Book Selection: A Middle School Library Perspective from a School Library Coordinator
by Dr. Jennifer Sturge
Once upon a time, I taught middle school for many years. Middle school is unique in that incoming 6th graders are 10 or 11 years old and outgoing 8th graders are 13 going on 14. That’s quite a span in development, maturity, and age. Middle school years are quite literally the years between childhood and teen. Choosing books for a middle school library is not something that any middle school librarian takes lightly. I know, I’ve seen what it takes and have watched middle school librarians work to ensure that their collections meet the needs of each student.
In our district, we have a policy and procedure in place for school libraries. Our procedures include the basics of collection development. For example, books need to have two positive reviews from a reputable review source. Middle school librarians use resources such as School Library Journal, Kirkus, Booklist, and Publisher’s Weekly to read reviews about books they order. We also have available to us a database called Wilson’s Core Collection. This database takes all of the reviews and puts them in one place. It even ranks the books as being essential parts of a collection, supplemental parts of a collection, recommended part of the collection or that a title should be weeded. This is incredibly helpful to middle school librarians as they can read multiple analyses of a book before deciding to purchase for their building.
Another step that middle school librarians take is to get to know their students. They survey student interest and purchase books based on what students have indicated they want to read. Libraries are dynamic places – and having books that don’t circulate or are not of interest to students is not the goal. The goal of every middle school librarian is to get books in the hands of students and have students reading for the joy of reading. To do that, we must know our readers. School librarians are very aware that they must have a great variety of titles in the library to meet the needs of a student who is 11 and a young teen. Therefore, ordering shorter chapter books and books that appeal to pre-teens and young teens is appropriate. Middle school librarians are highly skilled in reader’s advisory and matching the “just right” title with a student.
That’s not all! Not only do middle school librarians read reviews, know their students, and select books that students will enjoy and want to check out, but they also follow collection development plans. In the middle school library, librarians develop plans that allow them to look at collection age, circulation statistics, accuracy, currency, and need. Based on all of this, they decide which parts of the collection to weed (deselect), and where to focus their purchases. If it sounds like a science, that’s because it is. Collection development is a science and an art – there are many components to developing a collection that serves students who are in grades 6 – 8!
In part one of this blog series, Brittany Tignor wrote about her ordering process and while that varies slightly by district, every school librarian follows the components of a good collection development plan in order to serve the unique needs of their students. In the 3rd installment of this blog, Melissa King is going to share about elementary collection development.
