The English Montreal School Board conducted an assessment of its school libraries to understand their current state, needs, and how to improve them. Library staff visited 19 schools over two years, surveying principals and library staff with questions about budgets, collections, usage and more. General findings showed inconsistent budgets and communication problems. The goals are to publicize strong programs, demonstrate needs for increased resources and staffing, and make libraries more relevant. The assessment increased visibility of libraries and requests for assistance from library staff.

1. Assessing and Strengthening
School Libraries in the
English Montreal School Board
Presentation for 81st ABQLA Annual Conference, 9 May 2013
Gelber Conference Centre, Montréal, QC
Julian Taylor,
Librarian
Pedagogical Services Department, EMSB

2. Abstract
 School libraries have a number of obstacles
preventing them from being their best for our
students and teaching staff. While this is not a new
phenomenon, the idea of doing an objective board-
wide assessment of our libraries and the needs of
their school communities, in order to collectively
work towards making our school libraries more
reflective of our students' needs and becoming more
relevant in their minds, is relatively new idea. This
presentation aims to explain the planning and
process of this assessment at the English Montreal
School Board, as well as the results it has achieved
and its long term goals.

3. Assessing Library Service?
Used with permission from “Unshelved.com”
http://www.unshelved.com/2002-8-30

4. Assessing Library Service?
 What is actually being measured / assessed?
 Is the person involved getting good data?
 Is the person involved reporting the data from an
unbiased point of view?
 “Data for the sake of data” or “to serve a purpose”?

5. Why Assess Our Libraries?
 Need to objectively and universally understand what
the current state of our school libraries is.
 Stories are often told out of context and with no concept
of it being an isolated issue or a common / systemic
problem.
 Need to determine what the common needs are in
our schools in order to:
 better utilize limited funds and resources,
 work collectively with school-based personnel towards
making our school libraries more reflective of the needs
our modern students and teachers.

6. Why Assess Our Libraries?
 Need to use the language and tools of administrators
and other decision makers to:
 demonstrate to them what an underutilized resource
school libraries are
 that school libraries need to be improved.

7. Context
 ~ 38 Elementary Schools
 Most have a library technician 2 days a week
 See all students by class in each school in those 2 days time
 Very little time to do anything other than basic library operations.
 ~ 14 High Schools
 Library open and staffed by a library technician 5 days a week.
 ~30 library technicians and 3 librarians in our schools.
 For the sake of brevity, “Library Personnel” will be used when
discussing all school-based library technicians and librarians.
 All library personnel handle the day-to-day library operations
completely alone.

8. Context
 Assessment is a current and powerful trend in the world
of education over the last few years; very business model
approach. Libraries often overlooked as a part of the
school community.
 The superior of all library personnel is a former teacher
turned administrator; not someone with specific library
training or background.
 School libraries are often the last spot on the hand-me-
down list for computers or other technological equipment.
 School libraries have often been one of the first places
administrators look when it comes to reducing budgets.

9. Outdated Libraries
Card Catalogs at the Library of Congress
Eric Spiegel CC BY-NC 2.0

10. Background
 Hired into new position in April 2009.
 A number of projects aimed at improving library
service across the school board in specific targeted
schools.
 21st Century Library Project
 (ABQLA presentation May 2010)
 Basically, school by school projects with limited
impact and long term gain.

11. Development
 Spring 2011
 Addition of Danielle Juneau to the “team”.
 QSLiN
 G. Nadeau and D. Robert, typologie des bibliothèques scolaires
 Fall 2011
 Launched a board-wide initiative to meet with each principal and their
library personnel in their school.
 Winter 2012
 EBSI Intern reviews with fresh eyes
 Numerous revisions
 2011-2012 school year
 Visited 14 Elementary Schools and 5 High Schools.
 Fall 2012-Spring 2013
 ...

12. Questions, Questions, Questions...
 Survey broken into 3 sections:
 Pre-Survey
 Dealt with some of the more time consuming questions about
how long certain activities took and how often they were
required
 Meeting with the Principals
 Questions concerning the library from the point of view of the
administration and the school as a whole.
 Meeting with the school’s library personnel
 Why Principal and school library personnel separate?

13. Standard Operating Procedures
 “Who are these librarians and what do they want
with my school library?”
 “We aren’t the library police.”
 Reassure all parties that we are not looking for problems,
just trying to help.
 Same person always asks the same questions & the
same person always records the responses.
 To increase consistency between surveys.

14. Questions, Questions, Questions...
 Pre-survey for the school’s library personnel
 How many days / year do you spend purchasing books (in
bookstores or placing orders from the school)?
 How much time, or how often during the year, do you take
to evaluate your collection for the purpose of planning,
develop and diversify the collection?
 How many damaged books are repaired per year?
 How many damaged books per year are removed from
the collection?

15. Questions, Questions, Questions...
 Meeting with the Principal
 20 to 45+ minutes
 Often other members of the administration took part.
 Library Budget
 Role of Volunteers
 Their Vision of the Library
 Open ended,
 Personal stories about the school library.

16. Questions, Questions, Questions...
 Meeting with the school’s library personnel
 ~1 hour
 Questions about:
 library services,
 library usage,
 budgets,
 role of volunteers,
 nature of the collection and its development,
 physical layout of the library
 Physical measurements recorded and photographs taken.

17. General Findings So Far...
 Much of what was known unofficially is now being seen
as part of a recognizable pattern; carries more weight.
 Budgets
 Volunteers
 Communication between administrators and library
personnel is often the root of any problems.
 Many administrators do not have a clear understanding
of what a library technician or librarian does or could do.
 A large number of inspiring programs are taking place in
our schools, many of which are now being shared.

18. Long Term Goals
 Publicise and share the great innovations and projects
taking part in our libraries.
 Show how library service in our schools is not all it could
be, and potentially not even as good as people feel it is.
 Demonstrate what could be done with increased
resources and time to make our libraries meet the
demands or today’s students and teachers.
 Push for increased staffing at the elementary level,
without reducing staffing at the secondary level.

19. Unintended Results
 Higher visibility of board level librarians
 Drastic increase in the number of school administrators
and school-based library personnel who request
assistance from board level librarians.
 Exceptionally good PR tool.
 Higher visibility of school libraries and their
personnel
 Wide-spread increase in desire to involve libraries and
their personnel in school wide issues.

20. Development Revisited
 2011-2012 school year
 Visited 14 Elementary Schools and 5 High Schools.
 2012-2013 school year
 Visited 2 Elementary Schools and 1 High School.
 Main focus diverted from the assessment project towards
projects that are brought to us by school-based personnel,
very often as a result of doing the survey.
 3rd Board Level Librarian, Annette MacIntyre, added to the
team.
 2013-2014 school year
 Renewed focus on the assessment tool in order to achieve our
original goals.

21. Assessing and Strengthening
School Libraries in the
English Montreal School Board
Presentation for 81st ABQLA Annual Conference, 9 May 2013
Gelber Conference Centre, Montréal, QC
Julian Taylor,
Librarian
Pedagogical Services Department, EMSB