Collection and Community:

The ContextLIB 630

Classification and Cataloging Spring 2012

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What is the context?

Extract from a collection development policy:

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Context for a school library?

1. Curriculum

2. Clients

3. Community

Carol L. Tilley, Syllabus for L595 Collection Analysis for School Library Media Specialists

(Web-Based Workshop)

41. What’s curriculum got to do with it?

Curriculum The purpose of the collection is to support learning.

As such, the materials selected for inclusion must support the curriculum.

• Information Access & Delivery: School Library Collections

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2. Clients?

Clients Your clients include students, teachers,

administrators, parents, staff, members of community, and anyone else connected with the learning community. The primary purpose of a school library media center collection is to provide access to information. This access is provided by serving your patrons.

. . . all decisions should be based on sound data regarding the reading level, developmental level, interests, and needs of students. A collaborative planning process is essential in determining those materials that will best impact student achievement. • Information Access & Delivery: School Library Collections

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3. But what is the (a) community?

How do You Define Community? I think it’s time we move away from

defining a community as anything having to do with a physical presence at all. Sure that can be a factor, but in my mind a community is a collection or group of people that interact and share something in common.• Jacob Morgan, blog post March 15th, 2009

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School and Community

Visionary Educator Interview: I believe that a school and a community

shouldn’t be separate entities.  They are the same. I believe it is the responsibility of the educator to explore and learn about the community, to have the critical conversations necessary to learn what resources are available there to enhance the curriculum that you are using or developing.  • Alicia Fitzpatrick of Twin Buttes

High School, Zuni, NM

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Kentucky and the context

Characteristics of Highly Effective Teaching and Learning (Library)

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More from Beyond Proficiency

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Serving the external community?

Part of the School Library Collection As school librarians and media specialists collaborate

with classroom teachers and assist them in finding relevant materials for resource-based learning, the use of both material resources and human resources from the community can be invaluable. Accessing resources within the community can make learning more relevant to students and enable them to see a connection between the curriculum and the real world. Establishing community resource collections also results in stronger business and community partnerships with the school.

• Jennifer Hammond, “Community Resources as Part of the School Library Collection”. Library Philosophy and Practice Vol. 4, No. 1 (Fall 2001)

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