How does a book end up in a School Library? A MASL Blog Series on Book Selection
In the past few years, it has become popular to question book purchases in school libraries during school board meetings and on social media. Some of these questions come from a place of curiosity or knowledge seeking, but others seem to suggest that school librarians are randomly choosing books without thought or process. There are few if any areas of library science that are done without thorough review of best practices, research, and users in mind. Selecting books for a school library is no different. While each county may have slightly different policies and procedures, best practice dictates that purchasing books includes collection analysis, list generation and purchase recommendation, administrative approval, purchase, and addition to the collection. Over the next few weeks, MASL will be publishing a blog series that explores Maryland School Librarians’ book purchasing processes and procedures. There will be three blog posts in this series; one will focus on high school, another on middle school, and a third on elementary school. These posts are written to be shared with your school community, so please distribute widely!
