacher Librarian Job Description and Responsibilities , #4 states, "Ensure that the school library collections are organized, maintained, and made available to staff and students, with the assistance of the library Clerks, according to acceptable standards."
The acceptable standards according to AIL standards for school library collections funding, show that my elementary schools acceptable funding levels are between $26 and $35 per student based on the average cost of materials in the year 2002.(p.35) This is a big discrepancy in budgetary numbers. I have a long way to go to educate colleagues and raise these funding deficits.



Our school district does have broad access to online databases of World Book and EBSCO. As it stands, I am in the process of educating the staff and students about these new online sources and how to find and use them. At my school currently, students do not use any of the print reference materials for research, they are simply too irrelevant. I feel that the teachers do not see the reference section as valuable, they all have dictionaries and thesaurus in their individual classrooms. Our collection is simply not valuable at this time. I would like to see all our print reference materials updated and current. I would like to add materials for primary students, ELL students, and students with special needs.

I have to find ways to become very creative and inventive in order to acquire new reference materials. My step-by-step plan in order to rebuild and improve the reference section in my Learning Commons will include;

*Survey the staff to see which materials and resources they would like added to the collection, items that they need to teach and inform their students in curricular studies. I will send out this survey in the coming month.

Which Reference materials would you like added to the Learning Commons collection?

(To supplement your instruction/research)

Biographies
Directories, Almanacs
Dictionaries
Encyclopedias
Atlases
other;

*Ongoing and more aggressive advocacy to educate my staff, administration and PAC on our current funding situation and where it needs to be. I will be presenting highlighted and abridged funding information from the AIL document and present it to staff.  I will assemble a presentation and deliver it online for this school year in May or June (as I am not in school on meeting days) and also present it in person at the beginning of the coming school year.

*I will present to PAC members in May or June in order to illustrate the discrepancy between reality and the expectations of acceptable standards for our Elementary School library. I will be there in person so I am able to answer questions directly and make note of inquiries. We have a very generous and supportive PAC group at our school and I know they would be interested and ready to help with the rebuilding of our collection.

The timeline of this project will be ongoing I would like to start my presentations by the end of the school year and continue the conversation through the start up of next year. The education about our needs and the support that the Learning Commons will need in the coming years will be continuous. If and when our goals are achieved, I will be able to communicate this change through written reports and online reports, outlining our new acquisitions and how they are supporting our student learning. It will exciting to show students the new and effective resources that can use to learn and discover.



Works Cited

Asselin, Marlene, et al. Achieving Information Literacy: Standards for School Library Programs in Canada. Canadian School lIbrary Association, 2006.

Sansoucy-Jones, E. School Library Policy and Procedures Manual. Nanaimo, BC: Nanaimo-Ladysmith School District 68, 2010.

Riedling, A. M., Shake, L., & Houston, C. . Reference skills for the school librarian: tools and tips. Santa Barbara: California, 2013.