Collection+Review


 * COLLECTION REVIEW**

One of the collections that need to be more developed is the area of Georgia history. I did a visual inspection of the media center to have a better understanding of the collection. The media center consists of three tall book cases and one long book case. The non-fiction books are located on one of the tall cases with posters posted above with the information organized by the Dewey Decimal System. The biography section is also located on the non-fiction case with a distinguished “B” to separate it. Fiction books are also located on a tall case and organized alphabetically by author’s last name. The encyclopedia set is on the last tall case awaiting more reference books. The ‘easy’ case is the short, long case and the only one located in the middle of the room. Each book has an informational sticker consisting of reading level, AR points, quiz number, author and title.

I then searched for all the books related to the focused state standards. All of the books are in great condition since they are all brand new. I found books located in fiction and non-fiction and there was information relating to the topics in the set of encyclopedias. I was able to look at our online database to see that only one of our fifth grade teachers had checked out some books on the Civil War; I can tell that we need more on this topic to better support our upper grade standards. The current collection hosts 1,361 books in addition to the set of encyclopedias. Throughout the collection, the average copyright date is 1995 or sixteen years old, which is six years older than recommended. It’s quite odd considering we have a brand new collection. We are at approximately four books per student, and our current goal is fifteen books per student. Size deficits are greatest in the Easy, General Fiction, and 500s sections. The oldest areas are the 200s, 300s, and 600s. As far as books for my focused standards, there seemed to be some information but not near enough. I did not find any books that were the focus on Georgia history. I used the term ‘Georgia’ for my search and received zero hits. I did search for Civil War and received twenty-two results from non-fiction (5), fiction (10), biography (5), and easy (2). The oldest fiction book in that search was from 1957, and the oldest non-fiction was from 1990. The majority of the works were from the 1990s which I feel needs to be more updated considering the age of the library itself.

I also looked at the circulation history. We only have this year’s data to observe. We currently have 651 books that have been checked out this year. My non-fiction content area would be located in the 900s. There are seven books in the 900s that related to my focused standards. They have hardly been checked out this year. It made me think if it’s just not measuring exactly to the curriculum or due to having a part-time media specialist.

As I have already noticed there are no books relating to Georgia state history, there is a large gap left in the standards for future eighth grade students. Also, the biographies that were required were not available; it only included had a tiny amount on Abraham Lincoln, Booker T. Washington, and Sequoyah.

Looking at the collection that was related to the standards, several of them pertained to multicultural literature since the standards covered the Trail of Tears and African American heritage. Even though it only narrowed on those nationalities, we at least have some multicultural texts. We need more especially on the individual figures and the hardships of the Cherokees and Creeks during the Trail of Tears.

Summary of Collection Needs:
 * Select more videos as there are not any available in the library. Gear videos to incorporate the specified standards on Civil War and Georgia history and early U.S. history.
 * Select more non-fiction and reference books on key issues in the standards as they will be more needed for special projects and assignments.
 * Select more fiction books relating to the era and the state of Georgia.
 * Select more texts on multicultural especially Native Americans for students to learn more about other cultures.
 * Select more biographies on influential African and Native Americans and prominent Civil War people.