Audit. It’s a word I like to use a lot in my school library practice. Whether I’m auditing a collection before I start an overhaul, or auditing my library lesson programming, it’s a great way to gather data before making changes, to have clear in my head my starting point so I am better able to pace out the steps I need to make it to my goals.
Definition
An audit is to undertake a systematic review or assessment of something. And I believe it’s really only helpful in then helping to guide action.
My school library audit
This year, in my year of refocus and getting back to doing the basics really well, I’m undertaking a thorough audit of my entire library service. This is a massive project, but one that’s got me really excited. I want to know what we do well and, more importantly, what needs some development in our next few years.
There are multiple parts to the audit and will be conducted over the year. The goal and purpose of the audit is to fully assess the library service across all seven domains of practice, understand its strengths and opportunities, areas for growth and what needs more focus. This will also guide our strategic plan renewal towards the end of the year. This audit is helping to build the road map but doing a thorough survey of the landscape.
Here are the different parts of my audit
Catalogue –
To fully understand the state of the catalogue we are undertaking a catalogue review and update. We are also completing the work as we go, so that all users, sites, sections and items are up-to date. It will also give me a good idea of what needs more focus long-term, like research guides or collections.
Policies and Procedures –
As a team, we are working through our current policy and procedures documents and updating them. This process involves looking at one policy in each team meeting, editing it, putting forward suggestions to update, edit, remove or add things. The updated policy is then presented in the next meeting for final review. In this way, we will work through the whole policy document. We are updating procedures and creating them as we undertake each new task. These documents are simple and practical, stepping you through a task. It makes sharing work between team members easier and is helpful when needing to repeat a task that isn’t undertaken often.
Audit survey – Team responses
I have created a 7-part audit survey for library teams based on the 7 Domains of School Library Practice Framework. Each part has 12 questions that ask the respondent to rate that part of the library service. I asked each of my team members to complete the survey. Their responses and comments were incredible insightful, and provided a clear overview of our library’s strengths and areas for growth. From the survey, I identified a list of next step priorities, areas we need to focus on or that need more support.
Leadership reflections
I’m keen to gather leadership reflections on our school library and I’m currently exploring ways to gather these on our school library as part of some broader reflection and planning work.
I’ve been trialling different approaches, including surveys and conversations with leadership staff, to better understand how leaders perceive the role, impact, and future direction of the library within the school.
Staff and student surveys
I’ve also created some staff and student surveys to send out, asking for feedback around the library service. I will send the staff ones to targeted staff members, some who use the library regularly and others who are less frequent users. I’ve decided against a whole-staff survey at this time. The student survey will be sent to all, but I don’t expect a great take up. I can roll this out to classes in library lessons, which will assist.
What’s next?
I’m starting to gather the data and work through these updates. It’s helping to provide a picture of what needs my focus. Some things we are fixing as we go, like the catalogue and policy update, others are creating lists of priorities, but the big picture is being formed through all the data, putting it together. The aim is to create a solid foundation, knowing we offer an excellent library service – and we do – but that all the pieces, all 7 domains of a strong school library, are being attended to.
I’m excited to see what comes of it.