A SCHOOL LIBRARIAN MEDIA SPECIALIST’S PATHFINDER FOR COLLECTION AND

CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT

A PATHFINDER for a School Librarian Media Specialist seeking excellent

resources for Collection Development and Instructional Resource Selection and
Curriculum Development for K-12

ACTION PLANS:

AASL’s ACTION PLAN WORKSHEET FOR School Librarians as Learning Leaders: An

Administrator’s Guide.

This is a fantastic template and checklist that is super helpful for planning to
share resources or do PD for various audiences. This is a good planning tool that helps
for beginning with the end in mind for advocacy related work and activities.

The ALA’s Action Plan Template

While not as detailed as the one above from AASL, this is a good basic outline of
what to include in your action plan. Looking at the checkboxes and categories helps to
avoid overlooking important components and aspects.

BOOKS:

Hi Lo Readers:

Reading Rockets has an excellent article

I seem to go back to this when I am looking for information about HiLo Readers.
It gives good general basics, genre information, and a list of quality publishers of
high/low books.

Saddleback Educational Publishing

This is a reputable publisher of HiLo readers. I know a few librarians who

regularly order from them and are pleased. I have seen students check these out
of the library during my pre-practicum observations.

Orca Books HiLo Readers

I include this also because other librarians order from them and have had
success.

DIVERSE BOOKS:
Mirrors and Windows in our Library Collections

Excellent article about how students need to see themselves in our library’s book
collection.

Mirrors and Windows Diversity in Outreach

Another good article about how a library’s books should allow students to see the
reflection and then also a look beyond themselves out a window.

African American Literature Book Club

A great librarian that I observed during a site visit told me about this excellently
curated site that has information on award-winning books and others. Her own library
collection is known for its diversity, so this is a well-regarded resource based on her
suggestion.

Lee & Low Books

This testimonial section of the Lee & Low site offers some great support and
reasons why they are such a good resource for diverse books and live up to their tagline
of “About Everyone/For Everyone.”

BUDGET:

The Blue Skunk Blog various Budget topics

This humorous but practical blogger Doug Johnson offers a load of great advice
about budgets for libraries

Eduscapes School Library Media Specialist Program Administration for Budget

Management

Though this is a little older, it is very detailed and thorough. It covers many steps
and aspects that are good resources.

CENSORSHIP

The Blog, Librarians Beware: Self-Censorship under the Office for Intellectual Freedom
of the ALA

This addresses the growing concern that librarians omit material from libraries
due to personal bias that results in bypassing good books that could be in the collection.

SLJ’s article “Banned Books Week 2018: Titles, Data, Self-Censorship -- and Crafts”
 This is a great look at the top 10 challenged books of 2017 and lives up to the
title with great data (and infographics) and the Who, What, Why.

NCAC (National Coalition Against Censorship)’s Freedom to Think Create Explore

issues column about Books

One of the excellent things about this article is the insert box that lists and links to
Key Resources such as Book Censorship Toolkit, Banned Books Myth, Kids’ Right to
Read Project, and The First Amendment in Schools. This article also has a great
breakdown of “ Types of Objections against Books” that is informative.

DIGITAL COLLECTION COMPONENTS:

The CIA World Factbook

This free digital resource in many ways can replaces the need for a subscription
Encyclopedia. It describes itself this way: “The World Factbook provides information on
the history, people, government, economy, geography, communications, transportation,
military, and transnational issues for 267 world entities. Our Reference tab includes:
maps of the major world regions, as well as Flags of the World, a Physical Map of the
World, a Political Map of the World, a World Oceans map, and a Standard Time Zones
of the World map.”

MBLC’S SITE LINK TO A small sample of Massachusetts libraries Digital Collections

Libraries and organizations throughout Massachusetts and the U.S. are working
together to make the resources of libraries, archives, and museums freely available to
the public. These digital collections - including historical records and maps, works of art
and culture, and research and scientific data - expand access and offer learning
opportunities to everyone

Proquest Student Resources- Culturegram

This resource has some free learning activities to explore CultureGrams content;
several scavenger hunts in the form of a Word doc to guide with fill in the blanks are
excellent. Proquest describes it this way: CultureGrams goes beyond basic facts and
figures on more than 200 countries, with up-to-date reports detailing daily life and
culture, history, customs and lifestyle from an insider's perspective.

Readworks

This is an award-winning educational site that focuses on reading

comprehension instruction. They partner with other organizations to give free access to
articles on numerous topics. They are designed for use in the classroom, and have
proven achievement with improving literacy skills. A great way to use it with struggling
readers in particular to supplement the curriculum. For example, it has “an article a
day” feature that will be helpful for more Common Core focus on reading informational
text. One other feature I like about this resource is that it has both fiction and non-fiction
in its database

Wonderopolis

This site allows students to “wonder” about a topic, and explore to find out
information. Wonderopolis has a wonder of the day as well as the ability to explore
wonders on its site and link a widget to it on your website which is a handy feature
(especially for the wonder of the day). Where I see its value is using it as a nice non-
intimidating first step in exploring a topic. We want our students to do more inquiry-
based learning, and Wonderopolis is a nice first step, almost a baby-step to finding a
topic. Students struggle with finding topics for research or projects. I hope to use this in
the future on my library website and as a resource for basic inquiry.

DISASTER PLANNING:

dPlan

dPlan is dubbed as The Online Disaster-Planning Tool for Cultural and Civic
Institutions. It is an excellent step by step interactive method of creating a disaster plan.
It is very thorough and comprehensive and the template is super useful.

Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC)

This organization offers many services for paper collections (and other mediums)
and advice for collections disasters.

GOALS:

UVA has a great online resource for creating SMART goals

This has a step by step guide for each part of the SMART with helpful verbs and
questions to guide creating your SMART goals.

INFOGRAPHICS

Kathy Schrock’s Guide to Infographics as a Creative Assessment

This is super comprehensive and contains essentially “everything” you need to

know about infographics. She has numerous lists and links here including a rubric. I
have used many different platforms and methods for creating infographics, but
inevitably find myself referring back to this guide for information and assistance.
Librarians Design Share Inspirations for Infographics

This provides excellent examples and tips for various kinds of infographics,
including using infographics for the annual report. It also has other wonderful examples
such as Libraries and the Cost of a Research Report. Many of these are great for
advocacy and for illustrating ROI (Return on Investment)

Library Research Services (LRS) Infographic Resources

This resource truly covers the gamut from A to Z for making infographics. It is
extensive in listing links for all facets of infographic design.

SELECTION POLICY

ALA’s Selection & Reconsideration Policy Toolkit for Public, School, & Academic
Libraries

This basic but comprehensive toolkit is a must for creating a selection policy and
being prepared and proactive for any reconsideration steps. It covers why you need a
policy, basic components of a selection policy, reconsideration procedure, and an
informative appendix

SPECIAL NEEDS OR ELL

UDL Guidelines Website

The site has an excellent section for Universal Design for Learning Guidelines
that address the WHY/WHAT/HOW of learning and how to differentiate. This is a great
resource for multiple means of engagement, representation, and action/expression.

The Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) Blog: Serving Children with
Disabilities in Libraries: A Beginner’s Guide

This is an amazing libguide in itself with links for special needs and broken down
into the following categories: books, articles, webinars & videos, and blogs & websites.

Supporting ELL’s Through the School Library

I include this example made by a school librarian via Google sites. It has many
good links (SLJ, Reading Rockets, ReadWriteThink,etc.) and basic yet helpful advice.

WEEDING:
The ALA has an extensive annotated bibliography : Weeding Library Collections: A
Selected Annotated Bibliography for Library Collection Evaluation

In the section, “Collection Evaluation and Weeding” there are several superb
sources for helpful weeding criteria. Some are books and some are other publications
such as articles. One of them, Dickinson’s “Crying over Spilled Milk” that tackles both
the emotional parts (the outcry from some who are against weeding) to the very
practical use of CREW and MUSTY.

Crew - a Weeding manual for modern libraries

Texas State Library and Archives Commission’s publications are excellent and
encompass weeding with the CREW method.

Keeping Your Library Collection Smelling F.R.E.S.H!

Library Girl has many great resources relevant to collection and curriculum. Her
entry here about weeding is concise and helpful. I love all her infographics and posters,
and this one does not disappoint.

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