Day 5: How to decide what is most important

I having been worrying over the fact that my circulation of books has dropped dramatically in the last few years.  When I took over in my library, the previous librarian had put very little of her budget into the acquisition of fiction, and especially paperbacks.  In fact I don't think there was a paperback in the entire library, though perhaps that is an exaggeration.  I set about increasing our fiction, only buying paperbacks and housing them on spinners so that students could see the covers of as many as possible.  I also got comfy sofas and set up areas where students could sit and read, play chess or quietly talk.  (As a side note, I hadn't realised that chess is actually a contact sport with middle schoolers and high school students.  Not at all quiet!)

I studied book stores and got ideas on how to display my collection to the best advantage.  I also took my advertising campaign out of the library and around the school.  My circulation started to climb.  I encouraged teachers to bring students in for books talks and though it was mainly middle school classes which came, there was a real buzz about books going on.

Once I had a good collection established and a protocol set for adding new books to the fiction collection, I moved on to my non-fiction collection.  Yes, we are in the age of the internet and internet research.  So, as I have asked myself often in the past, are print books still necessary for students to use for research.? That is a whole other question and I have answered it for myself and won't go back over it here.  Needless to say, I am still buying books, both print and 'e' and students are still using them.  My non-fiction collection is a bit more problematic than the fiction.  It was easy to weed my fiction collection but not so easy to weed non-fiction.

I was discussing this with a man who came over from another school to help me come to terms with certain aspects of our VLE.  He was disappointed that I would consider weeding books on topics that were not part of the curriculum.  I made the argument that if they were never going to be taken off the shelves what was the point of having them there.  Then he reminded me of 'serendipity'.  How would someone come across a book in my library by chance, on a subject they might never have considered, if I got rid of them.

Do you remember that happening to you?  I do.  It has led me to an interest in subjects I might never have considered.  I have become less aggressive in my culling after that conversation.  However, I know that one day another librarian will look at some of the books I've added and wonder, as I do about my predecessor:  why in heavens name did she buy that?

I've wandered away from the title of this post.  I started with the idea of discussing which should be of most importance to me as a librarian - literacy and encouraging it and assisting students in developing information literacy skills.  They are interrelated, I hear you say.  Yes, they are but I am the only person in my library and focussing on both of these equally has become difficult.  By answering this question, I am hoping to find a way forward.

(More musings on this tomorrow!)