In Achieving Information Literacy (AIL) the standards appear to be reasonable to me although I doubt if any school meets them. At least I have not been in one! I would truly love to see what a library looks like with an acceptable level of resources as AIL indicates. However, we are teachers and we have never let a lack of resources stop us before! In some areas my school library falls within the acceptable category but in almost all it falls below the standards set out in terms of reference materials. For example, the acceptable standard for periodicals in an elementary school is 30 – 45 periodicals and our library has none. However, the space and shelving to accommodate reference resources is acceptable for the resources we have. Ahhh, the irony! You have to have a sense of humour about these things! I will say that it is nice to have a guide such as this to refer to and to strive toward. It will be especially useful when I am developing my library growth and budget plan and will use this information to advocate for increased funding.
One question I have is this – is it ok to encourage students to access resources from the public library (such as free online newspapers) if your own school does not have a subscription to it? Is this acceptable?
Of course, it's acceptable.
ReplyDeleteBut the magazine thing is wrong. The standards are woefully out of date as most serials now come to schools through full text databases -- so the number of print items dwindles accordingly.