Collection+Evaluation+and+Report

Collection Evaluation and Report by Melisa Hunter

Introduction

L'École South Sahali's library collection is, at first glance, quite large. This is as a result of amalgamating two dual track French Immersion elementary scho ols to form a single track French Immersion school.  The amalgamation recently took effect in September of 20 10. Upon closer examination, the collection is aging, with some of the sections becoming unacceptably old. This report will give you an overall picture of the state of École South Sahali's library collection, and more importantly, it will also focus, in detail, on the sections of the library that support the Grade 4 Life Science Curriculum: Habitat and Communities, with a particular focus on local plants and animals.

Taking a closer look at the sections related to animal and plant habitat made it evident that this part of the collection, in particular, is becoming old, or is lacking in some areas, and is need of some immediate attention. These areas of the collection are well used by the Grade 4 teachers and the students enjoy taking out books on the different animals that are found in these sections. As such, it is a worthwhile project to undertake a serious makeover in these areas of the library.

Process :

In order to get a full picture of the state of my collection, my first step was to read the Follett Destiny reports that I could easily generate at my school. I looked at age and circulation for the full collection and for the various Dewey categories. To obtain a print-out from my Follett Destiny database for the French non-fiction books in the relevant ranges, I had to manually scan each French book into a "resource list". This is because all of our French non-fiction books have the prefix of OD or "oeuvre documentaire" (non-fiction). Because of this prefix, the Destiny system does not recognize the Dewey numbers that follow the OD and therefore cannot present information about age, broken down by category for the French non-fiction. This is problematic in some respects because there is no way to get a neat print-out from Follett Destiny about French non-fiction specifically related to different Dewey ranges without either scanning the chosen topics or wading through the 1613 copies in the OD category. However, having this prefix seems to be the only way to keep track of how many non-fiction books we have in French.

Using these different processes, I was able to get a global picture of my library collection with data on age and circulation of resources. For a more detailed look at the section that I am focusing on, I set limiters on the Follett Destiny reports to focus on the 570's, 580's, and 590's. For the First Nations content I did a separate search and also combed through the shelves in the 398.2 and Easy sections. Certain obvious search words would not recognize resources that we have in the library, as there were some issues with some of the resource records not being set up in a detailed enough way.

In order to determine what physical shape the collection was in, I did a manual evaluation, looking at the sections, book by book. I checked the physical condition and the attractiveness of the books. These are criteria that would not show up in the age and circulation reports.

Data Collected:

Quantitative Analysis

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;"><span style="background-color: #ffff00; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Age Statistics for the entire library collection were collected from a Follett Destiny report.

<span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">South Sahali Elementary Student Enrollment: 315 October 2011



<span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">a. Only the major categories are included in this chart. These are the categories that students would look for and that teachers would use for research projects. <span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">b. Total number of books in the collection in these categories: 12, 024 <span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">c. Average number of books per student: 38 <span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">d. Average age of the collection: 1997

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">The <span style="background-color: #ffff00; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">number of titles in the relevant Dewey Categories were determined by using the Follett Destiny reports. It was a simple print-out for the English titles, but for the French titles I had to manually count the titles in each category.

<span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">Number of Titles in French and English in the relevant Dewey Categories

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">The <span style="background-color: #ffff00; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">circulation statistics <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> in the relevant Dewey Categories were determined by using the Follett Destiny reports. It was a simple print-out for the English titles, but for the French titles I had to manually count the number of circulations for each copy and add them up for each category.

<span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">Total Circulation Statistics for English and French titles in relevant Dewey Categories



<span style="background-color: #ffff00; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 160%;">Qualitative Analysis

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">I performed a manual evaluation of the French non-fiction in the relevant ranges, visually at first, to determine how old the books were, what condition they were in and the attractiveness of these books. The data on ages of the books in the following graph comes from the printed bibliography. The data on the condition and the attractiveness of the books is the result of a quick hands-on look. The following graph represents the data from the manual evaluation and the bibliography.

media type="custom" key="10868158" Diagram 4

<span style="background-color: #ffff00; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 160%;">Determining the relevance of the materials available

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">In order to find out if we had information on local animals and plants in either French or English, I performed a search in my school's Follett Destiny database using the names of animals and plants. I found the names of some of these animals in this <span style="color: #008000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">City of Kamloops document <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;"> and from a list on <span style="color: #008000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">[|this page] <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;"> in the Tourism Kamloops website. Sometimes simply typing the name in English would bring up resources in both English and French and other times I had to type the name in French to find out if we had any resources on French for that particular subject. This lack of cross-referencing between the two languages will have to be addressed in MARC records at a future date.

<span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">Search words entered to find French, English and First Nations titles in the South Sahali Library <span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 130%;">G = General information S = Specific information

<span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 130%;">

<span style="background-color: #ffff00; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">How does the collection measure up to a list of recommended resources?

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">Another way to determine whether or not a collection is meeting the needs of a curriculum is to check the collection against a respected bibliography. For this step, I consulted the Learning Resources: Grade Collection in the Grade 4 Life Science section of the <span style="color: #008000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Grade 4 BC IRP for Sciences.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">I have highlighted, in yellow, the resources that the school has and I have circled, in red, the resources that we might consider purchasing to supplement our teacher resource section.



<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">The fourth prescribed learning outcome in the <span style="color: #008000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 90%;">BC IRP for Grade 4 Life Sciences : Habitats and Communities states:

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">//It is expected that students will://
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">demonstrate awareness of the <span style="background-color: #ffff00; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Aboriginal concept of respect for the Environment

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">//The following set of indicators may be used to assess student achievement for each corresponding prescribed learning outcome. Students who have fully met the prescribed learning outcome are able to://


 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">describe in detail how to show respect for the environment (e.g., clean up school yard, recycle, weed garden) create accurate, detailed drawings to illustrate stories that demonstrate the relationship Aboriginal peoples have with the land, water, animals, plants, and sky (e.g., respect for water, earth)

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">I conducted a search in our Follett Destiny on-site database to see how many First Nations titles that our school had. We have 6 titles that relate to animals in our collection (this is included in my French, English and First Nations title table - diagram #5). We have no First Nations titles that explicitly address the relationship that First Nations people have with the environment. So, I did a subject search at our District Resource Centre Library and found out that they have a number of relevant titles.These resources will go a long way to supplement our own school resources that we use to teach the prescribed learning outcomes related to Aboriginal peoples in the Grade 4 Life Sciences: Habitat and Communities curriculum.

<span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">First Nations Titles at the Henry Grube Resource Centre <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">

<span style="background-color: #ffff00; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">Does this section of the library offer resources other than books?

<span style="background-color: #ffff00; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">We have a limited selection of resources other than non-fiction to support this strand in the curriculum. For the DVDs and kits we could rely on our District Resource Centre Library. It would be a good idea, however, to improve our Fiction and Easy books in both French and English on this subject matter in order to get a better understanding of how the First Nations people relate to the environment, We also seem to be very lacking in novels and easy books on the subject of plants and animals. We may actually have more titles than those that turned up in the search. However, due to the fact that some MARC records have not been set up to recognize certain search terms, it is possible that some titles did not turn up in this search. Our school district has subscriptions to both World Book Online, the Encyclopedia of BC and EBSCO. There is information about animals, plants and different First Nations groups in these encyclopedias and databases.

<span style="background-color: #ffff00; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 160%;">Analysis of patron use of this section of the library

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">The sections of the library that support the Grade 4 Life Sciences: Habitat and Communities curriculum are well used. These resources support popular research projects carried out by both Grade 4 students and primary students. Animals are a very popular subject with the younger grades, and as such, this section of the library gets much incidental use. This is obvious when one looks at the circulation data in diagram # 3. I am often referring students to the animal section and helping them find books on the animals that interest them. It is fun to watch then pore over their books after they have signed them out, sharing their new-found knowledge or neat pictures that they have found in the books with their classmates.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">I asked the Grade 4 teacher to fill out a survey regarding this section of the library. She stated in her responses that we were lacking in information on plants in general and specifically on local plants. Another one of her concerns was that there were not enough books on plants and animals at the Grade 1 - 3 level. Since she has some low readers in her class, she would like to be able to give them access to books on plants and animals at their reading level for her research project on these topics.

<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 200%;">Summary

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">When taking a cursory look at the shelves in the Dewey ranges of 570's, 580's and 590's, the shelves look very full. The books in these sections, especially the 590's, are well used, even on a casual basis. Books on animals, which are located in this section, are very popular with the younger students. Research projects on plants and animals are popular with the teachers, so these books also get a lot of in-class use. Upon looking closer at this section, though, it is obvious that parts of this section of the collection are either aging, in disrepair or lacking in scope. With all of this information in mind, along with the fact that these sections support the Grade 4 Life Science: Habitat and Communities strand, these sections of the library are prime candidates for a full makeover.

<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 200%;">Strengths <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">We have many titles in our 570's, 580's and 590's. This is a popular section of the library, especially with the younger students. Our District Resource Educational Centre has many First Nations titles and these nicely supplement our school's resources for the Grade 4 Life Science: Habitat and Communities curriculum. Our District subscriptions to World Book Online, EBSCO, and the Encyclopedia of BC provide good additional information for research projects on topics in this curriculum.

<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 200%;">Weaknesses <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">The average age of the collection is 1997 and the average age of the sections that I have looked at is 1998. Of the 337 French non-fiction books in this collection, 186 are either damaged, have a publication date older than 1996 or are unattractive. There is not a large enough selection of books in these sections at the grade 1 - 3 reading levels in French. After doing a simple search, it was found that local animals are not properly represented in our collection. For some animals there are quite a few books and for others, none at all. The number of books about local animals could decrease considerably after the older or damaged 186 French non-fiction books are weeded from the selection.

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">We do not have a big selection of First Nations books related to plants and animals. Our fiction section does not have many titles about plants, animals or First Nations to support this Grade 4 Science curriculum strand. We are lacking in resources on other media such as DVDs, and kits.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">The MARC records for many of our resources are not set up in enough detail to help locate local resources. Many items were missed in searches in Follett Destiny because certain keywords were not entered in the MARC records, or because English and French were not cross referenced.

<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 200%;">Recommendations

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">There are a number of recommendations that I would make in order to improve the quality of resources in this section of the library:
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">Spend some time weeding out the old, damaged and unattractive books in these sections.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">Purchase books on Canadian plants and animals at a variety of reading levels: Grade 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 in French.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">Purchase books on local plants and animals, preferably in French, and if not available, then in English.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">Purchase DVDs about Canadian plants and animals, preferably in French, and if not available, then in English.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">Purchase novels and easy fiction relating to Canadian plants and animals, in both French and English.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">Purchase books on the First Nations legends and traditions relating to plants and animals, with a local focus.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">Purchase activity kits and teacher resources relating to the curriculum area. Look at the two resources on the BC Grade 4 Science IRP list of recommended resources for Life Sciences to see if they would be appropriate: //Critters (Aims Activities)// and //Forests in Focus.//
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">Update MARC records for the First Nations, fiction, and easy fiction resources in both French and English that relate to this curriculum, so that they can easily be located when doing a simple search with key words such as plants, animals, and First Nations.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">Verify that all books and resources relating to First Nations have the coloured sticker above the spine label for easy identification on the shelf.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">Locate good websites related to this curriculum, in both French and English, and bookmark them on the school library website.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">Promote the new resources and the newly tidied up sections to staff and students

<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 200%;">Reflection

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">When I first started out on this project, I was thinking that it was a lot of work to do to in order to find out something that I could determine just by browsing the shelves in these sections. However, as I went through the whole evaluation process, I became very much aware of the different benefits of doing such an in-depth evaluation. First of all, after doing some of the readings, it became evident that the presentation of a formal report would garner more positive response than simply stating that a section of the library was showing its age. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 19.2px;">“Those who fund media programs need facts on which to base funding decisions, shifts in financial resources, expansion of programs, and cutbacks. As managers, media specialists need information on which to base decisions about collections and for communicating collection needs to administrators” (Bishop, 2007, p.142). The need for facts and figures became apparent to me as I worked on this assignment.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 19.2px;">The other benefits of going through this extensive evaluation and report writing quickly presented themselves as I became aware of the following:
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 19.2px;">pulling the books off of the shelf and examining them away from their "home" made their condition or state stand out that much more.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 19.2px;">using different key words when performing a search did not always yield the correct response. There were resources in the library that were not being located because the key words had not been entered in the MARC records.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 19.2px;">taking the time to look at the books let me know how many books were at the appropriate reading levels for different students.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 19.2px;">searching for different materials other than non-fiction, which looked to be the obvious choice to support the curriculum strand that I had chosen, allowed me to become much better acquainted with the different areas of my collection.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">I found the advice in the article by Franklin & Stephens (2009) to be the easiest to follow. The steps that they laid out gave me a good starting point. In Step 1 they suggest that "circulation figures can indicate if books are actually being used" (Franklin & Stephens, 2009, p. 45). This really got me thinking, as I was not too sure if that bit of advice applied to my small section of the library. I feel that I can justify maintaining this part of the collection even if circulation numbers are not high. Books from my section might be used in the library, but not signed out, if classes are coming in to work on research projects. I would, however, use circulation statistics to paint a broad picture of the library collection and if I were looking at areas of fiction. I was in complete agreement with the idea that "physically handling books... yields results that cannot be gleaned from computer-generated data" (Agee, 2005, p. 94). I found this exercise to be very useful.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">One bit of advice that I did not find very helpful was the following: "...titles in OPAC are compared to a bibliography, list, or catalog of titles recommended for a certain purpose or type of collection" (Bishop, 2007, p. 144). I did do this, comparing my resources to the list of resources on the BC Ministry of Education's list of Recommended Resources for Grade 4 Life Sciences: Habitat and Communities. I found the list to be dated and not very comprehensive, having been published in 2005. I wonder why these lists are not kept more up-to-date. The idea of referring to a bibliography in order to evaluate a collection is a good one, but where are the bibliographies?

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">A number of the parts of this process were easy for me. I found the running of most of the reports on Follett Destiny to be easy once I had my library assistant guide me with this. I found the hands-on evaluation of the resources to be easy, as it was obvious which resources were old, damaged, dated or not an appropriate reading level.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">The difficult part of this whole process, for me, was deciding which data to display and how to display it, keeping my audience in mind. I had to play around with the data I had, making decisions on which chart or graph to use. I also found myself constantly going back into the Follett Destiny system and back to my library shelves to get more information in order to paint a more complete picture of the library and the resources needed to support my chosen area of the curriculum.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">I'm sure that the next time I take on a collection evaluation, my steps will be a little more streamlined. As for what I would do differently, it is more about what I would like to incorporate into my regular plans to keep on improving my library collection. I would like to make an effort to get feedback from teachers on a more regular basis. I like the questions posed here by Franklin & Stephens (2009) on page 45: "Were there enough materials? Did they enhance learning activities and teach the skills and standards in the lesson plan? Did they contain needed information? Was it quality information that the students could use?" These are questions I could ask after completing a collaborative research project with a teacher. But, I can also see myself asking the teacher well in advance of a planned project what sorts of materials might be needed so that I can plan accordingly and update my collection before the start of the project.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">I have found this whole process to be very beneficial. I have learned things about my library that might not have come to my attention right away such as: problems with MARC records, the lack of First Nations material and non-book resources to support this part of the curriculum. I have also learned how to collect data from Follett Destiny and how to present it in different ways. Finding ways to present it on a Wiki has been a learning experience for me, as well. I have also been made aware of the power of putting together a formal report with quantitative and qualitative data. I can see myself using these skills on a regular basis in order to maintain a quality library collection.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">Works cited:

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">Agee, J. (2005). Collection evaluation: a foundation for collection development. //Collection Building//. (24)3, 92-95.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 18px;">Bishop, K. (2007). //The collection program in schools: concepts, practices, and information sources// (4. ed.). Westport, Connecticut: Libraries Unlimited.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">Franklin, P. & Stephen, C. (2009). Using standards to draw curriculum maps. //School Library Media Activities Monthly//. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">25(9), 44-45.