Ck Out Policies Pt 2

[Debra Ventling <DebraVent@AOL.COM>]

Hi Group,  Two days ago I posted a question about ck out policies and have
been amazed by the responses.  I need to clarify 3 points.  Although our
policy is a district one, it was not made by the board, but by the media
specialists.  All students have free access to the media centers at all
times.  The elementary students come to the MC once a week for checkout, but
are welcome to come back as often as they want.    The same is true for the
middle school.  Also, the child in question was not allowed to check out a
book because the one she had out was overdue.  Here is the 2nd part of my hit.

**We tell our elem. students two for fun and what you need for your
assignments.  This way we have a limit on
the most popular like I Spy and  other non instructional favorites, but never
create a situation in which a child
can not have access to materials needed for assignments.  We make exceptions
for individual students who are
avid readers or have some other special circumstance.  This is usually after
a discussion with the parent and or
teacher. Our kids have daily access for book eschange so this seems to work
for us.  The other part of the
discussion with the students is if they have more than the two for fun they
need to stay on top of things overdue
wise.  We limit students with long term overdue problems to one at a time if
we feel it is necessary.  You might
try to explain one reason for the limit is to provide access to all students
as a mater of equity.

**In our district the same stipulations are put on the student checkouts.
Kindergarten and preschool get one
book, 1st through 5 get 2....I'm not sure about 6th-12th. It works well some
of the time. I have had problems
when 4th and 5th graders go to do reports. They have a book checked out for
reading, one checked out because
they've read it, but need it for a book report, and then they can't check out
books to use for the science or social
studies reports. I can do an override on the automated system, but it is time
consuming. Another problem...when
I was in school, we got to go to the library anytime we wished. It was there,
we got to use it. Not so I'm finding
in the larger districts. There is a scheduled "checkout time" once a week and
that is the only time a student gets
to check out. Excuse me, but a kindergartener checks out a book on Tuesday,
takes it home and reads it, and
doesn't get another one until the NEXT Tuesday. I don't feel that is
instilling a love of reading, and definitely
not good reading habits. If this is happening in your district, then I can
see why a parent would be upset. I am
strongly against once a week checkout times. I no longer have them here at my
school, and as this is the first
year teachers have not had them, many balked at the idea. And are still doing
so.  But the kids love the free
access to the library. Having open access to the library has cut down on
overdue books, but has increased
reading and library usage, and I don't feel they need to have more than 2 or
3 books out at time. I've gone off on
a tirade. I hope I haven't stepped on any toes. But you don't know me, so I
guess I can say anything I want,
right? You can even delete these message and say, "WHy do I get all the
nuts?" and I won't know the difference.

**Rights???  Are there rights to books spelled out in our constitution???  I
WISH!   I asked for comments about
increasing the number of checkouts or doing away with limits altogether.  I
haven't posted a hit because of some
e-mail problems, but I'll try again & maybe it will work this time.   Right
now I'm sticking with the same limits
you have, because I have virtually no help with shelving.

**I can't resist responding to this hit.  Why would you limit the number of
books a child may check out, unless
your collection is very small?  Don't we as adults get unlimited check out at
public libraries?  Where will
children learn how to handle unlimited check out unless they get the
practice?  I have unlimited check out in my
K - 6 library, I lose very few books and I feel kids love to read here.  When
I first became a librarian, I did have
a limit on the books a child could take.  Then I noticed that the non
readers, the children who did not like to
read, etc. figured out that if they took 2 books home and left them there all
year, they would never need to check
out another book.......that convinced me that a limited check out was
detrimental to my goal of all kids reading
all the time....so I changed my policy, I have unlimited check out and it
works for me. I feel it trains kids to be
responsible for books and trains them for adult use of libraries.

**Debra - our policy is 2 books for middle schoolers and 3 for high school
students.  My opinion is why does
anyone...myself included...need more than 2 books at anytime?  You can only
read one at a time and maybe
have another one for research purposes.  Other people might like to be
reading the extra books that I have sitting
around waiting to be read because I can check out an infinite number?!  Just
an opinion. Our policy also says
that if a middle school student has one overdue...thay can't have any other
books out. When I get the overdue
back, full privileges (2 books) are allowed.

**I don't think our library policy is necessarily board policy.  We are a
small K-12 library so that might make a
difference.  Kindergarten and 1st grade check out one book for a week.  2nd
grade checks out 2 books, 3rd grade
3 books, etc. all the way to Seniors who can check out as many as 12 books
for two weeks.  Middle school and
above check out books for two weeks.  This seems to work well.  They can
bring them back at any time, not just
during their scheduled library time.

**I am a second year librarian and limit, with common sense, the books
children check out.  This means if a
student is responsible and does not have overdues consistently, he/she can
check out 4-5 books.  To do this, I
must override the system.  Sometimes, I have students who check out more, but
rarely.  I feel I can check out 7
books at the public library (and do); yet, when I get home, some are not what
I had anticipated.  I want more
choice so I feel the student needs more choice.  Like one of my professors
stated: "As long as there are books on
the shelves, I will check out books with no limit" (within reason, of
course).  The teachers have more of a
problem with this than I do. I am in a small elementary school (275) and had
fewer than 10 books lost last year.
So, I feel that it worked okay.  When a student asks, "How many books can I
check out?" I ask,  "How many
books do you want to read?"  Another reason for not limiting which I find is
that sometimes the students must
check out books for class projects, and in so doing, would use up the limit.

**The schools on our shared online catalog have agreed to the following
limits on checkout.  The media
specialist can override at checkout to allow a student to check out more
books.

Pre-K through 2nd grade - 2 books at a time
Third through 5th  - 3 books at a time
6th through 8th - 5 books at a time
High School - 20 books at a time

I see the limitations as a balance between personal responsibility and the
size of a library's collection.

**There are many considerations in changing your check out policy.  Of
course, the obvious one would be the
size of your collection.  I am a librarian at a private Catholic high school
with a collection of just over 7,500.  I
limit checkouts to six items (books, videos, pamphlets, magazines) so that
they don't deplete a particular topic.
You might increase it by one or two but make sure that a student does not
check out all of your books on a
particular subject.  Food for thought...but whatever you decide make sure
that it is a good decision for the entire
student body and not a result of the presure of one parent.


**Our 16 elementary schools limit # of check outs to 2 for K-6, with
additional books allowed for research
purposes.  In grades 7-12, we allow 3 (again, the librarian can override that
at his/her discretion).

**Please post a hit on this.  We are about to move into a new system and will
be looking at those policies again.
Have some library assistants who equate their "success" with allowing larger
numbers of books to be checked
out in order to inflate their stats.  Just wondering how other schools look
at the issue.

**Our schools are allowed to set their own maximum check out policies.  For
my HS, I allow them to have 5
items out at any one time.  This helps me maintain the integrity of our
collection in a couple of ways:

1.  A single student cannot check out all of the materials on a given
subject, leaving none for others.
2.  It limits our potential losses, because some students never bring back
anything and never pay fines.  (We also
don't allow check out if a student has an overdue.)
3.  Elementary students especially aren't capable of keeping track of an
unlimited number of books.  Allowing
them to come and exchange books daily usually solves this issue, in my
experience.

**Our checkout policy allows the Kindergarten students to check out only 1
book at a time.  Grades one through
8 may take two books at a time.  Starting in fifth grade they may also check
out one magazine with their books
and two magazines starting in 6th grade.  We have set our maximum checkout at
5 items allowing them a
couple of items for doing research projects.

**In our elem. LMC, the 2nd graders check out 2 books and so do the 3rd and
4th graders.  Our policy is that
they may return them anytime and checkout new books.  There has been no
problem.

 **Our policy allows K-2 to check out 2 books at a time.  The 4-6 can have 3
books at a time.  Any time that
they bring those books back, they may check out more- before and after
school, during free time, etc.  And I
let anyone that is doing a report for a class to have whatever they need- but
only 3 recreational books.

**I don't see that you are violating her rights.  It's not as if she can
never check out more than 2 books for the
entire year!!!!  If she is responsible with the 2 she takes, then she can
take 2 more, right?  To help her with that
responsibility, you are allowing her to take an amount she can remember.  If
there were an unlimited amount, I
would be willing to bet that the first ones checked out would end up at the
bottom of the locker or desk as new
ones were checked out.  Letting them just keep on checking out books promotes
irresponsibility- it is easier to
check out another one than it is to look for the 5 that I have somewhere
else- in the car, under the bed, etc.

**I believe that the district policy should stand as it is. You didn't state
whether or not you are automated.
I am presently in a K-8 School with a 16,000 volume collection, 38 classes a
week, an aide for just 3 hours a
day and in the process of trying to get the bar codes onto the books so we
can begin automation. Since Sept 6,
we have less than 300 books done. I let K-3 take only one book per week.
Grades 4-8 may take two, unless they
have a special report due in which case the books are signed out under the
name of their teacher. If we changed
this # to more than 2, the record keeping would be insurmountable. Stick with
the 2 books. Let me know what is
decided.

**I have a k12 library.  We allow k to take 1 book, first takes 1 or 2, 2nd
takes 2, 3rd takes 3 and 4,5,6 take as
many as they would like.  We are a school population of about 35-40 students
per grade.  If I have an over
ambitious student who wants to take out 13 books, I caution him/her that
these books are due in 1 week and can
he/she read all of those in 1 week? Usually the students are quite reasonable
about the books they take and I do
not have a problem.

**How often do students check out?  We allow elementary students to check out
2 books at a time; however,
they may exchange books daily.  It is my feeling that if you increase the
number of books young children may
check out, you will also increase the number of books lost and damaged.  We
allow kindergarten students to
check out only one book.

**Our elementaries check out 1 book at a time for a week (they can checkout
as often as they want); Junior
High gets 2 books for 2 weeks; and High School gets 3 for 2 weeks.

**I also limit the number of books they can check out, but they can come back
twice a day and change them out
if they want.  Would that work for you?

**We are an independent 1-12 school. Our lower school students can check out
the same number books as their
grade for grades 1-5. Grades 6-12 may check out 5 books at a time, although
we occasionally let them go over
the limit for special projects. Hope this helps.

**We allow a total of four.  If they have lost one or one is overdue, then
they can only check out 3 more.

**We don't have a district policy, but at our 4 -6 school, we say 2 books for
pleasure. Then they may have large
group literature books out, 2 books for project/research, one for the local
Battle of books program(sponsored by
our local public library), and when I see they really forget a booka nd want
another , it's ok with me.(the old
line- with special permission!) You can see it's loose. We have flexible
scheduling so they are in and out all the
time.works well for us

**We have no district policy, but I have set a limit of 3 even here at high
school and it works well to keep
things in circulation to someone who is actually using (rather than
hoarding).  I always explain that as soon as
they're finished with one they can return it and get another for their
project and that if they're assiduously
attacking one full time they didn't need the others anyway.

**I also limit checkout to two books for 2-5 grade and 1 for kindergarten and
first semester for first.  I also tell
them that if they would like a different book before their library day they
return their book(s) and get other ones.
This helps those who are always needing more.  Explain that if you allowed
more that you will be losing more
due to lost books and books that never get returned or paid for.  I sent a
letter home explaining our checkout
policy to parents and had them sign it.  I also mentioned how the following
year we lost 15 books at about
$15.00 per book to replace for a total loss of $225.  I hope this helps.


Part 3 to follow.

Debra Ventling
Berry Middle School Lebanon Ohio
Devbravent@aol.com

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