Lesson 3 - Building a Reference Collection (Selection Process)

In the book Reference Skills for the School Library, Riedling made a comment that "School library media specialists should review on a regular basis textbooks used by all teachers, assess teachers' instructional methods, and become aware of particular research and other assignments given by teachers."

I was quite surprised by this comment because I never would have thought that reviewing textbooks is part of our "job." From what I know, this is done at the district level (for instance, in SD#23, we have a math/science resource coordinator that does this) or as spearheaded by each department head in the middle/high schools or by all primary teachers in the elem/interm schools. In fact, hardly are librarians called in to participate in meetings that involve curriculum planning. When there are staff meetings that call for teachers to break-out in grade-level groupings to do some academic-based planning, librarians are often grouped with the music/band teacher or are left on their own accord to do their own thing.

The question is ... do I want to participate in this? Do I want to take this on? If the evaluation process is to be a "group activity" between myself and other relevant teachers, than I wouldn't mind participating. However, I certainly wouldn't want to be THE one to make the final decision becaue I don't think I have sufficient knowledge or expertise to critic a subject-specific text, other than commenting on what I see on the surface (i.e., general text formatting, info layout). As well, I would have to have a clear sense of what the students at EACH grade level are able and expected to do. That in itself is a "tall order" for a librarian who comes in to school only 2-3 times a week! I think that being asked a TL's opinion is a good thing, but to be required to do all the assessment of all of the school's textbook will be unfair both to the TL and the respective teachers.