The Collection Program in Schools: Concepts and Practices

by Marcia A. Mardis

Our digitally rich world changes quickly and contains more information resources than ever before; as a result, school librarians are tasked with the enormous challenge of curating a diverse, high-quality, and up-to-date collection for teachers, students, and administrators to use. This new edition of The Collection Program in Schools gives school librarians the tools to develop and maintain a collection in a constantly changing environment, often with reduced budgets; and to ensure that students can use virtual libraries and have access to all modern media and learning resources.



The book logically progresses in its coverage of national and state policy concerns to community needs to the process of collection building and maintenance. Topics covered include key education trends affecting collections, such as digital textbooks and other non-print resources, instructional improvement systems, STEM priorities, and open education resources; the use of school libraries as makerspaces; media type considerations for a range of users; Common Core State Standards and Next Generation Science Standards; and the principles of curation: acquisition, description, organization, promotion, evaluation, and maintenance. This guide is ideal for use in many graduate-level school librarian preparation courses, including classes on school library collection development and school library management.

Genres: Professional Development, Nonfiction, Textbooks, Library Science

360 pages, Paperback

First published December 30, 2012

Reviews

[SaraKat]

For current or future librarians, the book is well organized and full of helpful information. I read the entire book and marked some chapters for future reference. The set up is easy to use with lots of other resources listed for each chapter.

[Jonathan Brammer]

I would say that 90% of the information in this text is common sense, or can be learned on the job. The chapter on ethical questions surrounding the collection was most interesting.

[Heather Marvin]

Very valuable, will keep to guide me in my library endeavors.

[Ellon]

It's hard to review a textbook. I think this book did a good job of providing necessary information. It also had a lot of great resources at the end of each chapter.

I think the book might be more useful for me when I'm actually in the library. I can see myself referring to sections to help run the library smoothly. We shall see!

[Amanda]

Great for new librarians and library science students. A good overview of the policies and procedures for a library.

[Dolly]

This book was required reading for one of my Master of Science in Library and Information Science courses at the University of Maryland.

[Heidi]

This is an incredibly readable and useful text, one I'll consider picking up for my professional collection (read borrowed from a library).