Analysis
My district in currently undergoing a shift from the traditional library settings to Library Learning Commons. A part of this involves having a district team work with all of the schools in our district over a period of three years to assist in making plans to have physical changes (shelving and furniture), administrative changes (flexible schedules, increased collaboration) and policy changes (material circulation and cataloguing) addressed in all levels of schools. This is year two. My middle school underwent the conversion last year but there were some difficulties. There were many transitions last year including a new administrator and a TTOC in the library for half the year. The result was that any planning and/or discussions that occurred were not communicated or documented and I stepped into a half-converted LLC with no knowledge of what had happened or where it was going. I have since been in contact with the district team and have requested a re-do of the planning stages but with a tight schedule for this year’s conversions, it has been sporadic to get help and answers.
One of the most shocking changes for me in these conversions was a policy change of removing all non-circulating materials from the library. Teacher-librarians in our district are being directed to no longer catalogue literature kits/novel studies or teacher resources, and to absorb reference materials into regular circulation. When a conversion happens, these materials are taken out of the library catalog. The idea being that any materials found on the shelves of our LLC should be able to be signed-out by students and teachers alike. The reasoning behind this is that with several years of cuts to TL time in our libraries, the administrative tasks of our job have taken a toll. In our district, library assistants are only at the high school level. The thinking was that if a TL had their load lightened by not having to keep track of lit kits and teacher resources, this would open up time for them to be able to focus on direct collaboration with teachers.
In this conversion as well, a deep cull is being done at each school to ensure materials are up-to date and old materials are discarded. While I am in agreement for weeding, the monetary reimbursement for undergoing the conversion has not accounted for the replacement of all of the lost material. The results have been a more up to date LLC but with much less materials on the shelves. Rebuilding of resources will take several years at the very least.
Rationale
The changes in the LLC means that our reference materials are now housed among the non-fiction books relative to their subjects and are no longer in a separate “Reference” section of the library. The repercussions of this has been two folds:
1) Some materials have gained use as students discover them located on the shelf near other materials related to their research topic. This includes many of our special topic encyclopedia sets.
2) Some materials are underutilized as they become hidden on obscure shelves and students no longer know where to find them. This includes many of our dictionaries, atlases and any specialized books that are not located directly next to popular topics.
Though there may be some gain for putting reference material on general shelves, overall, without a straightforward reference section, students are not fully using specialized materials due to not knowing they are available or not being able to locate them easily. If specialized reference materials are no longer being shelved in a designated “Reference” area, then they need to be otherwise highlighted to ensure they are used and accessed. Due to cuts to my TL time, I currently only have Fridays in the LLC and though I do open the library at lunch three days a week for students, it is not optimal to fully service a school of over 500 students. I am not always available to conduct full reference interviews (Riedling, 2013) to ensure that students’ needs are met.
I need a way to highlight specialized reference materials in a meaningful and accessible way so that students can find them even if I am not in the library. My solution is to create a digital collection of our specialized materials in our library catalog so that students can learn about them and know where to find them. I would also like to include these materials in any other digital collections specific to topics being studied during the school year (example, our Renaissance Encyclopaedia in our Renaissance collection).
My Plan
· How the change will take place
a. I will acquaint myself with the specialized collections. As these materials were removed from Reference priorto me coming into this position, I will need to browse the shelves and make a list of all the items I wish to highlight.
b. I will identify the titles and their current location.
c. Digital collections will be created for the following:
i. Atlases
ii. Biographical sources
iii. Dictionaries
iv. Factbooks
v. Subject Encyclopaedias
d. Each entry will include cover image of book, description of content, use and location.
e. Collections will be added to our school’s Destiny library catalog.
f. If there are topical collections already made, relevant materials will be added to them.
· Who it will involve
a. Teacher-Librarian
b. Interested teachers
c. Library monitors
d. Administrator
· Timeline for improvement (April to June + recap in September)
a. Identify titles and location (2 weeks)
b. Create five digital collections (5 weeks)
c. Add materials to existing collections (2 weeks)
d. Present to all students and staff (3 weeks)
· How to communicate change
a. Once the collections are created, I will share the resources via email to the staff and also ask for time during an upcoming staff meeting.
b. By virtue of being the Digital Literacy teacher (one of our explorations cycles), I have had the opportunity to walk ALL of the students in the school through our library system this year and every child learned how to build a personal collection. It will be very easy to point them towards these new additions.
· Other considerations
a. Due to limited LLC time and my other teaching load, I would like to be realistic in what I can achieve, even with help.
b. With a completion date in June, it may be more practical to hold-off presenting the resources until September as it will likely be better received at the start of the school year when everyone is fresh and looking to plan ahead.
References
Riedling, A., Shake, L., & Houston, C. (2013). Reference skills for the school librarian.Santa Barbara, California: Linworth, an imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC.
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