Qualitative Statistics, Collection Map, Review and Summary
Introduction
Looking at this community helpers project for the primary grades there are a few sections in the library that can be looked at. Most often the books will be found in the Dewy 363 section, however from experience I know there are also books in the Dewy 600 section. The books in the 600 section are related to jobs in that area of study (pilot, construction workers, mechanic).
The data on the books for this project relate to the following Kindergarten BC IRPs:
Social Studies
It is expected that students will:
Identity, Society, and Culture
B2 identify groups and places that are part of their lives
Governance
C1 describe their roles and responsibilities as members of the classroom and school community
Economy and Technology
D1 identify individual human needs
D2 identify work done in their community
The following will look at the qualitative statistic and collection mapping on the materials from the related materials for this study.
Qualitative
This section will look at the condition of the collection, the collection as a whole, as well as give some explanation for the circulation of these books.
Circulation Explanation
In looking at the numbers from the qualitative reports there are items that appear to not have been checked out many times. In most cases, it is true that these items are usually only studied once per year, so in running the computer reports from 2004-2011 it would be expected that each of these items has been checked out at least once per year. However some of these items have only been checked out a couple of times over this period.
There are a few reasons why these items have not been checked out.
1) In the recent history of Errington Elementary School there has been a large turn over in the TL position. This created a very poor library situation. Prior to myself taking on the job there 3 years ago, there was a series of 4 consecutive years where there were 4 different TLs. Two of them were trained TLs and 2 were on temporary contracts without training. This created a situation where the rules of the library were not always followed.
Since I started my position I have tried to change this standard, however it takes time to change teacher attitudes. It is harder when you are not full time. I was 3 days at the school the first year and only 2 days at the school the second year. The teachers were in the habit of going into the library and taking what they needed when they needed. Only the students were the ones who needed to use the computer to record the circulation. I put a list out and asked teachers to record all items they wanted and then I would manually put them into the computer. This worked with moderate success. Last year I was at the school 4 days per week and all teacher related checkouts were now being recorded. This will improve of the upcoming year, as my job there is now 5 days per week.
2) The next big reason why items were not recorded as being checked out much over the past 7 years is that they were not being used. Community helpers has moved through the curriculum and can now be covered in grades K-3 depending on how the teacher decides to use the BC IRPs. With the creation on full day Kindergarten it is more common with K/1 classrooms being formed and for the Kindergarten students to be included on community helpers.
3) The final reason why there are low circulation numbers for these books is that approximately the previous 10 years there were a few teachers with over 20 years experience teaching this topic and they had all their own materials. But now that those three have retired some younger teachers are teaching this subject and they need help to get the materials for their units.
Collection
When viewing this section the immediate thoughts were how dated many of the books are. Most of the better books (“I want to be” series - series on various jobs) are published in 2000 and 2003. By weeding standards, these books are at the end of their life from copyright dating. Yet, there are many books there that are from the late 1980’s and into the 1990’s. When the weeding in this section is done many of these books will be weeded out of the collection. The only reasons why some of these old books are still here is because of:
A) Lack of weeding
B) The TL that last weeded might have thought they could still be used as it was usually grade 1 students reading the books and many of the jobs in these industries have not drastically changed (police officer, fire fighter and doctor)
Collection Condition
This part will focus on the 300 section as most of the books for community helpers are in this area. The condition of the collection and the books is fairly good. There are a few areas of concern that will help to improve the collection in this area.
Shelf Weeding
When looking at the shelf it is full and too hard to pull books out. From my experience this is a section where many students do not rush over to in order to make a choice for their book exchange, but having the shelf that is too full is not helping the situation. With the turnover of TLs in this school over the years weeding has taken a back seat in this library. After 3 years in this position I finally feel that I know the collection and the users and I can weed the collection with confidence.
Book Condition
The books in this area look like they have had some use but they are still in decent shape. However, they are getting on in years and many of them are in need of being replaced because of the copyright dates. Primary students are the ones mostly using the books in this area and they can be hard on their books. This does not help their condition.
Positive Notes
A positive finding when looking at this section was noticing how the books were in order. The students I have doing the book returns every day are doing a decent job of making sure the books are in order. There are some sections in the library that do get messed up quickly, but this is not one of them. The students also did a massive shelf read before I did my inventory in June making sure books were put away correctly. Now that every section is properly shelved it will be easier to make sure the books are returned in the correct place in the future.
Collection Mapping
In accessing the library’s computer records the following data is shown for the age of the collection and the number of times a book from this area was checked out this year. The average age for the books in the community helpers section is 17 years old. This is far beyond the recommended 5-10 years. This chart gives a better idea as to the use of the books compared to the quantitative statistics. This is because I have selected to focus on the 300 section for the Dewy system and I broke down the 300 section into increments of 10. Most of the community helper books are in the 360s section and this section shows that there were 77 circulations this year for the 96 books in this area. If the previous TLs working here had been doing proper circulation over the years I would assume the quantitative numbers would show a higher circulation.
Range Copies with Dates Average Age Circulations This Year
360-369 96 1994 (17 yrs) 77
Summary
Looking at the results from this collection, the quantitative statistics are showing the books in this section were not being used until recently. The reasons for this were explained from the turnover of TLs not doing the job correctly and there were experienced teachers in this grade level. The circulation increased in the past couple years now that there are younger teachers in this area, book checkouts are being recorded, and the topic is covering a few more grades the circulation for these books has increased.
The qualitative reports show that the collection is old and dated. The materials need to be weeded. Some of the materials can be kept, even though they are 11 years old and at the end of their life via the copyright rule for weeding, however my professional judgment would be to keep these few books as they can still serve a need for a few more years and go out a buy more books for this section.
Reflection
I started to become aware that the resources for community helpers were not in good shape when the new younger teachers came to me asking for help for their units. Previous TLs were spending mostly on primary fiction and the TL right before me left me $2,000 that she could not spend. I was amazed when she told me she could not find where to spend it. When I came into this library I made it exciting right away, getting hot topic and new exciting fiction books to keeps the students interested in coming to the library. I then started to work with the intermediate teachers to upgrade their resources. The next tasks would be the primary teachers. I would suspect previous TLs were not weeding and that is why many of these books are still there and if any of them did weed perhaps they kept these ones because they felt the young students would not know the difference between and old book and a new book for a community helper.
