Information Services for Students 501

A key role for TLs is to provide STUDENTS with an effective information service.
SLASA and Learning for the Future offer some suggestions that I have summarised:

• select resources that support the information needs of the school community
• enable maximum use of access of resources
• instruct students in specialist ICT tools and services
• ensure the library is a focal point for learning
• provide a friendly learning environment where students feel confident their information needs will be met

TLs need to be able to identify the range of different information needs of the students within the school. This includes age, level or socio-economic background. In order to start identifying information needs undertake a community profile.
Profiling your community

Students with special needs.
TLs have a responsibility to identify students who have a multitude of special needs, including physical, emotional, psychological, intellectual, behavioural, specific learning difficulties/disability, chronic medical conditions and ESL.
ESL students need extra support for literacy, numeracy and opportunities for reading in their first language. Therefore the TL needs to be aware to provide a variety of resources not only for the students but also for their teachers in order to support the ESL students learning.

Information services to students & information literacy
Information services are provided to support student learning & adequate information literacy support is essential. Students need instant reminders in the library to help students find and use information efficiently and effectively. Students need to (over time) develop the skills to search the OPAC, databases and Internet and find information. The library needs signs to facilitate information retrieval. This topic reinforces what I must do in my school library - devise posters and signs to remind students of the information skills process (when we get ours up and running) in order to assist their information retrieval. Posters I think are effective because they remind students of the essential steps involved - they are a visual cue - great for visual learners. However, posters do need revising to keep them fresh to maintain student interest. My school library is in the process of creating a library web page - I think it will be though Moodle. This will have (I will make sure it has) internet search techniques, search engines and information on website evaluation.

Evaluating Information Services - Guidelines

To improve their students to students TLs need to evaluate the services they provide. using the Massachhusetts School Library Association (MSLA) has a set of guidelines for evaluating information services.
http://maschoolibraries.org/dmdocuments/rubric.pdf

In browsing through these rubrics I think there would be an issue in meeting the "Exemplary" standard. In achieving these standards it would be difficult to do considering staffing and fiancing of school libraries today. None of what is outlined in the guidelines will be achieved to exemplary standard without more money for school libraries.