Reflections on ETL 503 Assignment 2

I expect that you, like me, may well be receiving back your second assignment soon. I thought that I'd reflect on the marker's comments as they may be of use to those attempting this task in the future. There is no gripe here, just things that I could have done better that may assist others, especially as it is not always easy to interpret the guidelines in the assessment task itself.Firstly, although I used two measures of collection analysis I should have included other methods, or possible methods, that could be used to measure the usefulness of the collection in the learning/teaching process. There are a number of these given in the readings, for example the Bishop reading.

The needs of the curriculum are paramount in shaping the curriculum and I did not identify these well enough in the opening. I also failed to refer to enough sources, even if they may have said the same thing. I can see that me knowing that is not readily apparent to the marker unless I include the reference for a similar point. I also omitted to refer to Debowski with relation to budgeting in Part A. (Well I had and then I moved it to keep within the word limit. In fact, the same could be said of the extra measures of collection, which I included in the reflection in Part C). I certainly referred to Debowski specifically in Part B and Part C.

I also got into trouble for using an old edition of Learning for the Future. I know that a 2001 edition exists and our library catalogue says that we have it but it couldn't be found. I suppose it shows I'm limited in how far I will search out resources.

The suggestions about the Policy itself are helpful. As many others indicated on the forum, it was very hard to fit in with the word limit. Interestingly, under Ashley's advice I dropped all the specific school standards and vision statements. The marker wanted these included in my policy, even though they were in the Appendix A and I commented more than once on their effectiveness.

I did not include enough aids to selection (I had heaps more from Ashley's study guide and left them off due to the word limit) and I ignored the School Library Bill of Rights, although I knew that others were including this. Once again, all of its statements appeared in some form or another in the original library policy (Appendix A) and I left them out in this form due to space.

I failed to include collaboration in the policy, specifically collaborative development and review,even though I did nominate teachers and head teachers as part of the selection team for resources (as is the case with the present school policy). The policy needed to specify the collaboration taking place in the decision-making process and the benefits of this for ownership of the collection development by all staff. I know that I did use this almost exact phrase somewhere in my four assignments – I think ETL 401 Assignment 1. It's useful to make the cross overs.

The final omission was not to include a policy review date (as, of course, we have on every other school policy document) and reference to the approval by Principal or school Board. I did discuss the need to review in Part C. It is worth noting that, in the Board of Studies inspection, every policy except the Library policy had to be submitted for detailed scrutiny.

As I said this has been for the purpose of helping others with their future assignments. The rest of the detailed comments will help me to go back now and polish up my own library policy – without the pressure of a word limit!