Assignment 3 - Evaluation Plan to Improve Reference Services

picture borrowed from https://quotefancy.com/quote/1207870/William-Glasser-I-think-education-is-both-using-and-improving-knowledge-and-that-changes 

Analysis of Current Collection

Our elementary is a school rich in history and culture. It has a wide range of ethnic backgrounds which includes many Lkwungen students who come from both the Esquimalt and Songhees Nations upon whose lands we live, work and learn. We are also home to many students whose first language is not English. The learning needs of our students are as diverse as our population and our staff work hard to make our school a rich learning space. We have many students with unique learning needs which in turn means we have a large number of students who are not yet reading at grade level. 

The reference resources section (encyclopedias and atlases) in this elementary school fills the space of two small bottom level bookshelves. The way the books are displayed and the location of this area makes it appear that no children have read or even looked at these books in a long time. Having been working at this school since October, I have not seen the encyclopedias, atlases or really any of the resources used in by either students or teachers. Though this is a small elementary school with only ~140 students, it was surprising to see how old and thin the reference section was. With the unique demographic of our school it is essential that our reference collection is analyzed and improved to better meet the needs of students.

Riedling states that “thorough knowledge of the library’s existing resources is imperative” (2013, p. 19), so when trying to get a picture of reference services as a whole I looked through our reference section by hand as well as looked online for support. I came to the realization that I am very inexperienced at using the district reference resources which can be found through the school library portal. It really is a wake up call for me in terms of needing to become more comfortable and knowledgeable using these resources so that I can help both staff and students in using them successfully.
I spent time with our current school librarian trying to find as many statistics about our reference collection as possible using Follett Destiny. As we are both new to the teacher librarian world we weren’t able to pull all of the specific statistics that I was looking for. This the information we did find:

• We have 9,033 titles in the library
• Average publication date for non-fiction: 1999 (20 years old)
• Geography/Atlas average age: 1995 (24 years old)

Because our reference section is so small I could analyze it just by looking through what was on the shelf by hand. The non-fiction section of our library is rather large and having 1999 as the average publication date tells me that it is outdated. I spent time looking through the encyclopedia and atlas area where I saw publication dates from 1985, 1988, 1991, 1994, 1998, 1999, 2000. The most current resource in this section are the Children's Dictionaries from 2006. 

Our current library reference collection

Analysis of our digital reference resources and teacher-librarian reference services was a little more challenging to evaluate in terms of how often it is used. Through conversations with the eight classroom teachers and the teacher librarian at this school I discovered that none of the classes have used the TL’s help or been online to our research and inquiry portal to support a research or inquiry project yet this year.

Rationale for Improvement

Riedling makes a clear and important statement that ‘a good reference source is one that answers a question’ (p.21). Currently our library reference collection isn’t answering questions that students have at an accessible level and more importantly the opportunities and support to find these answers aren’t happening as much as they should.

After analyzing our current reference collection, the small size and age of our reference section and how little this section is utilized are red flags. The encyclopedia and atlases were very aged according to the evaluation rubric which I created with the help of Evaluation and Selection of Learning Resources: A Guide. Achieving Information Literacy: Standards for School Library Programs in Canada states that in order for a library collection to meet “acceptable” standards, 50-70% of the collection must have copyright dates within the last 10 years. 

Achieving Information Literacy is a useful document to develop rationale for improvement as they list school library collection standards to help evaluate your own collection. Our reference services currently sit below standard as they fit this description here: “Resources available in the school library provide limited opportunities for reading and learning. Materials support few areas of the curriculum, rarely meet student needs and provide little material for student interests. Resources are generally not current and may be in need of repair or replacement. Materials are weeded infrequently.” (p. 26)

Here are the acceptable standards from this same document that our school can look at working towards: 

“Resources available in and/or accessible through the school library provide students and teachers with opportunities for resource-based learning, for the development of information literacy skills, for reading, listening, and viewing, for research, for curriculum implementation, and for meeting most students’ needs/interests. In addition, the collection provides some materials that reflect the unique needs of the specific school population. “ (p. 26)

In Achieving Information Literacy it highlights the importance of a comprehensive collection and strong reference services. “Access to information and ideas is essential for students to become critical thinkers, competent problem solvers, and lifelong learners who contribute productively and ethically to society. The collection is to be designed to encourage free inquiry and to provide multiple points of view.” (p. 25) This is our ultimate goal and what every library learning commons strives towards. My elementary school is not yet achieving this goal but with a plan in place I feel we can make huge steps forward. 

The Plan

The Leading Learning document created by the Canadian Library Association is a good resource to refer to when looking to help a library through a transition. The guide is geared towards shifting a library to a learning commons but the action planning page in the appendix gives some important stages that are useful to think about when planning to improve reference services. Here I will be using different stages to outline a transition into providing stronger reference services at our school.

Consult

Achieving Information Literacy provides an important reminder when starting the process of evaluating and changing a key part of a school. “Collaborative collection development and evaluation ensures that resources, in a variety of formats, are available to meet curricular objectives.” (p. 24) Talking to classroom teachers and other staff within a school provides important insight that provides teacher librarians with a strong starting point in knowing how to make effective and long lasting change.

Talking to the teachers at my own school did provide the real life insight and ideas that I was hoping for to help with my improvement plan. I had face to face conversations with staff during lunch and recess times (I found talking in this break time gave me useful information in a relaxed setting). As a note for my future self, if I had more time I could have sent out these questions in a google survey for teachers to fill out whenever they felt they had time. The general feedback from all staff was that they feel overwhelmed with just getting classroom routines to run smoothly at a challenging school like ours that they never feel like they have the time or energy to engage in a research or inquiry exploration. Or if they did feel like their classes were now ready, they weren’t sure where to start in terms of planning and resources. The second problem piece of the reference services puzzle was that they didn’t have a good sense of what resources we had available. I also took the time to ask some of the intermediate students at our school if they had done any research type projects at our school before and if they knew what kind of resources from the library could help them. None of the students I spoke with had any sense of what library resources might be useful or had ever used the research & inquiry portal provided by our school district. 

Plan

Spending time physically looking through our reference collection combined with staff and student interviews has provided a wealth of information that has allowed me to come up with some key ideas to help improve the reference services at our school. This plan will be shared with the school staff to receive more input before moving forward.

Physical collection

The age, size and accessibility of our reference section are all factors that contribute to a need for change in our physical collection. “Regardless of the format reference materials take, the primary consideration is providing teachers and students with easy access to a high-quality collection.” (Riedling 2013, p. 17)

I would propose these changes take place:

• There are many encyclopedias and non-fiction books that are 20+ years older and would need to be weeded from the collection. The newest encyclopedias could be distributed into classes to see if there is any interest in this type of resource. If interest is shown we could consider buying a newer set of encyclopedias.
• The collection of Children's Dictionaries should be distributed for classroom use as they are currently not used in the library at all. There is enough for every classroom to have 3 dictionaries with 1-2 left over to keep in the library.
• There are a couple sets of non-fiction books that are much more accessible (in terms of reading level and visuals) for our low level readers. They would benefit from being displayed in a better location for easier access. 
• Create a teacher resource reference section where the research/inquiry resource mentioned more in detail below would be located in.

For more details on specific titles and sets that could be weeded or integrated into classrooms see this document.

Reference Services

The consult phase gave me much needed feedback from teachers that they would benefit from more support from the teacher librarian in terms of reference services. Here are some ideas for change that can be implemented by the teacher-librarian:

• Create a teachers guide to set up a research/inquiry project which would include:  - A research/inquiry planning template that can be filled out with the help of the TL  - A research/inquiry rubric for teachers to use with primary and intermediate student that the teacher could tweak to make their own (two different rubrics for the different age groups) - A research skills powerpoint for use with students (the TL can facilitate lessons and the teachers could use the powerpoint for reference as needed)   - Different resource lists for popular topics based on the curriculum for teachers to have a good idea of what books we have in our library or what websites might be useful to support their topic  - The school district teacher-librarian document that lists necessary passwords for teachers and students to access all the database sites on the library portal 
• Provide support to both teachers and students in learning more about the research & inquiry portal website. I would create screencast videos showing teachers and students how to navigate the portal in case they missed a lesson or forget. I used a screencast video when introducing the grade 4/5s to using google classroom and I found it to be really effective. They listened much better with headphones on and a video to watch.
• Explicitly teach research and information literacy skills to students in library classes. During the consult phase one student told me she has done a research project at her last school but has never seen the district research/inquiry portal webpage. She said she googles everything but commented that it was hard to find good information. 

Implement, Monitor, Evaluate, Follow Up

These phases from the Leading Learning action plan are more challenging to outline in detail now but are important to consider after this plan is presented to staff. This plan looks at multiple aspects of the schools reference services (both the physical collection as well as reference services provided by the teacher librarian) and it may take a longer period to implement. 

The beginning stages of proposing the plan to staff would ideally happen now so that steps can be taken towards implementing some of the ideas right away. Creation of the research/inquiry guide for teachers and starting to tackle weeding and organizing the physical collection could happen in the next few months as the year ends. The reference services like teaching research skills and supporting students in using the research & inquiry portal would be most effective if change started to be implemented at the beginning of the next school year. I have met with our current teacher librarian and shared this plan with her. She is very enthusiastic to starting implementing it and although I am not in the library role currently I am more than willing to help her make these changes. As these changes are being implemented it is essential to keep the progress transparent with staff and receive feedback along the way to change as needed. After following and tweaking this plan along the way, by the middle of the next school year I can envision reference services being much stronger and more effective at our school. 

References

Asselin, M., Branch, J., & Oberg, D. (Eds.). (2003). Achieving Information Literacy: Standards for School Library Programs in Canada. Ottawa, Ontario: Canadian Association for School Libraries.

Canadian Library Association. (2014). Leading Learning- Standards of Practice for School Library Learning Commons in Canada.

Riedling, A. (2013). Reference skills for the school library media specialist: Tools and tips (3rd ed.). Santa Barbara, CA: Linworth.