Budgeting

The library budget at my school is determined by the principal after she has been given her school budget from the district.  For each of the past three years, the library school budget has been set at $1000 years.  This is generally used to purchase books and other library supplies.  Generic office supplies and furniture come from other budgets through discussion with the principal.  In addition to the school budget, the library receives money from Scholastic Book Fairs and from the Times Colonist Raise a Reader grant.  Needless to say, the overall total is very small, especially when considering purchasing reference materials. 

The recommended total value of reference materials for elementary schools of $3000-$7000 is really unattainable with this amount of money and the frequency at which reference materials become out of date.  My school district subscribes to World Book Online for the entire district, but does not subscribe to any other resources or databases.

Role of the Teacher Librarian

THE ROLE OF THE TEACHER-LIBRARIAN
IN THE GREATER VICTORIA SCHOOL DISTRICT
In the Greater Victoria School District, the teacher-librarian works in collaboration with the principal, classroom teachers, school and district staff to develop a school library program that supports, enriches and implements the instructional program of the school.
The responsibilities of the teacher-librarian encompass areas including program and instruction, learning resource management and leadership in resource-based learning:
PROGRAM AND INSTRUCTION
- participating as a teaching partner in helping teachers to address identified learning outcomes through a knowledge of resource-based learning
- working cooperatively with classroom teachers in order to assist students in developing skills in information retrieval and critical thinking so that they may become informed decision-makers and life-long learners
- promoting reading and language development and literature appreciation
- supporting the integration of instructional technology and media literacy and becoming familiar with current technological developments in information retrieval
LEARNING RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
- establishing and maintaining effective systems for the selection, acquisition, processing and circulation of resources
- managing the library facilities, services and budget in order that these may contribute to the stated goals of the school, school district and Ministry of Education
- cooperatively developing school library policies and procedures
- participating in an information network with district schools, the District Resource Centre, the public library and information agencies
- organizing and directing clerical staff, parent and student volunteers in the school library
LEADERSHIP IN RESOURCE-BASED LEARNING
- providing leadership and promoting strategies for the effective use of a wide variety of learning resources which support and extend the curriculum
- applying skills in evaluating and selecting learning resources to reflect the curricular, informational and recreational needs of the school and its learners
- participating in and contributing to school and district activities which advocate support for school libraries and resource-based learning
- promoting school library programs in the school and in the community
- seeking opportunities for personal growth in school librarianship and participating in collegial networks
- developing the potential of parent and student volunteers
The success of a school library program is dependent on the teacher-librarian being able to balance all of the above given adequate staffing, budget and facilities in accordance with the entire school program.
Developed by the Steering the Course Committee and the Teacher-Librarians
of the Greater Victoria School District

Although I strive to achieve the description as listed for the Victoria School District, I must say that I fall short in many areas.  Last year I worked 0.3 and next year it goes up to 0.4 (2 days per week).  This means that the time just isn't there to get much of this done.  Classes are scheduled to come to the library once each week and there is little time left.  With my additional time next year, I am hoping to have some "flex" time where teachers can book into the library for additional time.  I think that I am strongest in the area of Learning Resources Management.  However, one of the main reasons for my embarking on the TL Diploma program is so that I can branch out further into the areas of Program & Instruction and Leadership in RBL.

 

Working collaboratively as a teaching partner with classroom teachers is something that doesn't really occur.  I have assisted some teachers with projects that they have done with their classes, but true collaboration never occurred.  This is something that I would like to work on next year, given my bit of extra time.

 

Parts of the role that I see as being essential would be:

- promoting reading and language development and literature appreciation
- supporting the integration of instructional technology and media literacy and becoming familiar with current technological developments in information retrieval
- establishing and maintaining effective systems for the selection, acquisition, processing and circulation of resources
- managing the library facilities, services and budget in order that these may contribute to the stated goals of the school, school district and Ministry of Education
- (cooperatively) developing school library policies and procedures

Grey Literature

This was an interesting lesson, talking about all the information that you are not able to find using general internet search engines or subject directories.  Prior to this lesson, I had never heard of grey literature.  Some of this information is retrievable using academic and other databases. It is great to have access to the government publications online – I do remember all the pamphlets in the vertical files from when I was a student – I haven't seen one for quite a while as I suppose most of the pamphlets can be found as PDF files online now. This lesson also mentions blogs and list-serves which are great sources of information and ideas – I know that I rely heavily on blogs in my practice as TL and follow many with my Google Reader. I also follow LM-Net as a good source of information for TLs.

Newspapers

I do not see that much of a call for a newspaper at the elementary school level, at least at the school I work at. If I was to subscribe to a newspaper, it would be the Victoria Times Colonist, given that I am on Vancouver Island.

In a high school, I can see that being up to date on current events would be more important and could see a subscription to the TC being valuable. Having said that, I would also want to touch base with teachers and present them with ways of using the newspaper with their classes.

I must also say that, right now, I do not personally subscribe to any print newspapers and get all of my news online. I find that I do not have the time to sit down with a newspaper each day and give it a good reading. I also find the amount of paper recycling generated when receiving a newspaper each day to be huge. Therefore, I rely on CBC online and the TC online to monitor headlines and read further anything that I find interesting or relevant.

Electronic Databases

I have used the journal databases at UBC for the courses I have taken for my TL diploma, but I must admit that I generally use the same ones – either Academic Search Complete or ERIC, which both use the EBSCOHost platform for searching. They are fairly straightforward to use, giving a selection of articles that match your search terms. Using the subject words given, I can decide to click on the article to see the abstract or view the full text of the article. I have also used RefWorks to automatically generate reference lists using the database information. To further streamline a search there are many parameters you can use to limit the search. I am very comfortable using these databases and find them well organized and easy to use.

I thought I would try another database, though most of the ones I tried also seemed to be from EBSCOHost as well. The Ed/ITLib (Education & Information Technology Digital Library) was very different. It was basically like searching a website, but the search came up with papers matching the search terms. I could click the link to see the abstract and then had many options such as printing or emailing the abstract, getting a full text PDF, saving the article or exporting the citation. At this site, there is also the option of sharing the article on Twitter. There is information about the Journal the article is from, including the Table of Contents for that specific journal. There is a section titled “Also Read” which appears to be similar articles.

CBCA Education was from the ProQuest Database, which has a very similar interface to the EBSCOHost. The results list gives basic bibliographic information about the articles and options to see the abstract, text + graphics or full text PDF. An interesting tool here was the ability to translate the article to another language (also in EBSCO).

Education Index Full Text uses WilsonWeb which is also similar to the EBSCO and ProQuest format. I have used WilsonWeb in the past and found it also very straightforward to use.

In general, I think that the periodical indexes available at UBC are all similar. Once you are familiar with how to use one, the skill transfers to using the other indexes as well. Although I am most familiar with EBSCOHost, I would have no qualms about using any of the other indexes. The index chosen would be determined by the subject area I was looking for information on.

Geographical Resources

Since I am currently at home, I do not have the luxury of looking at the geographical resources that are present in my library, though I do know that all of them are current as I have purchased them over the past three years. Additionally, I weeded out all of the older atlases in June. There is a variety of different atlases; they are all shelved within the non-fiction section of the library (either French or English) and are circulating books. I find that no one ever comes to the library to refer to an atlas, yet many students like looking at them. Since they request to take them out of the library, I have seen no reason to restrict their circulation. In purchasing these atlases, I haven't used any specific type of evaluation, but will definitely refer to Reidling's criteria in the future, in addition to communicating with teachers in regards to their needs. Perhaps working more closely with teachers will require the atlases to become real “reference” materials and become used more frequently in the library. Also, given the cost of atlases and the need to keep current copies in the library, using appropriate criteria to purchase quality resources is essential.

While I can see the appeal of “hard copy” atlases and maps, I am interested to investigate some of the material available online and see how it can be used in the elementary school setting.

I first chose to use Reidling's criteria to examine The Atlas of Canada. Being a government publication the authority would be good, given that, as Chris has mentioned over 90% of maps are published by the government or based on government sources. Some of the maps here are interactive online maps, while others are printable PDF files. There is a huge number of maps available! The scale of the interactive maps changes as you zoom into the part of the map you wish to see. The maps also each have an abstract as well as links to further information. The maps are current (in addition to the historical maps available) and the indexing of the maps is comprehensive. I can see the interactive maps available on this site being very useful to project on a SmartBoard in front of an entire class; the ability to zoom in and out is great to illustrate areas to students. Additionally, the availability of printable PDF maps would be useful for students.  This is also a good site to find wall maps to order for classrooms. One of the great things about the Atlas of Canada for my French immersion school is that it is available in French!  Overall, this is a great site and I can see recommending it to teachers and encouraging them to use it with their classes.


I also examined Altapedia and like Lori, was uncertain of its authority of the Latimer Clarke Corporation that runs it. I did like the country information that is available at the same place as the map, however. The maps are not interactive, so scale is fixed and may be adequate or not, depending on the need of the researcher. I was disappointed to note that all of the maps I looked at had a copyright date of 1998, which, according to Reidling, would be considered historical. Full world maps are downloadable but not viewable online. The site appeared to have “class resources” with additional school or homework resources for teachers & students, but this area only contained the PDF world maps. Overall, I was not that impressed with Altapedia, and would like to search for a better source of world and country maps.

Secret costs

According to student Jennifer Parker and the instructor Anne Letain, costs of the databases are generally kept confidential.  Vendors negotiate individual deals with each school district, gov't agency, etc. and don't want cost comparisons.  Salespeople may also get bonuses for their sales amounts.
Hmmm......