Collection Development

Collection development is a key part of school library professional practice. Collection development in school libraries involves selecting, acquiring, and maintaining a diverse range of materials that support the curriculum and student interests for reading for pleasure. It includes evaluating resources for quality, relevance, and inclusivity, ensuring a balanced collection of books, digital content, and resources. Optimising use of layouts and organisation systems to remove barriers and enable access offers flexibility and reflexivity to school libraries and school library staff. Regularly reviewing and updating the collection helps meet the evolving needs of students and staff.

Diversity

Can your students see themselves reflected in the books on your shelves? When they search for books, are their experiences, lives, cultures, identities or skin colours visible in the books available to them? If you've never stopped to think about this, chances are you've never experiences not having books reflect your experiences. This isn't always the case for students. It's vitally important that our collections are inclusive, open doors to other experiences and allow students to see themselves reflected back at them in positive ways.