Evaluating Access

This week we were looking at evaluating our reference services.  One part of the lesson focused on the access to the resources by staff and students.  We read parts of Evaluating, Selecting, and Managing Learning Resources – A Guide. This guide named three types of access: intellectual, physical and digital.

In terms of intellectual access, our school allows access to the library throughout the week.  Junior school students have a library period once a week and students may also exchange books before or after school every day.  Our school also does not have many restrictions on the number or type of resources that students or teachers may borrow.  Students are able to take out as many books as they’d like and they are usually due back one week later.  There is no penalty if a book is late.  The only penalty is if books are not returned at the end of the year.  Then a bill is sent home for the cost of the book.  The one exception to this rule is that some of the dictionaries and encyclopedias in the reference section may not be borrowed.  These are labelled as reference only and may be looked at during library hours (8am-5pm).  For the most part, I support this system because it allows keen readers to take out many books when they come to the library once a week for their library time.  A potential problem that I could see is that when the students get older and are taking out books for a research project, one student could take out many books which may not leave many for the other students.   As encyclopedias and dictionaries are usually used as “ready reference” materials, I don’t think it is a problem that they cannot be borrowed from the library.

I believe that the physical access to materials in our school is quite good for what we have in the collection.  There is an online automated library system which can be accessed at any computer in the school.  The library is open most days from 8am until 5pm.  I think the largest problem is that our collection is quite small.  Because we are an independent school, we do not have a district resource center to turn to.  I find that as a homeroom teacher, I spend quite a bit of time at the public library trying to find the resources I need as many of them are not available at our school. 

I think the weakest category for our school is digital access and the one which needs to be most improved.  We do have a computer lab with over 20 computers which all have access to the internet and library system.  Unfortunately, we only have 2 computers in our library.  Students are allowed to access these computers before and after school with teacher supervision.  Although our school is using many resources in digital format, other than an online encyclopedia, I don’t think it is the library which is supporting or promoting these resources.  We have been asked for our suggestions on future Pro-D day topics and I am going to submit “digital resources” as one of the topics for next year.