PASSIONATE ABOUT SCHOOL LIBRARIES
Being slightly competitive (at least when it comes to my school library) might have been one of the reasons I created a leadership collection.
As part of reinvigorating our non-fiction collection, we have genrefied and added books on a range of topics. One of those new sections is our Entrepreneurship collection, which features a strong collection of leadership books. This collection happened quite by chance, but now that I look back, it makes so much sense.
The benefits of reading fiction are well established. Reading supports wellbeing and mental health, develops comprehension, expands vocabulary, develops empathy and aids sleep, just to name a few. The lists of benefits from reading fiction, immersing oneself in an imaginative world, of joining a character and facing their world and emotions, are endless.
But how does non-fiction stack up? Does reading non-fiction provide the same benefits to readers as reading fiction does? Diving into the research around this turns up some interesting results.
I get it, a non-fiction collection, especially one that hasn’t been touched for a while can be extremely overwhelming. But all it takes is that first step.
I’ve been writing about how I have been reinvigorating the non-fiction collection in my secondary school library. But why? Aren’t school libraries culling their non-fiction and students turning to online sources? I believe that non-fiction still plays a vital part in the school library for all ages. Here’s my thoughts around the importance of non-fiction, why it deserves pride of place in any school library and how to get it right in your school library.
Non-fiction has been a bit of a hot topic in school library discussions in recent months and for good reason. On one hand we are embracing genrefication and challenging the status quo of using problematic library layout systems and on the other hand school librarians are investigating the importance of non-fiction and its place in the school library.
I started my process of reinvigorating the non-fiction at the start of 2022 when I took over my current library. I was only unofficially acting head of library, but I didn’t let that stop me from making some big decisions and prepping for change. In post 1 of this series, I shared about how I started and what my plans were, in post 2 I shared how all those plans had to change and the benefits that had. Now in this third post, surprise surprise, plans changed again (or were just delayed). This section of our journey to reinvigorate the non-fiction collection is from term 1, 2023.
I am in the middle of reinvigorating the non-fiction in my secondary school library. Non-fiction has been a bit of a hot topic in school library discussions in recent months and for good reason. On one hand we are embracing genrefication and challenging the status quo of using problematic library layout systems and on the other hand school librarians are investigating the importance of non-fiction and its place in the school library.
Note: I wrote the my first post in this series back in June of 2022, after just six months of taking over as acting head of library services at my current school library. I was delayed in posting it, and then I was given the news that we needed to pack up the secondary school library and put the majority of the collection and shelving into storage and move into a temporary location. This meant my plans to weed the secondary library non-fiction collection before we moved into our brand new space had to be halted. I didn’t have enough time until we had to vacate our space and the non-fiction collection would all be in storage offsite for at least a few months, so I wouldn’t have access to it to weed or genrefy it. All plans were halted and I had to go about things very differently, or at least a lot more slowly. This post covers what I did in Term 4, 2022 to continue to reinvigorate the non-fiction collection.
Non-fiction has been a bit of a hot topic in school library discussions in recent months and for good reason. On one hand we are embracing genrefication and challenging the status quo of using problematic library layout systems and on the other hand school librarians are investigating the importance of non-fiction and its place in the school library.
Note: I wrote the below post back in June of 2022. I didn’t post it, as I was waiting to get a few photos to add to the post. Then, we received news that we’d have to pack up the secondary school library and put the majority of the collection and shelving into storage. Including the non-fiction collection. All plans were halted and I had to go about things very differently, or at least a lot more slowly. Here’s how I started the process.
I was reading a recently published book about school librarianship and was surprised to discover a few throwaway comments about genrefication. It was represented negatively and raised the usual comments you might see on Facebook posts or in email lists, arguing against genrefication. I’ve decided to call out some of these comments and write my responses and thoughts to each of them. I’ve worked in many school libraries that have both genrefied collections and collections in traditional layouts. I am unashamedly for genrefication, but I have also been in schools where we chose not to genrefy some collections. It just wasn’t for the reasons below, and here’s why.
It’s the end of the school year and that means it’s annual report time. Or does it?
When I mentioned to a colleague this year that I needed to put together the library’s annual report, I was a little shocked by their reply – “Why bother. No one is going to read it.”
It made me reflect on why I create an annual report each year and why I firmly believe it is worth the time and effort to create an annual report.
Do magazines belong in the school library? It’s not really a question I ever asked myself until recently when it came time to audit our magazine subscriptions. But in our changing world, do magazines still belong in school libraries? If student interest drops, is it time to unsubscribe?
The first school library I volunteered and later worked in had a lovely magazine collection. It also had a most magnificent non fiction collection, but that’s another post entirely. The magazines were well used, as indicated by loan statistics and student use for browsing and reading during reading lessons.
This year, when I took over the library at my current library, I undertook a bit of an audit of the magazine collection. The magazines in the secondary library were hardly touched, let alone borrowed. Some of this could attributed to our new location while we awaited renovations. The magazines had to be tucked into a back corner. But stats from the previous years demonstrated loans half of that from my first school and only 12 loans total for magazines from the secondary library. It wasn’t for lack of promotion or choices. We had over 25 magazines in the secondary library and just a few in the junior library. Yet the interest and use of magazines in the junior library was huge. Massive loan stats, sneaky visits from junior students to the secondary library to borrow some of our titles, interest and love for magazines from the junior students was high. Continue reading
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