Campus Librarian's Handbook
Campus Librarian's Handbook
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Developing Policies, Rules, and Guidelines
Developing Policies, Rules, and Guidelines
Sharing one library across many schools means that consistent policies are essential to ensure equity of library use. Clearly communicating these policies is crucial. Thoughtful policies, rules, and guidelines allow students from different school cultures to co‐exist in the shared library space.
Developing Policy
Developing Policy
Topics that policies, rules, and guidelines should address include access and use, collection development, challenged materials, Internet acceptable use, circulation procedures, and scheduling.
Share these policies on your library’s web site, and make sure each principal and your campus manager knows where to find them. Share print copies with principals if that is more aligned with the culture of their school.
The table below highlights a few issues that are of particular concern for the campus librarian. As the table notes, policies should be engineered to meet the library goals you have set. The questions and practices in the table are ideas for you to consider as you create these goal-driven policies.
After the table, we discuss a couple of issues in more depth. These are not the only policies, rules and guidelines you will want to consider. The New York City School Library System publishes the NYC School Librarian Guidebook, which contains “blueprint to the policies, standards, and procedures that enable library personnel to develop, organize, and manage exemplary school library programs.” The templates and guides offered there will help you develop policies to support all the schools in your library community.
Library Goal
Library Goal
Question
Question
Best Practices
Best Practices
Open access and scheduling
How can multiple schools share library?
Create a scheduling policy that ensures equal access
Use a publicly visible calendar to schedule events (We recommend Google Calendar with color coding for each school)
Create a pass system or use student IDs to collect data on student library usage by school
How can the library handle multiple bell schedules?
Clearly indicate bell schedules as part of library signage.
How should the library schedule students coming from lunch or released from class?
Create a uniform pass system or sign-up for all students (ex.first 50 passes given out or first 50 students to sign-up.) Make color-coded passes for each school so you know where students coming from.
Welcoming Special Events
How should the library balance special events with open hours and instructional programming?
Clear communication with principals and campus managers about events such as picture days, orientations, testing, meetings, etc.
Add these items to the library calendar for clarity. Use events info in your monthly and/or annual reports.
Create a guide to special events in the library. Include a floor plan so they know how to reassemble the furniture, and clean up expectations.
Make each event designate a point person for clean up and removal of garbage, moving furniture, etc.
Book Circulation
How can librarians ensure equal access to resources?
Create a policy for book borrowing.
In campuses with multiple age levels, establish a borrowing guidelines that help students make appropriate choices while preserving their intellectual freedom.
Use circulation data in monthly and/or annual reports.
Library as Hub of Campus Community Culture
How can librarians build community and emphasize the library as a community space?
Include parents and teachers in your CLAC.
Promote library events through campus communications.
Facilitate or encourage cross-campus clubs related to technology, gaming, books, etc.
Engage teachers in collection development and needs assessment whenever possible
Librarian Self-Care
How can librarians care for themselves?
When will you eat lunch and prep? Make sure to include this in your schedule.
When you’re absent: how should the library be treated when you are gone? If there is no checkout, for example, make that clear. No one can check out unless they have your password.
Scheduling and Space Sharing
Scheduling and Space Sharing
Emphasizing that the library is for everyone is crucial; however, the library can’t always be for everyone at the exact same moment. Having clear policies and procedures for scheduling is a good way to ensure that the library can be used to its fullest potential by everyone in the campus community.
Campus librarians need a scheduling policy that reflects an open and flexible access philosophy.
Two keys to successful scheduling and space sharing are organization and communication. We recommend using a Google Calendar or other publicly visible calendar that updates in real time. Make yourself the point person for the library calendar. Ask all school staff to email you, or use a Google Form, to schedule events in the library. This will help avoid double-booking.
Making the calendar public will also help with transparency, and show how valuable and well-used the library is. Color coding each school on the calendar will also give an at-a-glance sense of who is using the library, and who may need to be encouraged to participate more often.
BEST PRACTICE: Include a line in your email signature with directions on how to book the library (to reserve the library, email me! or click this link to schedule the library!, for example). Place those directions prominently on your library site.
Collection Development Policy
Collection Development Policy
The NYC School Librarian Guidebook offers a comprehensive guide to collection development that is essential to all NYC school librarians. Beyond these guidelines, however, campus school librarians have additional concerns as they are developing one collection that must serve many school communities. The following elements will help you develop your collection with maximum input from campus library stakeholders.
Teacher Input: Use input from teachers from all the schools according to their area of expertise, to assess the collection for its relevance to the curriculum, quality and currency. Let them know that their input means that library purchasing will be targeted to fill gaps they identify.
Curriculum Maps: Use the curriculum maps from each school to determine how well the collection aligns to the units being taught.
School Themes: Does your collection support deep learning around those themes? Administrators and teachers may be able to suggest essential titles that support school themes.
Student Input: Have a suggestion box in the library, and keep track of student requests that they make in passing. Ask students to tweet or Instagram books that they’d like to see in the collection. Use your own social media accounts to solicit their ideas.
Vendor Resources (if available): Follett (Titlewave) and Mackin both provide great tools for collection development and inventory. Using tools provided by your vendors is a great way to manage these processes. Your vendor reps will help you set up your accounts in a way that simplifies working with multiple budgets. Make sure to ask!
Available Data: Information such as age levels, the percentage of English language learners and the first languages spoken, circulation statistics, and the percentage of students with reading or learning difficulties can help you build a relevant collection.
Challenged Materials
Challenged Materials
If materials are challenged, notify principals at all schools about the challenge via email. Include your policy in the email (a sample email is included in the resources for his section). For more information on policy regarding challenged materials, see the NYC School Librarian Guidebook.
Lost and Overdue Materials
Lost and Overdue Materials
Make sure your policy is consistent with school and district policies. Consult with your Library Operations & Instructional Coordinator at the New York City School Library System when developing the best policy for your campus.
No school may withhold student grade reports or other records due to lost or overdue materials. The New York State Education Department has long held that a public school may not withhold grades, a transcript, or books from a student for any reason. A student is entitled to those items as part of a free public education guaranteed pursuant to Education Law 3202.
If fees are allowed, collection and use of any fees for overdue and lost materials must be coordinated with the school and comply with Chancellor's Regulation A-610, Fundraising Activities And Collection Of Money From Students §IV & §V. School administrators should establish accounting procedures for these funds. These funds are best used to maintain the library collection; discuss with your schools’ principals and the building manager how these funds will be managed.
BEST PRACTICE: House your policies in an accessible place online so the community can access them as needed.
Resources and links
Resources and links
- NYC School Librarian Guidebook
- Collection Development, NYC School Librarian Guidebook
- Challenged Materials, NYC School Librarian Guidebook
- Challenged Materials Sample Email
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