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DO YOU KNOW YOUR COMMUNITY?
The following are some of the questions a good librarian should ask about the community being served. The answers can form the basis for
developing a service policy for the youth of the community.
I. Within the geographic area served by the library:
- What is the total population (all ages)?
- How many young people under age 19 are there? Under 5? 5-9? 10-14? 15-19?
- What language groups exist within the service area?
- What are the racial/ethnic percentages of young people?
- How many single parent families are there?
- What percentage of youth live in poverty-level households? (Clue: what
percentage qualify for free lunch programs?)
- How many youth-serving groups (e.g., 4-H Clubs, Scouts, church youth
groups) are there?
- What is the after-school information environment like? Do kids spend time
in organized activities, or home alone? Online, doing homework, gaming, or
in front of the TV? (You may not be able to answer this by the deadline; how
would you investigate it in real life?)
- Is there a council of organizations serving youth, and if so, does the
library belong to it? If not, would the library consider spear-heading the
formation of one?
[Are these the most important questions you want to ask
about the public library's relationship to the community at large? What should
be added to this list, or subtracted from it, and why? What are the implications
of your community's answers to the questions?]
II. The structure of the school system is vital information. Is it divided
into traditional elementary/junior/senior high schools? If it has middle
schools, what grades are included? Other variations, such as K-12? For the
school system as a whole:
- Describe the educational philosophy upon which curriculum development is
based. (E.g., is there a trend toward whole language or literature-based
instruction? has the standards movement changed teaching?)
- Is there a coordinator/supervisor of school media services?
- Is there a centralized media center serving as backup to individual
schools?
- Is there a formal interlibrary loan agreement between the school system
and the public library?
- Is there a state-wide resource center serving as a backup to local school
districts?
[What would this mean to you as a public youth services
librarian? How would you use this information?]
III. For each school (public or independent) in your service area, answer the following
questions:
- Grades included.
- Enrollment (number, and racial/ethnic makeup).
- Special programs within the school (e.g., EASL, Gifted, Disabled).
- Distance from school to public library: what transportation problems exist
for students wanting to use the library?
- Is the school responsive to visits from the public librarian?
- How often do teachers within the school bring classes on trips to the
public library?
- What library and information skills are taught by the school librarians or
by computer teachers? Do the public librarians feel a need to do
instruction?
- How does the public library receive notification of mass
assignments?
- Is there a teacher page on the public library website? How is it
used?
[For purposes of this assignment, you may not want to
answer these questions for all the schools in your municipality. It may
depend on size; if you work at a branch of a big city library, you may want to
focus just on local schools. But are there other questions you would want to pursue?]
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