SLO 4
The student designs services to meet the needs of all users and communities.
For my LIS 655 (The Public Library) term project, I examined the pros and cons of book leveling within school and public libraries to devise a leveling system for the Ashe County Public Library easy reader collection. Many parents and caregivers find the easy reader collection daunting to navigate as very simple books were shelved beside much more advanced books. My project was targeted to ease the frustrations of a specific user group - easy reader patrons (preschool through 3rd grade) and their caregivers - in helping them select a book that was appropriate for their child to read in terms of content maturity and literacy difficulty.
Much research and controversy surrounds the leveling of children’s books, specifically easy readers, in school libraries. Numerous easy reader publishing companies, such as I Can Read, Penguin Readers, or Random House Step Into Reading, have all devised leveling systems that are designed to match readers with level-appropriate books based on a standardized scale. Other educators and research companies have devised stand-alone leveling systems including: the Lexile Framework, Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA), Accelerated Reader, Fountas & Pinnell Guided Reading, and others. To devise a more flexible, yet effective leveling system, I administered surveys through two LISTSERVs, PubLib (public libraries) and ALSC (for children), where I queried public librarians regarding their opinions on leveling easy reader collections and then combined this data with a few easy reader leveling models found on various public and school library websites.
After analyzing all of these leveling frameworks, the system I devised assigned a different colored dot (green, red, blue, and yellow) to each book and signs were posted in the easy reader section to explain the general criteria that applied to each level. For instance, a level one book was denoted by a red dot, which is characterized by limited text, high frequency words, and strong reliance on pictures whereas a level four blue dot book are designed more as early chapter books with far fewer pictures, more challenging vocabulary, and often more mature content. This leveling system was pretty well received by the young readers and their parents at Ashe County Public Library. However, I did reflect on the fact that this kind of system would be difficult to implement in a library system with a floating collection, such as the Charlotte Mecklenburg system.
Artifact 1 - Easy reader leveling project
Much research and controversy surrounds the leveling of children’s books, specifically easy readers, in school libraries. Numerous easy reader publishing companies, such as I Can Read, Penguin Readers, or Random House Step Into Reading, have all devised leveling systems that are designed to match readers with level-appropriate books based on a standardized scale. Other educators and research companies have devised stand-alone leveling systems including: the Lexile Framework, Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA), Accelerated Reader, Fountas & Pinnell Guided Reading, and others. To devise a more flexible, yet effective leveling system, I administered surveys through two LISTSERVs, PubLib (public libraries) and ALSC (for children), where I queried public librarians regarding their opinions on leveling easy reader collections and then combined this data with a few easy reader leveling models found on various public and school library websites.
After analyzing all of these leveling frameworks, the system I devised assigned a different colored dot (green, red, blue, and yellow) to each book and signs were posted in the easy reader section to explain the general criteria that applied to each level. For instance, a level one book was denoted by a red dot, which is characterized by limited text, high frequency words, and strong reliance on pictures whereas a level four blue dot book are designed more as early chapter books with far fewer pictures, more challenging vocabulary, and often more mature content. This leveling system was pretty well received by the young readers and their parents at Ashe County Public Library. However, I did reflect on the fact that this kind of system would be difficult to implement in a library system with a floating collection, such as the Charlotte Mecklenburg system.
Artifact 1 - Easy reader leveling project
northcote_publiclibrarytermproject.pdf | |
File Size: | 463 kb |
File Type: |
In LIS 620 (Information Services and Sources), I created a pathfinder Libguide targeted toward a specific student user group (juniors and seniors in high school in Ashe County, NC), which curated visual listings of print, non-print, and digital resources that would help them choose the appropriate career field or higher education institution that best fit with their professional and personal interests. This libguide included links to print resources found only within Ashe County Public Library as well as links to digital resources so that many of these high school students, who are located too far away from the Library, could access these resources remotely. I also utilized Camtasia, a video based screen capturing software, to provide a narrated video tutorial of how to use one of the more comprehensive resources called My Next Move, a federally powered site which walks teens through how to take a career assessment quiz and analyze possible career options. Since my target user group was millennials, I thought these tech savvy teens would particularly enjoy this video feature tutorial.
While I was quite pleased with my final product, I feel this libguide was very underutilized as it was not very well marketed. We had flyers posted at the public library to encourage kids to look at the site and the librarians tried to suggest it to certain teen patrons through word of mouth, but it really needed to be promoted more heavily by the school career counselors at Ashe County High School in order for more students to have really benefited from this libguide. Nevertheless, I did feel this libguide directly served a heavily expressed need in the community to assist teens with pursuing post high school graduation career and/or higher education goals.
Artifact 2 - Libguide for Teens
While I was quite pleased with my final product, I feel this libguide was very underutilized as it was not very well marketed. We had flyers posted at the public library to encourage kids to look at the site and the librarians tried to suggest it to certain teen patrons through word of mouth, but it really needed to be promoted more heavily by the school career counselors at Ashe County High School in order for more students to have really benefited from this libguide. Nevertheless, I did feel this libguide directly served a heavily expressed need in the community to assist teens with pursuing post high school graduation career and/or higher education goals.
Artifact 2 - Libguide for Teens