Stephania Burton is the current Media Specialist at Socastee Middle School and her path to her current role started in North Carolina where she was a teacher, a Media Specialist, and worked as the digital tech to the teachers at 42 sites for over 10 years. Once she moved to South Carolina, she was hired for her current job. Her technology experience is something she loves, and she has integrated it into her daily duties as a media specialist. When asked which standard she wanted to discuss, she selected Curate as she feels it can be more complex for her district.
I asked her how she is
implementing Curate in her library. She discussed how she is fairly new at this
school, so she is now started to weed the library after being able to assess it,
purchase books to finish series that are missing books, and focus on getting
the collection to be Lexile focused. She stated that Horry County has moved to
the Lexile rating system and they want the library collection to reflect that
for the 6th, 7th, and 8th grades that are in
the school.
We then discussed what
resources she uses for Curate in her library. She stated that Titlewave is a
big piece of what she uses to not only see the status of her collection, but to
find reviews and keep wish lists of books she may purchase. She also uses her
Professional Learning Network of other Media Specialists when she is finding out
about books that her library lacks or a genre need. She also uses her School
Library Journals for information about the latest releases or other commentary
on current books that she finds relevant. One source that she does not use currently,
but is on her list of goals, is social media. She knows that there is so much
information out there regarding other libraries and their collections on social
media and she needs to take advantage of that resource. Also, one of the ways
the students can help her with curating her collection is completing the students’
input form on what they hope to find in the library. She keeps a student suggestion
form in the Schoology system in the media center folder that they can complete
at any time.
Finally, we discussed her
collaboration with teachers and challenges she faces with curating her
collection. She stated that each year she tries to understand what the teacher’s
curriculum includes so that she can stay current on their needs regarding materials
and lessons she could teach. She also likes to do fun activities with the
classes such as book tastings or breakout games. For her to add any books to
her collection, she must have them approved via a committee that consists of
herself, administration, teachers, and parents. It is a lengthy process and
requires a great deal of research and presentation skills to get it ready.
Since this is more complicated, she only adds to her collection 2 or 3 times a
year.
