SMP Part 1 Rob Roberts
SMP Part 1 Rob Roberts
The school library media center should be a place where students come to work
in an environment that encourages participatory learning, collaboration, and
inquiry. Students should walk into a space that is friendly, inviting, and makes
students feel at home in the learning environment. At CMS we want to provide
students with comfortable seating areas for collaboration with other students.
Students should be encouraged to bring their own technology to use in the
media center via wireless capabilities. We are not there yet, but we are working
to become recognized as a 21st Century media center full of technology for
students to use. The CMS media center strives to become one of the
community leaders in information and technology, providing not only for
students but also making our media center a place for the community to come
for a variety activities. We have meeting rooms for teachers to use for
collaboration along with space that can be used for larger scale presentations
for students and faculty.
Access for the local learning community
The CMS media center has many things to offer our community in Kingsland, Georgia. We have the
space and equipment to allow groups to come in and put on presentations within the community. We
want to build relationships with local parents by establishing a "Friends of the library program". At
Camden Middle School we encourage the use of all of our facilities by parents and community
leaders. We want to make everyone aware of how vital and important school libraries are to the
general public. Our students are aware of this, but we want to let the community know we are not
just a place that stores books. We will conduct special events in our library to showcase it to the
public. We will have extended hours to provide access to those who may need to come early or late.
We want a full and professional staff trained to take care of the needs of all of our patrons.
Circulation Policy:
Students:
They may check out overnight books for 1 day with a fine of $.25 for
every day over.
May check out overnight books, regular books, and ebooks for an
extended time with no penalty.
All media equipment is checked out without time limits, but must
be checked and documented by the media specialist.
Our media center is warm and inviting with friendly staff working inside. They usually offer a
warm greeting as you walk in. The environment is definitely conducive to learning. Students enter
from the 7th grade hallway and the media center has two points of entrance. Only teachers may use
the other entry. The lighting is good and there is plenty of room in our media center for traffic flow.
The circulation desk is located at the student entry and exit end of the media center. Once inside
patrons have a variety of choices to assist them with their learning. The media center has nice
carpeting throughout the facility with nice wooden tables and chairs for students to work at. There
are also two comfortable seating areas for student collaboration and reading. There are sections for
fiction, nonfiction, reference, biography, computers with e books and easy reading. All of the areas
are well marked so patrons can easily find them. There is a room for the storage of technology
equipment and a storage room that contains technology and other media for teachers to check out.
We have two different computer workstations in the media center for students to work on assignment
with. Each workstation has 5 computers and the workstations are set up with thin clients that work
off of a server. The media center has two ways of entry with wide doors to accommodate special
needs students. Learning tables are large and chairs can be removed to make room for wheelchairs.
Some of the problems in the media center that could be changed in order to make the media
center more 21st century ready would be the inclusion of technology specific areas and upgrades. The
media specialist is currently upgrading the collection of e books and other technology in the media
center. Refer back to the previous chart on the budget and you will see the evidence. A lot of the
budget goes into technology and e books. The entire school along with the media center is wireless
and students can access the network with allowed devices. The media center needs designated
learning centers with LED screens for computer hookup, hard wired internet access, and electrical
plug ins for multiple media devices. These modern collaboration areas are the way to go. All of this
would also have comfortable seating areas that students could work in. Another problem in the media
center is moisture. With budget cutbacks and schools cutting back on the use of air conditioners,
there is an increase in humidity in our school. This humidity is damaging to books and other
materials inside the media center. Our LMS has two huge dehumidifiers the help take the water out
of the air. These machines take as much as five gallons of water per day out of the air!
The Camden Middle School website has a lot of work to do before it could be
considered a virtual library and current with 21 st century standards. In terms of what
Loertscher-Koechlin consider a virtual learning commons, our media center is on its
way but certainly needs some work. By using budget money wisely and
incorporating good ideas from faculty and administration Camden Middle School
media center can become a 21 st century library where students want to come and
learn.
Budget sources:
Current sources of funds and state any formulas that apply (such as dollar
amount per FTE).
Majority of funds are from state FTE monies which are based on $13.03 per student. CMS currently
has 1070 students, so budget should be $13,942.10, but enrollment was less last year, so funding was
probably based on that. We are very fortunate that our principal adheres to the state FTE amountmany
do not.
FY13-14, the media center budget is $13,440.45. Over half of that, $7,129.90, will be spent on books
(paper and e), supplies and instructional/curriculum resources cost $3,246.18, and $3064.37 will be spent
on technology and other items.
The media center follows the GADOE definition of media materials fairly closely: Media materials are
those instructional materials including print, non-print, periodicals, online databases, supplies, and
equipment that are critical to the support and enhancement of
the school library media center program. These materials are housed in and circulated through the
library media center for use by the entire learning community of the school. There is an expenditure test
media funds must be spent on media materials. There are times when we purchase books for a grade
levels use they will not be circulated, but we know they will be used. Also, there are times when the
media specialist is asked to barcode items that she didnt purchase so they can be tracked mostly
expensive equipment.
Typical fundraising efforts such as book fairs and any local supplements or
other
potential sources of revenue.
We hold 2 book fairs per year and net approximately $1200 on each one. We receive about $225 each
year from our local Kiwanis Club specifically for purchasing reading bowl books. We recycle used
cartridges through The Funding Factory and have made several hundred dollars each year quite
painlessly.
We are just now getting started with Mackin Via and they offer several grants each year will have to
look into that as a potential source. Follett has a contest every year, but thats like playing the lottery.
Evaluate the adequacy of funding for the program based on current needs.
Our funding is quite adequate based on current needs and we spend it down to the penny. If we had
more money, we would buy more books and some technology that would stay in the media center, like a
set of IPads for students to use as e-readers and to create book trailers for our reading bowl books and,
etc..or a set of chromebooks for whole-class research. Our media specialist would like funding to be
allocated for an additional media specialist, but we are not sure that will ever happen.
Rob Roberts
Strategic Management Plan Part 3
Stakeholder Survey
I chose to send out a survey via SurveyMonkey. The purpose of the survey was to find out what the
feelings of the faculty are towards the library media center and its staff. In order to make improvements
in the library media center we need to find out what the needs of the teachers are. What things we are
doing correctly and the things that we can improve in order to make our library media center a better
place for students, faculty, and any other stakeholders.
After examining the results of the survey a few things need to be addressed. Many of the teachers felt
that the friendliness of the staff was on par. They also indicated that the staff was very helpful to
themselves as well as the students. Issues that teachers indicated they would like changes in are time to
visit the library, collaboration with the library media specialist, help from media specialist in designing
instructional units, the importance of the library media center, and awareness of library media services.
learning activities that are integrated into the curriculum and that help all
students achieve information literacy by developing effective cognitive
strategies for selecting, retrieving, analyzing, evaluating, synthesizing,
creating, and communicating information in all formats and in all content
areas of the curriculum. Evaluation- STAR enterprise to check
increases in reading levels.
a carefully selected and systematically organized collection of diverse
learning resources, representing a wide range of subjects, levels of
difficulty, communication formats, and technological delivery
systems. Evaluation- stakeholder survey
access to information and materials outside the library media center and
school building through such mechanisms as interlibrary loan, networking
and other cooperative agreements, and online searching of
databases. Evaluation-increased traffic at virtual library website.
instruction in the operation of equipment necessary to use the information
in any format. Evaluation-increase use of Google Docs to submit
assignments done with teacher survey at the years end.
Goal 2.
To provide learning experiences that encourages users to become discriminating
consumers and skilled creators of information
Objectives:
Goal 3 Market the library media center and its importance to all stakeholders to grow media
center use in the next five years.
Objectives:
Make sure that all of the services/programs of the media center are known
by implementing a presentation of the school library media center at the
beginning of the school year to all administration and
faculty. Evaluation-Pre and post faculty surveys to be analyzed
Create a Camden Middle School media center virtual library embedded
with all new technology available to increase student
achievement. Evaluation-embed website with a counter to monitor web
traffic
Create an Animoto video of our media center annual report to post on the
school website and the library media website. This will help to advocate
media center use and allow visitors to see the benefits of the media
center. Evaluation-stakeholder survey
Create a space for teachers to come to relax or
collaborate/work. Evaluation-stakeholder survey.
Goal 4 Increase collaboration and instructional design with teachers in order to increase students
achievement in all content areas
Objectives:
Participate in school grade level and department meetings in order to be full partners in the putting into
practice of the curricula. Evaluation-CRCT pre and post data
Make sure that all of the services/programs of the media center are known by implementing a
presentation of the school library media center at the beginning of the school year to all administration
and faculty. Evaluation-Pre and post faculty surveys to be analyzed
Implement specific times for teachers to come into the media center to work on lessons for student
learning. Evaluation-CRCT pre and post data
.
Evaluation
The evaluation of the library media center will be done on an annual basis to validate the success and
gains of the program. With the established library media advocacy group we will meet twice a year to
discuss the progress of the library yearly objectives and their effectiveness. The library advocacy group
consists of parents, administrators and school board members. They will examine all sources of data
available to the media center to support the media center effectiveness. This data will include but not be
limited to circulation, web traffic, stakeholder surveys, STAR reading data, collection evaluation
including technology sources and CRCT data. The library media specialist along with the library media
advocacy group will make all decisions regarding the progress of goals and implementation of new policy
of these goals. It will be their job to meet to examine and evaluate the given data to apply this to the
goals set forth for the Camden Middle School media center. Should revisions to these goals need to be
made at the end of the year the committee will make these revisions based on the major goals of the five
year plan. By following these guidelines the Camden Middle School media center should be current and
effective in student achievement while becoming a place that students, faculty, and stakeholders feel
comfortable in visiting.
Advocacy
My advocacy plan for communicating the Media Center Strategic Management Plan to all of the
stakeholders and professional library community will involve making the plan available to all parties
concerned by a variety of means. I will use the Web 2.0 tool Animoto to produce a video on the major
components and data of the Strategic Management Plan at Camden Middle School. Once produced, this
Animoto will be posted on the school web site as well as the Camden County Middle School media
website. This way the public, teachers, students, and others can examine what our plans are for the school
media center in a fun, exciting, and engaging format. I will also present this format at our open house at
the beginning of the next school year so that visitors will have an idea of the direction of our program.
The full print version of the Strategic Management Plan will also be available to all stakeholders and
interested parties on the CMS website and the CMS media website as well. This is for those who wish to
view the entire document in detail.