Jan L. Granger

Standard Four   Program Administration

II. Managing Program Resources    III. Comprehensive and Collaborative Strategic Planning and Assessment

I. Managing Information Resources: Selecting, Organizing, Using

The media specialist is in charge of selecting, evaluating and purchasing current and appropriate materials to add to the library collection.  The collection must meet the needs of the users- students as well as staff- and it needs to complement the curriculum of the school.  The library media budget is often small, so I will need to select the best materials that fit the schools needs, both for personal reading and curricular support. 

Artifact and Reflection

While working as a media assistant at Dr. Martin Luther King Middle School, I used professional journals and online resources to develop a book order for the media specialist to use for purchasing items for the school.  I gathered student requests, teacher wish-list items, and analyzed the collection to locate areas that needed additional current material in order to support the curriculum. I used professional sources such as School Library Journal, Book List, Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books and Title Wave to locate content-appropriate print and non-print items for consideration. The artifact "Spring 2002 Book Orders" is the Excel file where I compiled all of the materials I thought our media center should purchase.  The first sheet of the file is the general order encompassing all areas of the library collection.  The second sheet focused on the area of greatest need in my media center at the time: Biographies.  Included in both sheets are the cost, ISBN, publisher, location of reviews, and summary of the work.  Titles which are highlighted in light blue deal with multicultural and women's issues. This exercise in preparing a book order proves I understand how to select, analyze, and evaluate print, non-print and electronic resources using professional selection tools and evaluation criteria to develop a quality collection designed to meet diverse curricular and personal needs.

Updated 4/28/2004 J. Granger