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LLC: Effective Practice Guide

Supporting Effective Practice in our Library Learning Commons in SD57

Basics

Each collection is unique. There is no one size fits all model.

  • Will be influenced by demographics
    • Socio-economics
    • Urban vs rural
    • Cultural background of students
    • Interests of students

Ultimately a collection should be a reflection of you and your school. Your clientele should drive the collection more than anything else.

However, there are some things that must be included in every collection regardless of the views of the school community or personal views of the teacher-librarian. These are:

  • SOGI (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity) affirming resources
  • Anti-Racism resources
  • Diverse viewpoints - books by authors of a variety of cultural backgrounds
  • Indigenous perspectives

A comprehensive guide to collection development and diversity can be found here:

Fiction

Each school decides how to order their materials. Some choose to use the traditional Dewey system of the catalogue, some choose to use a genred system similar to a book store.

Dewey Decimal Genrified
Pros Cons Pros Cons
  • Matches the catalog
  • Easier to find things
  • Books by the same author are always grouped together
  • Hard to know what a book will be about without taking it off the shelf
  • Harder to browse
  • Can find books based on interest
  • Similar styles of books are close together
  • Books by the same author may be spread around
  • Harder to find books by searching the catalog
  • Not all books fall neatly into categories

 

Non-fiction

There are five types of non-fiction

  • Browsable
  • Active
  • Traditional
  • Expository Literature
  • Narrative

It's important to balance the different types and know the kinds of readers who enjoy each one.

From School Library Journal:

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Tools for Selecting

Online (English):

Online (French):

People:

Other Librarians

Staff at Books & Company, tinlids, Saunders, United Library Services.