reference collection evaluation jen wilson

8/3/2019 Reference Collection Evaluation Jen Wilson

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Reference Collection Evaluation

By: Jennifer Wilson

Description of Site

McGarrah is a part of the Clayton County Public School System and located in Morrow, GA, which is 13 miles south of Atlanta.

McGarrah Elementary School is one of 39 elementary schools. The school is home to 676 Pre-K 5TH grade students (including 3

Special Needs/Autistic units) and 47 high-qualified faculty & staff members. McGarrah Elementary has made AYP for the past 9 years

and has been a Title 1 distinguished school for 7 years.

The schools media center is located in the center of the school and houses a collection of 22,032 print materials and 155 DVD

and 742 video titles (total of 897 in all). The school has a variety of technology-based materials (digital cameras, flip cameras,

document cameras, notebook carts, TurningPoint Clickers, and much more) for teachers to use for instruction enhancement. The media

center has 16 computers within the center and 1 computer lab with 30 computers that are connected to the media center. The media

center also contains a media room where the 4 th and 5th grade SCORE students create, produce, and broadcast the morning

announcements/news.

Each teacher has been given a laptop to use for work and at home. Each classroom is equipped with an LCD projector, an

InterWrite Board or a pull down screen with an InterWrite Pad, 2 4 desktop computers, a DVD/VCR, and some classrooms contain

TurningPoint Clickers and Document Cameras. Our school is also equipped with several new notebook carts for classroom use.

The reference collection at McGarrah Elementary School is very small, old, outdated, missing parts of a set, in need of repair,

and in most cases not used. There are 566 reference materials, which are housed on 2 large bookcases and several rolling carts forclassroom use. The reference collection consists of 3 sets of World Book Encyclopedias (newest is 2004), a few 2007 Almanacs,

Atlases with small globes for different grade levels (these are out newest purchase and the most up-to-date in our collection), and

dictionaries that are also outdated. Each classroom is provided with a class set of dictionaries (that do not match, are old, and outdated)

and in some classrooms a few out-of-date thesauruses. The media specialist would like to purchase newer materials, but that can be

accessed through an online subscription and/or software. Our school did very well on the CRCT, in that we met our school goal, but

there are still many areas for improvement. One of those areas is in reference skills. I dont think the solution is to weed out all of the

text materials and old materials, in order to add new online materials. I do think the outdated and some old materials need to be


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replaced with newer and more updated materials, but in some instances, some of the old materials could be used to teach students,

especially our younger learners, about the differences in our culture now and in the past.

The Media Center also provides students and teachers with a variety of magazines and teacher resources, including Family Fun,

Mailbox, Time, etc. But, due to recent budget cuts, the media specialist has chosen to use her allotted money in other ways, therefore,

not renewing many of the magazine and resource book subscriptions.

McGarrah Elementary Schools website and many of its teachers websites offer parents and students a number of online resourc es

(websites) to assist students with their work and their learning.

Brain PopEduplaceGalileo

Google EarthNew Georgia Encyclopedia

Encyclopedia.comMaps, Global Map, and World Atlas - National Geographic

Fact MonsterMerriam Webster's Open Dictionary

World Book KidsWorld Almanac for KidsYahooligan's Almanac

Budget Information

Due to the economy, McGarrah Elementary Schools media center is lacking the funds needed increase and update many of the

collections within the center, especially the reference section, as its materials are too expensive and used less often by our students.

Luckily, because my school is a Title I funded school, the media center was recently given a budget of $10,000 to spend on updating

and adding to her collection, which my media specialist chose to add to the science and social studies collections and to purchase

additional AR tests, but did allot a small portion of that money ($350) for updating reference section materials. Due to the media

specialist wanting to focus on purchasing and updating our science and social studies collections, so I tried to choose reference

materials that were science and/or social studies related as much as possible.
http://www.brainpop.com/http://www.brainpop.com/http://www.eduplace.com/http://www.eduplace.com/http://www.galileo.usg.edu/kids/links/http://www.galileo.usg.edu/kids/links/http://www.google.com/earth/index.htmlhttp://www.google.com/earth/index.htmlhttp://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Home.jsphttp://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Home.jsphttp://encyclpedia.com/http://encyclpedia.com/http://maps.nationalgeographic.com/mapshttp://maps.nationalgeographic.com/mapshttp://www.factmonster.com/http://www.factmonster.com/http://nws.merriam-webster.com/opendictionary/http://nws.merriam-webster.com/opendictionary/http://www.worldbookonline.com/wb/Login?ed=wb&tu=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.worldbookonline.com%2Fkids%2FHomehttp://www.worldalmanacforkids.com/explore/http://www.worldalmanacforkids.com/explore/http://www.yahooligans.com/content/ka/index.htmlhttp://www.yahooligans.com/content/ka/index.htmlhttp://www.yahooligans.com/content/ka/index.htmlhttp://www.worldalmanacforkids.com/explore/http://www.worldbookonline.com/wb/Login?ed=wb&tu=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.worldbookonline.com%2Fkids%2FHomehttp://nws.merriam-webster.com/opendictionary/http://www.factmonster.com/http://maps.nationalgeographic.com/mapshttp://encyclpedia.com/http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Home.jsphttp://www.google.com/earth/index.htmlhttp://www.galileo.usg.edu/kids/links/http://www.eduplace.com/http://www.brainpop.com/


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In addition to purchasing new print resources, a wiki is being provided to students, parents, and teachers to assist them with

additional online reference resources.

http://supplementalreferencecollectionwiki.wikispaces.com/

Reference Collection Order

Vendors: Amazon and Britannica

Reference Materials Order - J.Wilson

Budget =$350.00

Amazon(http://www.amazon.com) Author Publisher Price ISBN Dewey

Classification Grade

Language

Publishing Date Reviews

First Space Encyclopedia (DK FirstReference) [Hardcover] DK Publishing DK Children $11.55

978-0-7566-3366-0 REF

Reference

Everyone English 01/21/08

TIME For Kids Almanac 2012[Paperback]

Editors of Timefor Kids

MagazineTime for Kids

Books$10.19

978-1-60320-883-

3 REFReferenc

eEveryo

ne English 6/14/2011/

Total $21.74

Britannica(http://www.britannicastore.com)

Britannica Online School EditionEncyclopedia

BritannicaEncyclopedia

Britannica$333.0

00-85229-

937-0 OnlineReferenc

e PK-12 English 2008School Library

Journal & Booklist

Total $333.00

Grand Total $354.74

Materials Weeded from the Reference Collection

No materials were weeded at this time as our school is going through renovations this spring and summer and the media specialist

requested that we wait to weed the reference section until inventory was completed and things were ready to be boxed up.
http://supplementalreferencecollectionwiki.wikispaces.com/http://supplementalreferencecollectionwiki.wikispaces.com/http://www.amazon.com/http://www.amazon.com/http://www.amazon.com/http://www.britannicastore.com/http://www.britannicastore.com/http://www.britannicastore.com/http://www.britannicastore.com/http://www.amazon.com/http://supplementalreferencecollectionwiki.wikispaces.com/


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reference collection evaluation jen wilson

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