(c) Selection, Ordering and Processing of Materials

While I have not actually been through the purchasing process, I have discussed selection and purchase procedures at length with the librarian responsible at Brigidine. At Brigidine books are bought constantly throughout the year (well, until the budget is exhausted). Subjects also have their own resources budgets and they too purchase materials throughout the year. Some schools purchase resources in one bulk order or in a number of smaller orders; however our library buys resources continuously so they are able to better respond to teacher’s requests and curriculum demands. A portion of the budget is always kept aside specifically to purchase books requested by students or extra copies of books that have proven popular with students (the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer is a good example of this). Student interest should always be reflected in the collection, and in a girls school this is particularly evident in the fiction collection. Books that may not have conventionally recognised literary merit (such as Meg Cabot’s Princess Diaries series) are amazingly popular with the year 8s and 9s and thus, have real merit because they encourage reading as a practice. They may start with just reading popular series (not that there’s anything wrong with that:)) and (hopefully) as they grow and mature they will progress to reading a variety of texts in a habitual way that will continue throughout their entire lives.
Audiovisual resources are an important aspect of the collection. Teachers are e-mailed a list of programs that might be of relevance to their curriculum, if any are of interest they can request that they be recorded. During my time in the library I have become very competent with all aspects of DVD production including recording, editing, finalising, cataloguing and labelling. I am also familiar with the range of online databases subscribed to by the library including: Encyclopaedia Brittanica, Austlit, Electric Library and Echo Contemporary Issues.

Areas Identified for Further Development: Resource selection and purchasing.