Collection Development Basics
Course
Ordering & Purchasing [6:28]
Once you know your community and your curriculum, you're ready to order. Selecting resources is a huge job and you can't start and finish it all in one day.
We don't have papers to grade or parents to contact that often so we spend time looking for outstanding resources. I've always used common resources to find things to buy like School Library Journal published by ALA or School Library Connection published by ABC-CLIO. There you can find books, and audio books, and eBooks on websites and apps and lots more. I usually go to trusted websites too like Goodreads or Teenreads and they'll let you know what's recently published and what our students think about those books too.
I also use state lists, like Florida has the Sunshine State reader's awards and the Florida Teensread list, other states have their own awards. Texas has the Blue Bonnet award, Massachusetts has the Children's' Book award. The books they pick are always really good ones. I happen to be on the Florida Committee that chooses the Florida Teensread books. I can tell you it's a lot of work, we read lots and lots of books. So, why don't you use those lists, somebody else has already done the work for you and you can just take their suggestions.
Once you know what you want, consider your budget. Libraries usually get money from their state, some from the district some from their principal and then you have money that you raise yourself. Your bookkeeper should be able to tell you how much you have to spend. It's really a good idea to be good friends with the bookkeeper, she can tell you if there are other money in other places that you can access.
You might also have some grant money or money from book fairs or the copy machines or student printing, there's all kinds of places to find money really. The bookkeeper can also explain how to write purchase orders so that you have the best chance of your principal approving them. Sometimes budget money can only be spent on specific items and she will keep you posted on how to do that and how much money you have, and how much you spent.
Now, ideally you've already created a budget, maybe in the spring for the fall and so you already have a general idea of what you want to spend your money on. Budget categories are things like supplies, books, eBooks, technology, incentives, furniture, other things that maybe you need but not everybody needs. Budgets are always flexible because you never know what you have to get for the next year. You can always suggest it.
This past year I was able to have an author come to my school and in the past I've had to pay authors, but this author just asked me to buy some books to give to kids that she would autograph when she came to my school and I ended up buying 200 books for our creative writing classes and some other kids who'd read the book as a part of a contest that I was having. That did cost me some money.
This was an expense I hadn't planned on when I first wrote my budget, I received grant money, I was able to cover the expense but you have to really consider that, when you write your budget, you have to consider expenses you weren't expecting like that author, or last year I had to tighten all the legs of my tables in the library and that a couple of thousand dollars, I was shocked. But that certainly wasn't in the budget. Sometimes there're just non-recurring expenses, you might need some new furniture or something, you have to really put that in the budget somewhere.
Some of your ordering may be pre-determined. Like our state purchases databases for every school to use, that provides equity, it's a great idea. All students have access to an online newspaper, to journals. Our district also has purchased resources like that video delivery system so that our teachers and students have access to video clips. Teaching in diverse formats is important. Teachers use these clips to move their lesson along and appeal to visual learners and kids use these clips too when they're doing a PowerPoint presentation or Prezi or something like that.
These resources are part of the collection but they don't come out of your budget, that's a good thing. You might have more recurring expenses that you hadn't thought of like your ID machine, fees, something like that has to be put in your budget too. You need to use your selection policy as a part of collection development policy when you're purchasing books. That helps you decide which books you're going to buy, which eBooks, and which electronic resources too.
Always look at your budget, talk to your bookkeeper, use quality resources to select materials that your patrons will love. When these materials start coming in, you know, it's sort of like my birthday. My students always laugh when I ask them to go pick up boxes from the office and I start the "open the box day" and I get so excited. Of course, the materials have to be processed, and they have to be put on the shelves, and they have to be put in the management system before I can get them out to all the kids.
Remember when you're cataloging the books by the way, that it doesn't matter the way you decide to catalogue them it only matters if kids can find them. Then after all that, you have to publicize them. Teaching in diverse formats is very important. These purchases don't come out of your budget and that's a really good thing.
Once you have assessed needs, the next step in collection development is to plan for purchases. There are two main parts to this work: the library budget and selection of materials. This lesson focuses on selection of materials. Franklin recommends professional review sources, state book award lists, and vendor lists/standard bibliographies as sources to guide selection. For more information on developing a school library budget, which is mentioned but not detailed in this lesson, see the articles listed in the Resources below.
Franklin describes state book award lists as a potential source for materials to select for your library collection. Listed below are three award programs that she notes. For this exercise, review these lists to familiarize yourself with categories, criteria, and recent recipients. Then find award lists in your state or region to include in your toolbox of selection sources.
- Bluebonnet Award (Texas): http://www.txla.org/TBA
- Massachusetts Children's Book Award: http://massachusettschildrensbookaward.blogspot.com/
- Sunshine State Young Readers Award (Florida): https://www.floridamediaed.org/ssyra.html
Johns, Sara Kelly. "MINI THEME: Buying Smarter—How to Make the Library Dollar Go Farther. Your School Needs a Frugal Librarian." Library Media Connection, 29, no. 4, January 2011
Martin, Ann M. "MINI THEME: Buying Smarter—How to Make the Library Dollar Go Farther: Tactics for Tough Budget Times." Library Media Connection, 29, no. 4, January 2011
Zilonis, Mary Frances, and Chris Swerling. "On Common Ground. The Budget Process." School Library Connection, December 2015.
MLA Citation
Morris, Rebecca J. "Collection Development Basics: Use State Book Awards as Selection Sources." School Library Connection, September 2017, schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/2081080?learningModuleId=2081075&topicCenterId=2247902.
Entry ID: 2128226
Additional Resources
MLA Citation
Franklin, Patricia. "Collection Development Basics. Ordering & Purchasing [6:28]." School Library Connection, ABC-CLIO, August 2017, schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/2081080?learningModuleId=2081075&topicCenterId=2247902.
https://schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/2081080?learningModuleId=2081075&topicCenterId=2247902
Entry ID: 2081080