Deeper Learning Leads to Deeper Analysis

Theme 3 of the course looked more closely at how to evaluate different types of reference resources. The library collection has always been a source of pride at my school, based on the wide range of diverse books in multiple languages. However, this course, and Theme 3 in particular, has caused me to really pause and critically evaluate our resources. After reading Asselin’s guidelines on what makes an exemplary or even acceptable collection, I realised many of its strengths do not apply to our non-fiction collection. Although we have a large selection of non-fiction books that meet curricular needs or are of high interest to students (Riedling, BC Ministry of Education), I have not kept up with weeding out books that are old or in poor condition and I now know I didn’t have strong criteria for choosing new resources.

Data collected from a recent Titlewave Analysis

When I consider our reference books in particular, I think this is an area that needs to be strengthened. Encyclopaedias, fact books and yearbooks are highly popular with our students in all areas of the non-fiction collection, but I rarely purchase these types of books so we are left with shelves of old, worn out books. However, perhaps these are only popular because of the lack of other options. Many younger students cannot fully access online resources efficiently (Riedling 25), and they still prefer to hold a physical book in their hands, so we need to ensure these books are current, relevant and accurate (Riedling, Oxley, Asselin).

“It is better to have a small but relevant and up-to-date collection of materials than a large collection that is neither useful or of good quality.”  (Riedling, 25)

Collection Development Moving Forward

In the past, I would search for books in Follett Titlewave and if there were no reviews attached to it, I would look for reviews in Goodreads or on Amazon and try to find images of some pages. Any books that sounded interesting would go in my basket. Now I am now much more aware of the different types of reference resources that are available and am attempting to add these to the collection, making a concerted effort to use the criteria that Riedling has listed in her book for each type of material as I do so.

• I focus on books that have been published in the last five years
• I am more aware of key publishers or known authors to ensure they have authority and therefore more relevance/accuracy 
• I search for reviews from SLJ, Booklist and Kirkus. 
• I only look for books that have been published in the last five years, unless I can see that a book meets all other criteria, is more current than what we have, and I cannot find anything more suitable based on our other criteria.

Image from Silicon Valley International School.

As I wrote this post, I was reminded of lesson 2 and feel I am in the action/reflection part of the inquiry cycle.

While not a perfect system, it has helped me to make more thoughtful choices as I undertake a major task of updating our non-fiction section.

Citations:

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

British Columbia Ministry of Education. Evaluating, Selecting, and Managing Learning Resources: A Guide. 2002, https://canvas.ubc.ca/courses/115685/files/24511117/download?wrap=1, Accessed April 7 2023.

CLA Voices for School Libraries Network and CLA School Libraries Advisory Committee. Leading Learning: Standards of Practice for School Library Learning Commons in Canada.  Canadian Library Association, 2014.

Oxley, Kristie. “Lesson 3: Building a Reference Collection for Your School Library”. In LIBE 467: Information Services 1. UBC, (2023). https://canvas.ubc.ca/courses/115685/pages/lesson-3-building-a-reference-collection-for-your-school-library?module_item_id=5213145. Accessed  April 7 2023.

Riedling, Ann Marlow, and Cynthia Houston. Reference Skills for the School Librarian: Tools and Tips, 4th ed., Santa Barbara, Libraries Unlimited, an imprint of ABC CLIO, 2019.

“The Inquiry Learning Cycle”. Silicone Valley International School. https://blog.siliconvalleyinternational.org/the-inquiry-learning-cycle\. Accessed  April 9 2023.

Ensuring Access to Library Resources

Reference Services is so much more than just having resources in the library.  If patrons cannot access the resources either because of where they are located or because they are intellectually inaccessible, or if they are not using them because they don’t meet the patrons needs or because they don’t know about them, then we are not being effective in our role. It is our responsibility to ensure that the materials we have can and are being accessed (Oxley, BC Ministry of Education).

I think it can be easy to become complacent in any role. As teachers we are busy with so many different aspects of our roles, so we get used to doing things a certain way and we get into a routine of using the same resources and/or lessons - especially if we have been in the same role for a while. When this happens in the library, we may be doing a disservice to the community using our space. New staff and students won’t be aware of what is being used, units of study can change or be tweaked, digital resources and databases may be moved or subscription rules changed, and students may have different needs regarding skills that need to be taught.  

Intellectual Access in particular struck me as a big issue for libraries at the moment. At a time when budgets are being cut in many schools (Oxley) and schools are having to share digital resources, schools may not have access to the most appropriate databases and resources for their particular students. One way we can help with this is by looking for ways to make these sites more accessible for our students (BC Ministry of Education). With things like online encyclopedias this may include looking at the comprehension level being used or by showing students how to access the audio support or language settings.  With other databases, it may mean collating the sections within the resource that are most appropriate for the students.  I have even gone as far as creating screencasting where I stop a video and ask questions or explain something further to support my students.

Two particular points that stuck out to me with regards to Intellectual Access were the  policies and procedures we have in place and “students’ rights to information in relation to parental or teacher permission or lack thereof”. This points seem especially critical right now when we are seeing a huge increase in book banning occurring. At a time when librarians are pushing to ensure there are more perspectives, accurate information and less bias being disseminated, we are also seeing an increase in people fighting to remove books which address a more balanced historical perspective.  Although the focus at the moment is on fiction books, I can see this becoming an issue with reference sites that may include balanced details on issues related to residential schools and the treatment of Native American or African American people in North America, or even on topics such as abortion or LGBTQ+. We need to ensure our policies protect our students and ensure they have access to these resources within our collections.  Fortunately for teachers in Canada, it seems you do have the backing of the Supreme Court on your side (Azpiri).

Citations:

Azpiri, John. “Debate Over Book Bans in Classrooms Highlights Limitations of School Trustees' Role”. CBC News British Columbia. CBC, September 29 2022. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/school-board-limitations-1.6596950. Accessed 26 Feb. 2023.

British Columbia Ministry of Education. Evaluating, Selecting, and Managing Learning Resources: A Guide. 2002, https://canvas.ubc.ca/courses/115685/files/24511117/download?wrap=1, Accessed 22 Feb. 2023.

Gabbatt, Adam. “A Streak of Extremism’: US Book Bans May Increase in 2023”. The Guardian. December 24 2022. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/dec/24/us-book-bans-streak-of-extremism. Accessed 26 Feb. 2023.

Oxley, Kristie. (2023). “Lesson 6: Managing the Reference Collection”. In LIBE 467: Information Services 1. UBC. https://canvas.ubc.ca/courses/115685/pages/lesson-6-managing-the-reference-collection?module_item_id=5213154. Accessed February 15 2023.

Oxley, Kristie. (2023). “Lesson 7: Evaluating Reference Services”. In LIBE 467: Information Services 1. UBC. https://canvas.ubc.ca/courses/115685/pages/lesson-7-evaluating-reference-services?module_item_id=5213156. Accessed February 21 2023.

The Changing Nature of the Library Reference Section

 

“If, (...), it is more important to teach students the life long skills necessary to ‘seek out, analyze and use information’ rather than simply present or regurgitate information, then perhaps, what information students find is less important than how they find and apply it.”  (Oxley, 2023).

For most of my life, I’ve never really understood the importance of the reference section of a library. When I was young, it was the basement of the library where I would have to go and sit because I wasn’t allowed to take the books home. There may have been something I needed, but I always wanted to get back to the ‘good’ books that I could take home and read all the way through. Somehow, not being allowed to borrow books made that section feel less worthy than other areas of the library. When I started working in my school library, I was relieved when we reduced the amount of books in the section - they were outdated, rarely looked at and students were accessing most of this information through our online databases. 

I now have a much deeper understanding of the important role Reference Services play. It is so much more than the resources they hold; of equal, if not more importance is the services that are provided which lead students to become information literate. I have always viewed the teaching of information and digital literacy skills as an important part of my role, I just didn't understand their connection to Reference Services. If students don’t develop these skills, how can we expect them to navigate a world of increasing amounts of information which have varying levels of accuracy, bias, and perspectives.

“Today, when a school library collection includes many digital resources available onsite or through external commercial databases and licensed reference materials, conventional school library collection standards are difficult to develop and apply”  (IFLA, p.35)

I went down a bit of a rabbit-hole trying to find more up to date guidelines than what was provided in ‘Achieving Information Literacy’. For instance, while Asselin  stated that an exemplary library would have held a physical collection of 70 - 85% non-fiction items (Asselin, p. 28), the School Library Journal highlighted a more recent trend of increased spending on fiction books, while non-fiction has decreased. 

Screenshot from School Library Journal article

Cynthia Houston’s presentation at the IASL Tokyo Conference in 2016 provided a clearer picture as she talked about the changing nature of the reference section and how a librarian may address this section going forward. She also highlighted some resources to look for more current guidelines and suggestions on developing your reference section going forward. I was particularly interested in the National Library of New Zealand, which highlighted a mix of online and physical resources to add to a collection.

Screenshot from the National Library of New Zealand website

Physical library collections will always exist as they hold an important function in supporting a diverse learning community, but they are not the only source of information. As librarians, we need to consider the needs of our community members and curriculum and find a balance of resources and support to “make information gathering effective and efficient - and create information-literate, socially responsible, lifelong learners.” (Riedling & Houston, p. 105).

Citations:

“Information Literacy”. ALA’s Literacy Clearinghouse. https://literacy.ala.org/information-literacy/ Accessed 30 January 2023. 

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

Houston, Cynthia. “Reinventing your Reference Collection”. International Association of School Librarianship, 2016. https://iasl-online.org/resources/Pictures/PP02_HoustonC_2016IASLTokyo.pdf. Accessed 29 January 2023.

IFLA School Libraries Section Standing Committee. “IFLA School Library Guidelines”, 2nd Revised edition, International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, June 2015,  https://www.ifla.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/assets/school-libraries-resource-centers/publications/ifla-school-library-guidelines.pdf. Endorsed by the IFLA Professional Committee. Accessed 30 January 2023.

Kletter, Melanie. "During Covid Libraries Prioritized Electronic Resources, Fiction. SLJ 2021 Spending Survey”, March 25, 2021. School Library Journal. https://www.slj.com/story/During-covid-libraries-prioritized-electronic-resources-fiction-slj-2021-spending-survey  Accessed January 27, 2023.

Oxley, Kristie. (2023). “Lesson 4: Print and/or Electronic Reference Materials”. In LIBE 467: Information Services 1. UBC. https://canvas.ubc.ca/courses/115685/pages/lesson-4-print-and-slash-or-electronic-reference-materials?module_item_id=5213148. Accessed 29 January 2023.

Riedling, Ann Marlow, and Cynthia Houston. Reference Skills for the School Librarian: Tools and Tips, 4th ed., Santa Barbara, Libraries Unlimited, an imprint of ABC CLIO, 2019.

Publishing a Library Website - Taking the Necessary Time for Much Needed Advocacy

New main page of the Library website - less tabs make the view and access easier 

 

I decided early on that I wanted to work on our library website as it is something I feel has been desperately needed for many years, but so far we lacked the time to learn a program and design a site. However, we realise a pressing need in the department advocacy for our program, and one way to do this is to make it easy for the community to find us. Having a website means patrons can find all of the information they need in one place, instead of having to search multiple sites and links, email us or visit us in person to find answers to their questions. It also means we can share some of the fabulous things we are doing in our space and with the program, and celebrate what the students are doing.

Before I could start, I needed to watch several tutorials, and then quickly began to set up a page for my own grade levels and pages to group the Early Years, Primary School and Middle School together. I soon realised that there are limitations to what you can do in an individual guide and it was at that point I needed to meet with my TL to move forward and ensure we had the same ideas for the layout.  Fortunately, we agreed on most things and were able to make a plan for going forward. 

We want the website to be a place parents, staff, and students can use for resources and information. Each grade needs pages for their different units and we need parents to be able to easily access multiple pages/sections if they have more than one child. We also wanted this to be visually appealing, without a lot of tabs or drop downs. When I first began working on the site, we already had 13 tabs and I hadn’t created anything for the classes I work with.

 

Previous Website main page. Very busy layout, despite missing several grade levels. All information was generic and not aimed at the specific ages of students. 

 

Issues I/we Faced:

• Within a guide you can have a page or a subpage.  

• If we created a page for Middle School, we could only create a subpage for each grade level. It was not possible to then add subpages for each grade level’s units

• We don’t want to have to edit the same information multiple times on each page

• Lack of communication amongst the team. Only the TL was aware that we had a website, and no time has been given over to collaborate or train the rest of the team on Libguides. 

   

Solutions:

• It is important to map out your plan before you start, so you do not have to redo work.

    

• Springshare suggests setting up a style guide so that there are common agreements on fonts/layouts/ colours used. If you are collaborating on a site, it is important that everyone understands the expectations so no unnecessary work is done or inconsistencies occur across the guides.

• Make multiple guides if you want to have several subsections. These can be linked together through redirect urls that open in another tab/window.

• Make sure all of your guides link back to the main guide so patrons do not have to search for the original when they open a new guide.

• Map pages/boxes that you want to use in multiple places so that you only have to edit the original.

• Copy pages if you like the layout and make changes from there, instead of restarting anew each time.

• Collaborate with others. If you work in a division, perhaps there are boxes/layouts you can use from others. If you have a team, use the strengths of each member so that each person is responsible for a section.  In this way, one person won’t be overwhelmed by all the work.

• Finally, before going public, have a small group of patrons test the site to ensure links work and the functionality will meet their needs.

 

My Contributions to the Site:

As I stated, I haven’t created this website from scratch. Below, I am listing the work that I did in moving the site forward. 

• Set the Primary, Early Years, and Middle School guides

• Set up individual guides for each grade level by copying the pages the TL created and copying the home page of the Zug Campus Guide

• Added content to the Search for books page (specifically, tutorials and pictorial guides, and links to different account related forms). 

• Added content to the ISZL Reads page, which was previously blank (Header, VIP Readers, Storyteller, Junior Library activities, Travelling Tale).

• Created the content/guide for the Early Years section of the school.

• Updated the audiobook and research resources for the different sections to reflect the suitability of the resources for each group.

• Created a guide for my Grade 2 students. As units come up with relevant student resources, I will add links to the resources I have curated for them.

• Enhanced the look of the site by updating the staff photos and adding colour, in the form of coloured tabs and outlines on the boxes.

 

 

 

 

 New Early Years Guide

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

Steps to Continue Moving Forward:

 We want this site to become a living document that becomes the go to page for our community.  In order to do this, I/we plan to take the following steps:

• Link the site to the school homepage, in the place of the current link that brings you to the Destiny Homepage. 

• Promote the site to the community - share it in collaborative meetings/staff bulletins, and in the parent bulletin and on Facebook.

• I have also reached out to the Ed Tech coaches to see what content they believe should be added. By ensuring their voices are included, we can involve them in the process and hopefully this becomes a site that is used by even more specialists. 

• Continue to add resources to support the grade levels I work with and plan to get feedback from staff to see how to continue to improve the site. 

In case you haven't seen the link yet, https://iszl.libguides.com/zugcampuslibrary

 

References:

Springshare. Best practices for images. Get help with libguides, cms, & e-reserves. https://training.springshare.com/libapps/image-best-practices

Springshare. Build a Libguide. Get help with libguides, cms, & e-reserves.  https://training.springshare.com/libguides/building-guides

Springshare. Libguides admin settings and Look and feel customizations. Get help with libguides, cms, & e-reserves.  https://training.springshare.com/libguides/admin

Springshare. Reusable content and style guidelines. Get help with libguides, cms, & e-reserves. https://training.springshare.com/libguides/style-reusable-content-guide

Creating a Website for My School Community

What a week it has been. Admittedly, I haven’t had a lot of time to do research due to being very short-staffed at work and having to take on a second role, but I have been thinking more about what I want to include in our library website, especially after we hosted our first open house for parents on Friday. During the session, we had a slideshow of information that we went through and then demonstrated how to search for books and it was all information I think needs to be held in one place. I have also been looking at the documents Sonia shared over the last two weeks and I found myself nodding my head a lot at what she said, which helped me to frame my thinking a lot.

Currently, our school website is really aimed at prospective parents and current community members click a link which leads them to our library catalogue. Eventually (once we feel ready to share our new site), I would like to see our Libguide site be the link on the school website. This will lead them to our new library website which will include all of the information we currently hold in multiple places or have to send as emails.

As the target audience of the site will be all community members (students, staff and parents), I want to make sure there is something for everyone. I want to be transparent from the start and state that I have not designed this libguide from scratch. In fact as I began exploring this week, I realised communication with my team is critical as I discovered there is already an updated main page that only the head of my department knows about. I had thought she had only created and updated the pages for the students she works with.

As I looked at what we have so far, I realised the need to break the libguide down more by the sections of our school. There are currently no tabs for the students I work with in EY1 - Grade 2, and with such a range of students (3 - 14 year olds), I think it is necessary to break down some of the tabs further so that students, staff, and parents can easily access age appropriate information. I want to add tabs for  Early Years, Primary, and Middle School and then add tabs/dropdowns within that with the relevant information. This should also make viewing the tabs more visually appealing.  

I am going to include screenshots of what we have so far, and my plans/hopes for adding to & editing what is there, as well as new pages so that my intentions going forward are clear.

Main page:

Although we have some basic information about our hours, I would like to also include a link to our book order form and information regarding our current campaign for volunteers. I also want to update our photos and include a link to our email addresses.  One thing I am not sure about is whether to add some news here. As it will be the first page parents see, I want to highlight events, but I am not sure if it will overwhelm the page.

    Current main page of our Libguide                                                      

 The tabs along the top feel very busy and don't reflect diverse ages of our community

Research With Library Resources and Audio and Ebooks:

I want to make a separate tab of links to appropriate sites for our younger students. This will be contained within the EY tab so that our students and parents can see the most appropriate links for their needs. For the audio books, I plan to also include links to some storytelling podcasts as we don’t have much of a range of ebooks for our younger students. I think it would also be useful to include a how to video on borrowing the ebooks.

 I would like to create a separate tab for early years students with links to relevant databases 

 

This is another area that needs to be broken down to reflect the needs of all of our community members      

Search for Books:

This is a tab I especially want to develop. I think this is the perfect place to include some how to videos or pdfs. Things like how to search for books as well as how to log in and view your account, place holds, and renew books.

There are many tutorials for using Destiny that could be added here                                       

Lastly, I want to give a little update for people about how the reduced Covid mandates have impacted my school. I believe it has been a little over five weeks since most restrictions were reduced in Switzerland. This came during our weeklong break from school so we came back to a no mask rule. My team as well as other individual staff and students chose to keep masks on for protection, and within 2 ½ weeks case numbers were extremely high (up to 25% of our staff out with covid, many for the second time) .

We went back to staff needing masks and office staff working from home when possible. Parents were asked to wear masks five days later and our staffing situation has been critical with all specialists being pulled at some point to take classes. We’ve been short a team member for a week and a half (though not due to covid) and I tested positive on Saturday morning after fighting what I thought was another cold all week. Despite this, we are back to masks being optional on Monday. I’d like to say we are over the worst, but it will be interesting to see what the rest of the year brings for schools.

References:

Baumbach, Donna (2004). What should be on a school library web page? Learning and Leading With Technology, 32(1). https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ695797.pdf

Morris, Kathleen (MAy 19, 2021). School library websites: Essential features and examples. The Edublogger. https://www.theedublogger.com/school-library-websites-features-examples/

Sonia (March 21, 2022). Final vision project brainstorming. Library studie: Reflections and Responses About Teacher Librarianship.https://booksarecool143770636.wordpress.com/2022/03/21/final-vision-project-brainstorming/

Sonia (March 25, 2022). Target audience : vision project. Library studie: Reflections and Responses About Teacher Librarianship. https://booksarecool143770636.wordpress.com/2022/03/25/target-audience-vision-project/