Selection Policies OR Procedures Manuals

[S Brisco <sbrisco021@CHARTER.NET>]

In a few weeks, I am beginning a new position as the Middle School / Upper
School librarian for a private school in Ft. Worth, Texas.  Yesterday I
spoke with the lower school librarian (there are only two librarians on the
campus) and asked to see the selection policy and the procedures manual for
the library.  She told me that despite the fact that there have been at
least four librarians in my position there during the past thirty years,
there has never been a selection policy or a procedures manual for the
library (and to make those of you without your MLIS degree feel even
better...all of these people had an MLS degree but didn't feel the need to
create this document.)  I have no idea why the elementary librarian has not
created one but regardless of the reason, I don't feel secure without these
documents.

I have experience writing these documents since I have written three of them
for the last three schools I worked in.    However, my previous library
experience was at the university level which had both documents (and which
were not appropriate for this school) and my last school library (K-12) was
for a school for the blind which completely changed my entire selection
policy--I addressed large print, books on tape, braille, and raised or
tactile objects such as globes.  After searching around the house for the
past three hours for this disk without any success, I've decided that I must
have left it with the school.  Now I nothing with which to start the
process.  Rather than feeling overwhelmed,  I've decided that perhaps there
were better policies and procedures manuals out there, or perhaps some that
reflected the needs of a private school better than a public school library.

If you have copies of either a public school OR private school selection
policy OR procedures manual on disk and wouldn't mind sending me a copy or
either OR both, I'd love to be able to "steal" your ideas, combine ideas
that work for us, and create an entirely new one for this school.

Since most of these documents are lengthy, please send this information as
an attachment to an email directed to me rather than to the listserv. I
appreciate your help and would be more than willing to send you a copy of MY
completed documents back to you when I'm finished.

As a postscript:  I know that some of you who are in graduate school and who
are taking these types of classes may need to see policies and procedures
manuals from a variety of school libraries.  Since my library is a private
school library serving 5-12 grade students, I won't mind sending you a copy
of MY newly created policies and procedures manual when I am finished.
Please let me know and I will send you one.

Thanks for helping!

~Shonda Brisco
Upper School Librarian
Trinity Valley School
Ft. Worth, TX
sbrisco021@charter.net

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