CASLS+Newsletter+30


 * May 11, 2011 **
 * Ronda's Corner **



Please update your multiple copy lists as per our discussion at the meeting yesterday! Let us know whether or not you are coming to the dinner so I won't bug you. Enjoy our beautiful weather!!!!!

We should all be doing reports for your superintendents. These are some great suggestions, gleamed from LmNetto do this year or to put in place for next year.



[] [] [] http://schoollibrarywebsites.wikispaces.com/Reports Include library usage: number of students visit on average per day, classes per year, types of research projects & collaborations, book club or student volunteer highlights, professional development, collection development highlights, goals for the following year such as technology integration, etc. Although circulation statistics are the usual things to report, these usually are not significant to administrators unless you've boosted fiction circ 20% over the year, for example. I would upload my datafile to Titlewise (a Follett online free service) and use the summary of your collection for part of the annual report. Also, you should calculate the number of classes taught, students and staff served. Professional development sessions you offered. Number of new books added to collection. Number of weeds. Hours of support time/week or/ month. % of your time as teacher, % of your time as collaborator, % of your time as program administrator, % of your time as information specialist. I include budgeting information, programming information, student counts, and circulation stats. I also include quotes that pertain to each section. An example would be for collaboration. I include a quote that shows how important the media specialist is to collaboration. This shows the school board and principal how important we are to the school. I include circulation stats, profits from book fairs and birthday books, programs, an inventory summary and any changes made in the library program that year. I know high school librarians also often track # of kids coming into the library for research, etc. You are basically proving your worth in your annual report! We supply every statistic that our Circ.system, Alexandria,brings up in its "Super Summary." For the elementary schools, this includes how many books are AR. There are probably AR statistics available, too. Then, we also keep track of how many classes use the Library and its computer lab and how many students come on passes from classes and study halls. For the #of students per class,we use an agreed upon multiplier-25,28,30- whatever you and the principal agree on. This produces enough data to be helpful, but it does not seem overwhelming. I just handed in my annual self evaluation. It is not an annual report per se. I included all kinds of statistics, # of books circulated, # of students before school, after school, during study halls, database usage stats, # of classes scheduled in the library, # of teacher requests, # of student questions: academic, directional, computers/ printers, # of walks ins: I broke out special Ed since that is a high number for us. # of kids who we babysit in the library because they can't take gym. We have to fill in a sheet with circulation statistics, holdings, etc. but I always do a narrative too. I talk about which teachers I collaborated with, fun lessons I taught, our before and after school crowd, challenges, victories, etc. This year I'm planning to do at least part of the report on either Animoto or Xtranormal to show some of the kinds of sites we're trying to encourage teachers to use. For the last several years, I've included a sentence along the lines of, "Whew. We made it through another round of budget cuts and we're still here!" I talk about ways we'd like to be included as the district goes more toward netbooks for textbooks, etc. These are some of the things I include in my annual report: Numbers of items added to the collection Total circulation statistics Circulation statistics by grade level Comparison of circulation statistics this year with past years Examples of collaboration with teachers The standards for my state in library media and a paragraph or two on how the library has met each standard An analysis of the collection--total # of books, how many in each dewey section, how much fiction, etc. The goals for the year and how I've met those goals and new goals for the following school year • # of classes that have visited (obtained through your sign up calendar) • # of individual visitors you have had throughout the year (obtained through your sign in sheets) • # of database hits (if you pay for databases) • List of collaboration lessons • Perhaps a collection report available for free through Follett or Perma-Bound. You upload your marc records and it spits out a very professional looking report. • Statistics from your automation system (total circulations etc.) • Feedback from your yearly survey I do a monthly report and then at the end of the year an annual report summarizing the entire year. What I include in the monthly: circulation statistics (both faculty and student), use statistics (again, separated out by faculty and student)—not always exact, sometimes I forget to record use, so I estimate, Interlibrary loan stats—both borrowed and loaned, curricular units taught during the month, processing activities (# items added, repaired, discarded, etc.) including items purchased including amounts spent, as well as noting donated items, programming notes if any (contests, guest readers, popcorn reading night, etc.), positive notes if anything extraordinary occurred, additional information (can include complaints worded as nicely as possible when necessary): “The library was closed for testing on 7 days of this month, lowering the circulation and use statistics, as well as the number of books processed. I received 75 new books this month, but have only been able to finish processing 24 of them.” The annual report would be a summary of all of the monthly stats and highlights, as well as a reflection of the year and plans and projections for the next year. Here in New York, the state provides $6.25 per student for library materials. Because I don’t receive this much, I always mention this in the end of the year report, including the average price of new books, and figure the average I am actually given to spend per student. I haven’t included it, but as I’m writing this I think I’ll add requests that were not able to be filled.
 * 1) of books weeded, # of books lost, participation levels of reading