Julia G. Anderson Georgia Southern University Dr.

Chester FRIT 7134 Spring 2012 Collection Development Project March 4th, 2012

I. Description of the site/environmental scan Duluth Middle School is located in Gwinnett County, GA and is one of the largest middle schools in the county. This year we have approximately 1,950 students enrolled and 128 certified staff members. Over half of our certified teachers have advanced degrees. Our student to teacher ratio is 15 to 1, which slightly higher than the state average.

The school was built in 2004 and has adequate space with a centrally located library. Currently we have a full-time media specialist and a part-time media clerk. The Media Center is well equipped with both fiction and non-fiction titles, with 17,442 titles in all. There are 30 research computers in the library as well as 30 additional computers in an attached lab.

The Duluth area has changed significantly over the last decade. With the economy in a slump, we have many more transient students than in the past. We have approximately 42% of students eligible for free and reduced lunch. There is also a much higher percentage of English Language Learners (ELL) each year. Last year was the first Duluth Middle did not meet Annual Yearly Progress (AYP). The principal feels that the poverty level and the amount of students with limited English proficiency are contributing factors to this decline.

Demographically speaking, we are quite diverse as a school community. Currently the racial breakdown of our student population is 26% White, 25% Black, 21% Asian, and 27% Hispanics. We are very proud of our diverse population and feel that our students respect and appreciate the differences in backgrounds and cultures.

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Our school subscribes to GALEs Literature Resource Center, an online literary criticism database. This is a wonderful tool, although one that costs our school money each year. Our media specialist is concerned about the well-being of the school library program due to recent budget cuts. Fortunately we have two public libraries within 2 miles of the school which can provide inter-library loans. Also, many students live within walking distance of the public libraries if they need access to learning materials or computers on nights or weekends. For this collection development project, I decided to focus on 6th grade social studies. Currently, we have 650 6th graders, 11% of whom have disabilities (LD) and 13% of whom have limited English skills (ELL). Most of our ELL and LD students learn in the regular education classrooms for inclusion and will receive modifications as needed. Duluth Middle has 7 social studies teachers and each has adequate time for team collaboration.

Our test scores have dropped over the years, and last year we fell just below the state average in reading. 90% of our students met or exceeded on the Reading portion of the CRCT compared to a 91% state average. In social studies we are consistently scoring above the state average with 78% meeting or exceeding compared to a 64% state average. II. Curriculum review/mapping Australia is a major unit of study in 6th grade social studies and is heavily addressed in the Georgia Performance Standards (GPS). According to the standards, 6th graders are expected to learn the geographical, cultural, historical, and economic features of the continent. Several of the seven 6th grade social studies teachers use fiction and nonfiction materials to teach students about Australia. I was only able to find one teacher who said he had collaborated with the Media Specialist on an Australia project. In this case, students were sent to the library to complete a scavenger hunt on Australia. Another teacher told me that he used childrens books (k-2) as read-alouds to introduce the topic of Australia with his classes. In the chart below I have outlined how each standard can be taught to give students a great historical and cultural learning experience of Australia. I have included several new ideas on how to teach and assess each standard.
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Topic Australian Geography

Standard SS6G12 The student will be able to locate selected features of Australia.

Instructional Strategies & Assessment Products Watch a film describing the land and its geographical features. Read a fictional book of choice that pertains to the Great Barrier Reef or the Australian Outback. Use an Atlas to trace a map marking physical and political features. Use an Almanac to track weather patterns in Australia. Analyze the impact of weather on agriculture. Plot on a graph showing how many people live in each region and analyze the reasons why some regions are more populated than others. Write a letter to your parents describing in which part of Australia you would like to live if given the chance to participate as a foreign exchange student. Use nonfiction books from the Media Center to create a scrapbook on Aboriginal Culture (art, dress, living conditions, religious ceremonies, professions, etc.) Create a Before and After chart showing the effects of British colonization on the Australian way of life. Write a fictional story describing a day in the life of a modern day Aboriginal student. Then use a similar plot to write a fictional story for a non-indigenous Australian student. Watch film on Captain James Cook and the discovering of Australia. Create a timeline showing British exploration, colonization, and modern advances on Australian culture. Debate the pros and cons of sending British prisoners to Australia.

Australian resources & population

SS6G13 The student will explain the impact of location, climate, distribution of natural resources, and population distribution in Australia.

Culture & Customs Then vs. Now

SS6G14 The student will describe the cultural characteristics of people who live in Australia. SS6H8 The student will describe the culture and development of Australia prior to contact with Europeans.

European Influence

SS6H9 The student will explain the impact European exploration and colonization had on Australia.

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III. Collection evaluation Step 1: Condition of Materials (A qualitative strategy) Evaluating the current collection took several hours and much consideration. After a walk-through of the Media Center it was evident that many of the books needed for 6th Grade Social Studies were worn and outdated. Several books, especially in the nonfiction section, needed new binding or simply needed to be discarded and replaced with updated materials. Even though my first impression was not the best, I have to admit that our library is probably more advanced than some of the others in our state. We have a decent size collection (over 17,000 titles) and more technology than the average school. The materials order section lists additional titles that I feel will improve the quality and quantity of the current collection.

Step 2: Relevance of Materials (A quantitative strategy) The current collection of books on Australia was minimal and slightly outdated. I discovered this when I performed a Destiny Quest query using the words Australia, Aborigines, Captain Cook, and Great Barrier Reef. The results of the query displayed 42 Nonfiction titles and 49 Fiction titles that were relevant to the topic. I was a bit surprised that the Media Center contained more fiction books than nonfiction books on this topic.

Step 3: Classification of Materials (A quantitative strategy) Next, I created a spreadsheet to document the Dewey classification of each title to see which areas were strong and which were lacking. Not surprisingly, history and social science were stronger than most of the other areas. One area in which I didnt expect to see so many titles was science, which topped all of the others in quantity. The science books were mostly studies on animal and plant life.

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Breakdown for Non-Fiction Titles

16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 300s - Social Sciences 500s - Science 600s - Technology 700s - Art 900s- History

Step 4: Age of Materials (A quantitative analysis) Finally, I assessed the average age of the collection to see if it needed to be updated. As it turned out, our collection is a bit older than I would like it to be. The average age for the entire Australian collection was 2001, with the average nonfiction title being published in 2000 and the average fiction title being published in 2002. In my materials order, you will find titles considerably newer. It is difficult to justify using books rather than the internet if your average book source is twelve years old, the same age or older as the sixth grade students themselves.

On a final note, the current collection has more weaknesses than strengths. Although I found many multi-cultural titles (approximately half of the collection fit into this category), I was unable to find a single book written in Spanish. With a student population of 27% Hispanic, I expected that we would have some resources to meet their needs. As far as e-books or audio books go, I was unable to locate a single title. I was also unable to find any films relating specifically to Australia in our current collection. Thankfully our school subscribes to UnitedStreaming.com, but I still feel that hard copy AV materials are a must. The quality of a DVD is far superior to streaming the data. United Streaming does not always have the most upto-date resources to meet a classrooms needs.

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IV. Materials order, including budget summary Several considerations went into how to best spend my $4000 budget. I decided to use Folletts TitleWave as my primary vendor because that is what our schools Media Specialist uses for the majority of her purchases. I found TitleWave to be very comprehensive and user friendly. I began my search looking for titles on Australia, then Australian Aborigines, which turned up hundreds of wonderful titles. Then I narrowed my search to The Great Barrier Reef, Captain Cook, and Australian Government, which produced a few additional titles.

I was able to find several multicultural books (18 titles) without any trouble, but it was a bit harder to find Spanish titles that were relevant. I used the advanced search option on TitleWave, which allows users to narrow their search by language. I was then able to locate 8 Spanish titles that were significant to my topic. I was surprised to find so many great AudioVisual materials in my search. Because my schools library contains no AV materials on Australia, I decided to purchase audio books, several films, and even a few CDs with traditional Australian music. (Please see the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet to see a more in depth breakdown of the titles I chose.)

I also decided to purchase some titles from Delaney (deebooks.com) and Amazon (amazon.com). Delaney had a few titles that were not available on TitleWave. I didnt like Delaneys website quite as much as TitleWaves, because the reviews for the books did not appear along with the description. This feature on TitleWave saves a lot of time for Media Specialists who are trying to find quality books that have been professionally reviewed. Amazon is helpful in that it not only contains professional reviews, but also customer reviews. Most of the titles on Amazon were sold at a discounted price as well, a definite perk for a librarian on a budget.

To balance my new collection on Australia, I tried to find titles that represented a wide range of categories on the Dewey scale. Most of my nonfiction titles came from the 900s (history, geography, biography) and the 500s (plants, animals, economic geology). I was also able to find some wonderful titles in the 300s (social science, culture, government, economics) as well as the 700s (arts, music). Although I was hoping to find more fiction books about
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Australia (19 titles), I feel like the ones I found were very significant to the topic and would also appeal to students. Many of them received excellent professional reviews from Kirkus, Horn Book, or School Library Journal.

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In an attempt to serve children with various reading abilities, I tried to choose books suitable for a wide range of ages. Most of the books I picked were classified as Young Adult. I also chose a large number of books from the 3-6 and 5-8 grade level recommendation. I made sure to include some titles for teachers, some adult/everyone books, and some beginners level books. As previously stated, we have a large percentage of ELL students at our school, many of which need books with simple language and illustrations to understand core concepts. We also have one Social Studies teacher in particular who frequently uses childrens books in his class to teach the unit on Australia.

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Because of the rapidly changing nature of cultural and political information, I decided to put together a Personal Learning Network (PLN) page to help students and teachers locate information and tools pertaining to Australia. The PLN can be viewed at: http://www.netvibes.com/juliaganderson#Gneral. NetVibes allows me to share research databases, news articles, and even movies with students. A PLN is a great way to store up-todate information in one central location. Because the feeds come to you, it constantly updates itself. Hopefully between the books our Media Center currently owns, the new books I have suggested to purchase, and the information on my PLN, students would be able to find the resources they need to fully explore Australia.

Rubric
Unacceptable Rating Site Description (AASL Standard 1a, 4b, 4c; c, pk, sl) 1 No site description information is included. Acceptable 2 Site information (numbers of students and faculty) is reported but no learner analysis is included. Relevant QCCs/GPS reviewed and summarized. No information is provided about accessibility of additional resources. School site is thoroughly described. Learner analysis is complete and clear. Target 3 Your Score/Comments

Curriculum Review (AASL Standard 1a, 4b, 4c; c, pk, sl)

No curriculum review included.

Collection Evaluation (AASL Standard 4a, 4b, 4c; c, pk, sl) (This element counts twice)

1 or 2 collection evaluation techniques used. No summary included. Materials order

Materials Order/Consideration

3 different quantitative/qualitative collection evaluation techniques utilized. Evaluation data clearly summarized indicating collections strengths and weaknesses. Order includes materials in print and

Relevant QCCs/GPS reviewed and summarized. Information about other accessible resources is included. Classroom teacher data gathered, included information about activities and projects related to the content area. 4 different quantitative/qualitative collection evaluation techniques utilized. Evaluation data clearly summarized indicating collections strengths and weaknesses. Materials selection includes wide range of 9

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File (AASL Standard 1a, 1b, 1c, 4a, 4b, 4c; c, pk, sl) (This element counts twice)

represents primarily print titles. Key elements missing from consideration file. No list of web resources included.

one or two other formats. Reviews used to select some of the materials included. Consideration file elements are complete. A list of web resources is included.

media formats. Materials selection based on reviews from journals and other professional resources. Consideration file clearly addresses all areas of collection that could house materials on the topic (i.e. fiction, other secondary Dewey #s, etc). A well organized list of key web resources is presented using an appropriate Web 2.0 tool.

Special Considerations

Materials order clearly addresses needs of learners identified in site description. Multiple formats and materials in other languages address needs of all learners. Presentation of the While all required Tables, charts and information elements are included, graphs included as no effort has been appropriate to made to use summarize appropriate information presented. technology skills to Budget summary clearly summarize and includes appropriate present the break down of information. materials by format. Narrative/text is focused and direct. NOTE: Please do NOT include copies of the reviews with this assignment. Your Score:

No materials identified for special needs learners, ESOL students or multicultural focus items. Assignment is poorly organized. Budget summary is not included.

Some materials ordered to meet some areas of special consideration.

Rating Scale:

Score 8 9-15 16-19 20-22 23-24

Rating Unacceptable Unacceptable Acceptable Acceptable Target

Grade 65 75 85 95 100

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