PWHS Media Center
Budget concerns
Recommended budgetary expenditures per student per year
Total: $50.00 per student/per year in materials
- Print: $31.50 / $35.00 / $38.50
- AV: $4.50 / $7.50 / $8.25
- Elec.: $4.50 / $7.50 / $8.25
Estimated PW budget: $25 per student/per year
Recommendations:
Increase the media supplies and library software budgets, directly impacting the expenditures on resources for students' use
Areas of improvement
Nonfiction
Our collection contains approximately 16,700 nonfiction titles, disregarding those identified as reference (non-circulating).
- Average age of holding: 30 years old
- Less than 7% of nonfiction has been circulated in the past two years.
- Some nonfiction categories yielded a circulation record of less than 1%.
Recommendations:
- Weed the collection, removing titles that are outdated, irrelevant, and/or in disrepair
- Explore options for selling discarded titles, providing additional funding for media supplies
- Become more selective in acquiring print editions of nonfiction titles
- Expand digital collection, with database and e-book resources
- Increase the media supplies budget, earmarking a percentage of the monies for additions to the nonfiction collection
Periodicals
Recommendations from the 2011 Guidelines for Pennsylvania School Library Programs: (minimum/standard/exemplary)
- Serials: 55-70/70-105/105-150
- Newspapers: 3/4/5+
PW Collection:
- Serials: 67
- Newspapers: 5
Recommendations:
- Evaluate current subscriptions for value and purpose in our collection, identifying titles that are of little/no interest and/or academic value to our students for non-renewal
- Identify subscriptions that are available in digital format, and evaluate whether or not print editions are necessary
- Increase the media supplies budget, earmarking a percentage of the monies for additions to the periodicals collection
Federated Search Service
Our students, as digital natives, rely heavily on Google because of the ease of use it offers. A federated search service mimics Google, while still offering the advanced search features of a typical database.
Cutting edge high schools and the majority of universities and colleges, including 13/14 of the Pennsylvania System of Higher Education schools are now offering federated search services.
Examples:
Recommendations:
- Collaborate with EBSCO to refine the PWHS pilot federated search service
- Reconfigure database subscriptions, paying close attention to current subscriptions that provide "overlapping" results
- Increase the Library Software budget, reserving $5,000 to allow for annual subscription to the EBSCO Discovery federated search service
Makerspace
The makerspace supports our students as 21st century learners, providing them with the space and resources to work cooperatively, posing and answering questions to guide their learning, as they "tinker" with emerging technologies.
The makerspace's opening, funded by a Colonial Foundation grant, will also allow for staff across departments to collaborate and promote their courses.
Recommendations:
- Establish ASN and annual budget to support the growth of this space and program
- Consider makerspace education and programming in planning for professional development
Further reading:
Corbett, Tom. "The Changing Role of the School Library's Physical Space." School Library Monthly Apr. 2011: 5-7
Pennsylvania. Department of Education. Office of Commonwealth Libraries. Guidelines
for School Library Programs. Harrisburg: Bureau of Library Development, 2011. Print.
Robinson, Shannon. "Choices, Chances, & Changes." Teacher Librarian 1 June 2013: 25-32. Print.
Todd, Ross J. ""To Be or Not to Be:" School Libraries and the Future of Learning." School Library Monthly June 2010: 16-19. ProQuest Education Journals. Web. 26 Oct. 2013.
Zimmerman, Martin. Digital Natives, Searching Behavior and the Library. Thesis. Brooklyn Campus Library of Long Island University, 2011. New York: New Library World, 2012. ProQuest Education Journals. Web. 26 Oct. 2013.