LIBE 467 Theme 2: Maintaining and Evaluating Reference Services and Resources

 

Reflecting back on these last few weeks and the theme of managing and evaluating reference services, I've realized how difficult it is to achieve an ideal library learning commons where reference services are supported fully. I think some of the biggest challenges currently are time and budget when looking at what needs to happen in order to provide reference services in school libraries that will support the learning community's needs. 

Reference Services

It's been said before, and not only by me, but one of the primary (and important) functions of a school librarian is to aid students in using the library. We as teacher-librarians act as guides and facilitators to the information, we provide the means of getting to the information. Chapter 9 in Riedling’s book talks about the reference interview and how the teacher-librarian communicates with the student or teacher in determining what they need or want and clarifying those goals. I have never seen a reference interview done, and I can't say many librarians in the schools that I have worked in would have been willing to do them. I appreciated how Riedling spoke about the structure and methods that allow a teacher-librarian to effectively communicate with the student over a need they have. I personally felt that the way the reference interview is set up by Riedling, required previous learning and teaching because currently students in many schools don't know how to ask for information or that they can ask librarians questions beyond simple book requests. I think this also comes from a lack of cooperative planning between teachers and teacher-librarians. I see this already as a classroom teacher, a lack of cooperative planning and teaching. When use of a library is needed, it seems counterproductive to not include the teacher librarian in the planning process. This also doesn’t mean big inquiry projects or research presentations either, a teacher librarian can help teach the basic information searching skills that every student needs. 

Managing the Reference Collection

Again, like in many of the lessons and modules we’ve read, the role of the teacher librarian comes up. One of the many roles we have to fulfil in the job is managing the collection as a whole, but more specifically in terms of this course, the reference section. I feel like this lesson was frustrating to read because in reading the Greater Victoria role description posted in the module and from various readings in this and other courses, there are so many expectations of teacher librarians, yet the tools to achieve them are nonexistent or limited. We are expected to manage the collection by evaluating it, selecting materials for it, maintaining it, balance a budget, build policies and procedures, amongst many other things. Its frustrating in reality to know that we want to do all of this but are affected by limited time and budgets. While participating in discussions in this and other courses, I’ve come to realize that most of the teacher-librarians that works have only part time allotments. How are we to effectively teach our students information literacy with a tiny sliver of time? When it comes to budget, I feel I know very little. Even in my teaching world, I feel like I have a huge gap in knowledge when it comes to knowing where money is coming from, and why it is allocated where it is. This will be a goal for me when I go back to work in either a classroom or a library. I would like to be able to advocate for the users of my library and that requires a knowledge of how the system works. 

 Evaluating Reference Services

 Looking at building a collection, which includes budgeting, purchasing, evaluating and selecting requires librarians to know their collection. Evaluating a collection is very important, as it gives an idea on how well references and reference services are used. Evaluating can be done a multitude of ways. Luckily, in my LIBE 463 class as well as this one, I had the chance to put into practice, evaluating a collection and creating a report. Many things come under the microscope when evaluating a collection or references specifically. My report for my other class focused on the evaluation from a perspective of physical and quantitative circulation data, what our course module discusses is based off of access, skills, policies/procedures/practices, and informational need. 

Collection Evaluation Report LIBE 463

Evaluation of a Geographical Source 

if you're interested in reading my collection evaluation reports click here ↑

I think what stuck with me the most in this lesson was the question of access. Having read much about intellectual access in Mardis’ book "The Collection Program in Schools", understanding the importance of librarians and their place in being guides to knowledge and not protectors of it. I believe I mentioned this in one of my discussions but a huge takeaway for me was understanding that everyone has a right to all knowledge and that I have to put my biases aside in this job. 

Ultimately reference resources must be managed (by being evaluated, selected, purchased) with consideration from its users, and how it can support the needs of the learning community. Even with the challenges presented in daily real life such as time and budget, there are still many aspects to focus on, on what can be done with what we have and to make certain parts of the library valued. Above all, learners need to learn the skills to access information, guided by a teacher librarian if needed, to achieve the goals that reference services and reference materials can help answer.  

 

References:

Mardis, Marcia A. The Collection Program In Schools. 7th ed., Libraries Unlimited, 2021.

Riedling, Ann Marlow, and Cynthia Houston. Reference Skills For The School Librarian. 4th ed., 2019.

Oxley, Kristie. "Lessons: 5-7". 2022.  

Collection Evaluation Report - LIBE 463

Collection Evaluation Report

Introduction:

 

This report concerns the evaluation of a subset of items in my library’s collection. This report will evaluate to see if the items currently in circulation meets the needs of its users and learning community. Data was collected around age, size, and number of items that fall under the umbrella of the Science Grade 3 curriculum. This report used both qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection as “generally, two or more methods are used together to obtain meaningful results” (Mardis, 2021 pg 189). Continuous evaluation of a collection allows librarians to “better able to judge whether a particular source meets the needs of the student population” (Riedling 2019 pg 23).

Some of the data collected was for the collection as a whole. There was also data collected around the subject of Science,  particularly content from the curricular area from the Grade 3 Science curriculum. For purposes of this assignment, the collection was looked at with the lens of these four “Big Ideas”:

• Thermal energy can be produced and transferred.
• Living things are diverse, can be grouped, and interact in their ecosystems.
• All matter is made of particles.
• Wind, water, and ice change the shape of the land

Some considerations before reviewing the report must be made. The quantitative data was not obtained from a library system report, but rather from manual searches using the library’s online catalogue system due to unforeseen circumstance of lack of library time with a librarian. The data may be partial or incomplete and will be limited to the capacities of the online catalogue’s search function.

Mapping and Measuring the Collection:

Quantitative Data:

To gather quantitative data for this collection I used the user catalogue and advanced searches in order to gain the information needed. As I am currently not working in an elementary school, and access was very hard to get, I had to obtain information about my collection through the online catalogue and visiting the physical branch. To obtain my qualitative data, first I was able to filter my search parameters to only include all formats of items with no specific keywords (every item) and only existing at my branch of the library. This came to a total of 60, 916 results, so I can assume that there are 60,916 items in the total collection. This number also changed a handful of times throughout the duration of my project which leads me to believe it will change based on what is available at this specific branch at a specific time.

 

 

The items can be filtered out by format, which breaks down these numbers in the figure below:

FORMAT	# of items
Books	28,734
eBook	19,520
Large Print	936
Downloadable Audiobook	3977
Audiobook CD	641
Audiobook on MP3 CD	278
Preloaded Audiobook	149
DVD	4945
Blu Ray Disk	418
Music CD	1274
CD Rom or DVD Rom	1
Kit	43

The library has a total of 60,916 items broken down into three content categories and two formats:

Fiction: 35,435

Non-Fiction 12,901            

Undetermined 12,536

______________________________________________

Digital: 31, 191

Print: 29, 656

** this does leave 69 items that do not fall into either category

Age Analysis:

I hand calculated an age analysis for the total collection as well as for a select few random items in the collection to get a feel of the age of items. To calculate the total item collection average age, I had to multiply the number of books published in a certain year and add them to all the others and then divide by the total number in the collection.

This method does leave some spots open for errors, which may affect my total number, however this was done to the best of my ability.

Understanding that the average is brought quite far down because of the older age of some of the books in the library. This calculation could be done again in leaving out some of the historical items which will bring up the average age.

 

 

Items in Collection: 60,916

Average age of items:

(Total):1924, which makes the average book almost 100 years old — yikes!

(Sample): 2015 — this seemed more appropriate.

These ten books were selected as a random sample for an age analysis. Adding up the years published and dividing by the number of books gave me an average publishing date of:

2015

Some other statistics about the collection:

 

Call Number	Number of Items
000-099	875
100-199	1630
200-299	1323
300-399	5815
400-499	213
500-599	1448
600-699	9,970
700-799	5,283
800-899	2071
900-999	5898

The Dewey Decimal Classification or call numbers associated with the area that I would deem appropriate for the Science 3 curriculum would be 500-599 (Natural Science) and 600-699 ( Applied Science) with a small amount in the 900-999 (History and Geography) section. Within these:

Thermal energy can be produced and transferred.	530 Physics
Living things are diverse, can be grouped, and interact in their ecosystems.	570– 590 Plants and Animals (zoology)
All matter is made of particles.	530 Physics
Wind, water, and ice change the shape of the land	550 Earth Science

Examining each section closer, I was able to gain an estimate of how many books related to each classification. To filter out books most appropriate, I had to put an age filter for children/juvenile readers as to keep the lens of a Grade 3 curriculum.

Section	# of Items	Average Age
530	19 (15 books, 2 eBooks, and 2 DVD)	2014
570-590	0 (alternatively there are 337 books in this section, however, none are categorized as children or juvenile reads.	n/a
550	14 (11 books, 3 DVD's)	2016

A small side note:

When I search using the advanced search for the subject PLANTS rather than the call number 570, I obtained more results that were related to books geared towards younger readers.

Under the search term PLANTS:

55 Items ( 49 Books, 3 eBooks, 2 DVD’s and 1 Blu Ray. Could not calculate average age.

Under the search term ZOOLOGY

7 items (4 books, 3 eBooks) Average age is 2014

Under the search term ANIMALS, although understanding this is quite a broad search term.

1403 items ( 1,135 Books, 126 eBook, 1 Large Print, 12 Downloadable Audiobook, 9 Audiobook CD, 1 Audiobook on MP3 CD, 110 DVD, and 9 Blu Ray Discs) Average age was too large to calculate.

Qualitative Data:

Of the many different ways one can obtain data from a qualitative method approach to a collection, I have chosen an observatory one. Specifically observing the collection by physically examining the materials. Here, the collection at the library concerning the areas from the Science 3 curriculum were observed and examined. Mardis (2021) suggests that “a physical examination of materials can reveal the size, scope, and depth of a collection” and that “an assessment of the timeliness of materials and their physical condition can help identify which items need to be mended, repaired, bound, replaced, removed or discarded.” (pg. 179).

“An examination of the shelves will show  at once the condition of the collection, the proportion that is torn or falling apart, the journals that have hard use or little use, the works that should be discarded or  rebound, and the general atmosphere of the whole stack area.” (Bonn, 1974 pg 283)  My first thoughts for this collection is that the shelves seem very bare in the non fiction section of the juvenile science section of the library. There should be a couple reasons for this, either the collection is small but high quality, which means all the needs are fulfilled by the few books that are there, or policy regarding selection and acquisition of books should be looked at.

 

Below are books from random areas of this children's section within the sub categories that fulfill the grade 3 science curriculum which are Plants, Zoology, Earth Science and Physics.

This is an examination of the 530 section: Physics.

At the time of my examination there were about 45 books on this shelf where the call numbers ranged from 523—540. Picking one of the books from the 530 section, that complies with the curricular content of “thermal energy can be produced and transferred” subcontent: sources of thermal energy.

This book looks to be in pretty good condition. The pages are clean, not torn and the hardcover is intact. The publisher date is 2009, which means the content in this book is already 13 years old, which for science fact books is generally too old to be current.

 

↑

These books were chosen from the 550/551 section: Earth Science which complies with the current content in the Science 3 curriculum for wind, water, and ice change the shape of the land, the content of that being “observable changes in the local environment caused by erosion and deposition by wind, water, and ice”.

“10 Rivers that Shaped the World” is in well kept condition. The publishing date (2015) makes this book only 7 years old, which is more reasonable for a science fact book.  

“The Scale of Landforms” is again also in well kept condition with no rips or tears. The publishing date (2019) is an appropriate one for a science fact book.

 

Provinces and Territories of Canada: British Columbia (2010)

While this book isn’t included in the sections that I have previously included in the call number list for correlating with the Science 3 standards, I would say that this book would be incredibly helpful, and the information in it still seems pretty accurate, even though its aged.

Canadian Geographic Indigenous Peoples Atlas of Canada (2018)

This was another resource that I feel would correlate well to the Science 3 standards although it again was not included in the call number list above. It’s currency, accuracy, authority and completeness I feel would make this an excellent resource.

Report:

This collection has shown to be extensive overall, but lacking when coming to specific juvenile subjects, especially those correlating to the Science 3 curriculum. The data shows many format options in this collection, and a fair amount of items that are current and relevant. There are many types of formats that are accessible, and are appropriate for a variety of readers. Of course, having limited data retrieval abilities, my analysis and report may change if the ability to receive proper computer generated reports comes available. Recommendations are for improving the currency of the items as well as the relevance in terms of more local related resources.

Overall examining this collection has shown that the books are in great condition, but not necessarily checked for currency or accuracy. I find it also a very small collection for the number of users it has potentially. I also found that while much of the book subjects needed to fulfil the different content areas of Science 3 were there and in relatively good standing, only a small percentage of the items included local information.

Below is a list of strengths and weakness for the overall collection as well as the small subsection.

Strengths:

Large overall collection

Multiple formats available

Some good updated resources with First Peoples perspectives or considerations.

Books are generally all well kept and in great condition.

Weaknesses:

Juvenile science section was small

many  juvenile science resources outdated

 

Recommendations:

Some weeding should be done, as well as consulting Focused Resources criteria for Evaluation especially in terms of First Peoples, or social considerations for many of the books. Dated books should also be checked for fact accuracy, specifically those in the Science sections. In the event of low circulated, or low interest books, they should be considered for removal. The shelves often look very bare, and some changes should be made to either display books to fill in the space or to rearrange some shelves. Consulting community by creating some user surveys for non fiction juvenile titles would be beneficial, as well as consulting with education groups and teachers for curricular connections.

 

Reflection:

This assignment was a challenge for me, I found that because I encountered a handful of hiccoughs, that I didn't get the full learning out of it as much as I had hoped. I enjoyed getting to know the online catalogue system of the public library, as well as learning how to type out queries, but I also discovered that it would be so much nicer to know how a library system works from the librarian perspective, rather than the user. Much of the quantitative data was either assumed, hand calculated or inaccessible which made the report difficult to compile. I am currently not employed as a teacher, and my usual library that I visit and use for any “hands on” assignments required the amount of information that I needed to go through an administrations office. After emailing, calling and many visits to the library, my request for these data reports are still pending. My 4 back up librarians at Elementary Schools in the area all would not return my calls or answer my emails, so I was left with creating a collection map and quantitative data another way. In future, I will definitely try to set up a physical library ahead and make sure there are chances where I am able to visit or chat with a librarian.

What worked?

I thoroughly enjoyed being able to look though and understand the online catalogue system from the library, as well as get my hands on some of the physical items to evaluate for age, wear, relevance, etc. I felt I had a good overall idea of the subsection of the collection because of being able to use both methods of evaluation.

What didn't work?

Relying on the library computer system for data did not end up working for me. The search parameters on the online catalogue were also very basic and didn't allow for in depth data such as circulation, age analysis, and call number ranges. I also struggled on figuring out which classification sections would be appropriate for the different curricular contents seeing as the big ideas are supposed to be overarching themes in the curriculum and will encompass many subjects.

What would I do different next time?

Aside from setting up a time with a librarian that I can count on, I would also include more survey based evaluation methods into my data, to gain more of an understanding of use and needs. I would also really like to see a collection evaluation report in action at a school or local library.        

  

References

"Building Student Success - B.C. Curriculum". Curriculum.Gov.Bc.Ca, 2021, https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/curriculum/science/3/core.

"Fraser Valley Regional Library". Fvrl.Bc.Ca, 2021, https://www.fvrl.bc.ca/.

"Search | Fraser Valley Regional Library | Bibliocommons". Fraser Valley Regional Library, 2022, https://fvrl.bibliocommons.com/search.

"Writing Your Own Queries | Catalog & Account Help". Help.Bibliocommons.Com, 2022, https://help.bibliocommons.com/010searching/015writing/?_ga=2.186548000.885697287.1645072432-993591552.1614840283.

Bonn, George S. "Evaluation Of A Collection". Library Trends, 1974, Accessed 19 Feb 2022.

Mardis, Marcia A. The Collection Program In Schools. 7th ed., Libraries Unlimited, 2021.

Riedling, Ann Marlow, and Cynthia Houston. Reference Skills For The School Librarian. 4th ed., Libraries Unlimited, 2019.

Summaries DDC Dewey Decimal Classification. OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc., 2003, https://www.oclc.org/content/dam/oclc/dewey/resources/summaries/deweysummaries.pdf, Accessed 19 Feb 2022.

"The School Library Media Specialist: Library Media Program: Introduction". Eduscapes.Com, https://eduscapes.com/sms/program/mapping.html.