ETL503 - The School Library Collection

Well I must say that getting back into the swing of studying after having a month off has been a struggle. Especially with working full time and having end of year reports to write. Reports are now written however I am a week behind in the modules for this subject. I am going to try and write my module summary's on here to keep a record of my learning, instead of writing notes etc. So here goes.

The School Library Collection

First of all, I would like to point out that I believe the relevance of the school library, and in fact, any library for that matter, is still alive and well. We may live in a world where students today will be using technology far beyond our imaginations tomorrow, however it doesn't mean that print resources and the centre in which they are held is irrelevant.

Children learn in many different ways. There is no clear-cut way of teaching a child how to read or how to complete Mathematics sums. They learn at different rates and in different ways. Thus, an e-book may be beneficial to one child, whilst it may be totally bewildering to another. The TL needs to be able to manage AND develop the library collection so that it caters for ALL of these different learning styles and clients. You cannot simply have all books or all technological devices

I think that collection management and development are two different entities that actually go hand in hand. The TL needs to develop the library resources in collaboration with teachers and the wider school community so that it caters for all individuals; and they also need to manage it so that those individuals are able to access and sieve through the resources effectively and efficiently.

I hope that made sense.....