1. LIB 610 Collection Management
Summer 2009
Collection
and
Community:
The Context

2. 2
What is the context?
Extract from a collection development policy:

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Context for a school library?
Curriculum
Clients
Community
 Carol L. Tilley, Syllabus for L595 Collection Analysis
for School Library Media Specialists (Web-Based
Workshop)

4. 4
What’s curriculum got to do with it?
Curriculum
The purpose of the collection is to support learning.
As such, the materials selected for inclusion must
support the curriculum.
• Information Access & Delivery: School Library Collections

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Clients?
Clients
Your clients include students, teachers,
administrators, parents, staff, members of
community, and anyone else connected with the
learning community. The primary purpose of a
school library media center collection is to provide
access to information. This access is provided by
serving your patrons.
 . . . all decisions should be based on sound data
regarding the reading level, developmental level,
interests, and needs of students. A collaborative
planning process is essential in determining
those materials that will best impact student
achievement.
• Information Access & Delivery: School Library Collections

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But what is the (a) community?
What is a Community?
In the physical world, communities are
typically groups of people (a town,
for instance) held together by some common
identity or interest.
Coming from two Latin words meaning “with gifts,” the
term community suggests a general sense of
altruism, reciprocity, and beneficence that comes from
working together. Communities help generate a shared
language, rituals and customers, and collective memory
of those that join the group.

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School and Community
Visionary Educator Interview:
I believe that a school and a community
shouldn’t be separate entities. They are the
same. I believe it is the responsibility of the
educator to explore and learn about the
community, to have the critical
conversations necessary to learn what
resources are available there to enhance the
curriculum that you are using or
developing.
• Alicia Fitzpatrick of Twin Buttes
High School, Zuni, NM

8. 8

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Community resources?
Part of the School Library Collection
As school librarians and media specialists collaborate
with classroom teachers and assist them in finding
relevant materials for resource-based learning, the use
of both material resources and human resources from
the community can be invaluable. Accessing resources
within the community can make learning more
relevant to students and enable them to see a
connection between the curriculum and the real world.
Establishing community resource collections also
results in stronger business and community
partnerships with the school.
• Jennifer Hammond, “Community Resources as Part of the School Library
Collection”. Library Philosophy and Practice Vol. 4, No. 1 (Fall 2001)

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