fyi : back issues
Autumn 2005 - Blueprint for libraries - management and promotion
Creating a learning space
Joy Board
How do you manage the creation of a learning space? Beaconhills College is situated east of Melbourne in the Pakenham growth corridor. It was originally a single campus institution, but as waiting lists for enrolments expanded it was apparent that we could successfully plan to open a second P-12 campus. The College wanted to use the expertise available from existing staff in the planning phase for the development of our second campus, to be known as the Village campus. As I had previous co-ordinated the redevelopment and extension of the senior library at the Valley campus of the College, my input was sought.
Proactive planning
Once general concept plans for the site layout were drawn up, including the location of the school library, I was invited to meet with the architect to review plans for the library. I clearly remember the conversation when the architect referred to the number of square metres the library would occupy and reassured me that I would be “very happy with that, as it was plenty large enough.” I begged to differ! Discussion immediately became focused on national standards and minimum space requirements.
The ensuing consultations resulted in my supplying the architect with a brief, which included a very rough concept sketch, and a copy of Learning for the Future (Skilbeck & Luton 2001). Subsequent plans demonstrated a much clearer understanding of our needs and were more flexible and practical. With the newly appointed Head of the Village campus I attended a two day conference on library design. The Property Manager, a builder who had a large influence on building plans but little experience of libraries, also attended a SLAV conference with me. As a result I was included in discussions, shown plans and asked to comment on drawings for floor layouts.
It was resolved that while the library would be built in stage 2 of the campus development, it would not all be available as a library until construction was completed. The space for the library for the first twelve months was to be a normal classroom, while in the following year it would occupy a small section of the planned final space with temporary internal walls. Issues like computer points and power points were the subject of consultation and explanation of the long-term vision for the space. I proposed a redesign of the student desk layout for the Electronic Learning Centre so computer screens could easily be observed from the circulation desk.
To maximise economies of scale it was agreed that we would maintain one library system across the College, so decisions had be made regarding cataloguing which reflected the needs of the proposed users of the new library. All staff contributed to a procedures manual. This manual was just a small part of the infrastructure which included a collection policy, challenged materials policy and bibliography style, and library course guidelines for P-7.
Organising the basics
Somewhere in all this a memorable moment occurred late one Friday afternoon when the Head of the Village campus called and asked me, “How is your weekend looking?” I think my response was something like, “I suspect not as good as it was five minutes ago.” A dollar figure to set up the new college with a basic library collection was needed – if possible by Monday, with the more detail the better!
I got out the calculator, prepared and presented the ideal and then suggested a figure I thought was likely to be achievable. Later that year I was given a proposed budget and asked to prepare definite plans and obtain quotes for any library furniture. Choosing shelf and furniture colours was challenging as the colour scheme for the stage 2 buildings had not been finalised and the shelving we bought now would be moved into the new buildings. Fortunately, collaboration resulted in a choice that works.
What other specialised equipment would be needed and when? We brainstormed and drew up a shopping list that included such basic requirements as accession stamps and post-it-notes. I was also asked to draw up position descriptions for staff and later participated in the shortlisting and interview process.
Acquiring resources
I was given a substantial budget to purchase resources for the new campus. Courses needed to be checked and needs prioritised. Reading and genre lists in publications like Back to Books (La Marca 1999a, 1999b) were invaluable as I selected resources across all genres and age levels in both fiction and non-fiction. After considerable negotiation, and with the promise of spending the bulk of the budget through one bookseller, I was able to obtain a discount well above normal.
Booklists had been compiled for the new campus and copies of the relevant texts needed to be obtained for staff. Most large publishers will provide free copies of texts for staff in the first year they are listed on a booklist, so I sorted the books by publisher and made phone calls. I repeated this process in the second year of operation of the Village campus and estimate this has saved the College about $5000.
All of these new resources needed to be obtained and processed quickly for the start of the school year. I made the decision that apart from writing orders and processing the consequent invoices no Valley processing, apart from teacher requests, would be done for the remainder of the year. This meant that Valley school library staff, with the assistance of our existing band of loyal helpers, could concentrate on preparing resources for the Village campus.
We added to our growing Village collection by asking parents to donate books. Boxes of quality books were delivered during three information nights for parents of students due to start at the new campus. Parents purchased from among these books and were entitled to have their names placed on plates in the books. This way we avoided duplicate copies and immediately acquired more resources to process.
Technology
Even in the classroom library there were eight computers for student research, and in stage 2 the library included a purpose built computer research lab with a multimedia projector and whiteboard. The Beaconhills College Valley campus has an extensive library home page and intranet, including a wide range of excellent subscribed databases that we wanted to have equally available and accessible to our students at the Village campus. I contacted all our database providers and explained that our intranet was to be College-wide and therefore all our online databases needed to be accessible from both campuses.
All providers were very supportive and understanding of the financial pressures of establishing a new college and library, and all were appreciative of being told of our plans in advance. Companies were prepared to monitor the change in usage and negotiate any increases in fees accordingly.
Taking shape
The Village student data was loaded onto the library system and the library was set up in the classroom. Being confronted by mountains of boxes when you don’t know what they contain is very daunting, so again it became a team effort to layout shelves and unpack boxes of books and other resources.
When the library finally moved into another segment of its final space, more shelving was needed and we could at last upgrade from a table to a circulation desk! Again the piles of new resources were processed. A mobile shelf unit was used to keep the workflow organised and the sixteen shelves ended up ‘chockers’, with the fiction books shelved two deep.
Our job was completed, ready for the new teacher-librarian to convert the physical space into a learning place.
Now and the future
So where are we now? Have we achieved a learning centre? Could we have done any better?
Remembering that we did all this while library services to Valley campus students continued normally, I think we have achieved the goal. The collaboration between the Valley and Village campus libraries continues. The culture and structure for creating a learning space are in place ready for development and the individual stamp of the newly appointed Head of Information Services at the Village campus.
All this was achieved through planning that allows for space and resource growth. The teacher-librarian and library staff were included in the inaugural planning and continue to be involved in the ongoing development of the new learning centre. As the school grows the library will gradually move into new spaces with the required facilities already existent. Physical resources are in place and ongoing collection growth is assured by current budget structures. The library intranet, shared by both schools, is managed via a Library Intranet Committee that meets each term. Our library home page and intranet, which at this stage is the work of the Valley campus staff, includes examples of scaffolding for learning and professional development for teachers.
Our email and phones still run hot at times, as equipment and ideas are shared. We are all still on steep learning curves as we grapple with the challenges of developing and managing a new learning space.
References
Skilbeck, W. & Luton, F. (eds) 2001, Learning for the Future: Developing Information Services in Schools, 2nd edition, Curriculum Corporation, Carlton South, Vic. La Marca, S. (ed.) 1999a, Back to Books: Creating a Focus on Fiction, volume 1, School Library Association of Victoria, Richmond, Vic. La Marca, S. (ed.) 1999b, Back to Books: Creating a Focus on Fiction, volume 2, School Library Association of Victoria, Richmond, Vic.
Joy Board is Head of Information Services at the Valley Campus of Beaconhills College and an active member of the Pakenham Branch of SLAV.