What do you need?
Selection
A school library’s role is to inspire and excite young readers and meet their educational demands. So, stock has to be appropriate in terms of the curriculum, interests and reading ages of the pupils. As well as giving children the resources they know they want and need, the good school library can take them beyond the known into new worlds. Selecting, maintaining and withdrawing stock needs to be systematic and continual so that the library is kept current, attractive and relevant.Policy should be within the school’s overall resources policy, or the library policy. Key issues are acquisition, promotion, maintenance, use and the range and balance of the stock.
Assessment criteria
When choosing stock, think about:
- Purpose
- How relevant is this book / resource to pupils and staff?
- Does it achieve what it sets out to do?
- Des it appeal to the target age group?
- Suitability
- reading age / interest age
- format
Children’s interests – is the library’s non-fiction stock intended to support the topics taught in the curriculum, or should it reflect the interests of the children as well?
