CC Griffin Middle School Media Center
Collection Development, Policies, & Procedures

Mission
The CC Griffin Middle School (CCGMS) Media Center (MC) exists to provide a welcoming and supportive environment for all students, teachers, staff, and the CCGMS community as we read, learn, and grow together. The CCGMS MC is committed to helping each student excel and achieve maximum potential by creating a 21st century learning environment, fostering a love of reading, and promoting the effective and appropriate use of information and communications technology.
 

Vision
The CCGMS Media Center will be the heart of an instructional program that values reading widely for pleasure and reading critically for the development of understanding. It will equip students and teachers with skills necessary for critical thinking, collaboration, communication, and creativity while providing a broad array of resources to support these skills. Resources will not only reflect the interests, lives, and
histories of our students, but they will open doors to new regions and perspectives, providing students with a foundation for building a responsible and compassionate mindset toward local and global issues.
 

Values

• We believe in the American Library Association’s (ALA) Library Bill of Rights, their Freedom to Read Statement, and the National Council of Teachers of English’s (NCTE) Right to Read Statement.
• We believe in Intellectual Freedom, the right of every individual to both seek and receive information from all points of view without restriction.
• We believe that every student can learn.
• We believe in getting books in kids’ hands and that a book exists for every reader - we just have to find it.
• We believe that people deserve access to broad perspectives and information so they can make their own informed decisions and determine their own beliefs. It is our obligation to help them find and use information.
• We believe that both individual and collaborative thinking skills are essential. We also believe that everyone has something to bring to the table. Diverse teams are often stronger.
   

Media Center Personnel
The School Library Media Coordinator (SLMC, also librarian) serves as the director of the library program within the school, responsibilities include but are not limited to materials selection, policy creation, and instruction. The SLMC is masters-level trained and has passed (or must pass) a national Praxis certification exam in both library media and classroom teaching. Most of the SLMC’s duties center around reading promotion, the instructional role of the library program, and ensuring that adequate materials, both electronic and print, are available to each user at their point of need. These include contributing to a school culture that values inquiry, collaboration, critical thinking, source evaluation and citation, and digital citizenship.

The Media Professional is an essential member of the school’s support staff. This person maintains the daily operations of the MC, including ensuring proper circulation, accurate shelving, and timely repair of materials; organization of the physical space, including the back office workspaces; overseeing the student library assistants; accommodating testing and scheduling use of the library space; and assisting students and staff who need guidance in choosing materials or solving problems. The MC also collaborates with classroom teachers to develop and deliver lessons geared toward the mastery of state standards.

Student media assistants serve in the MC for a semester Encore course and are chosen based on an application and teacher recommendation process. Assistants are trained in basic library operations and customer service, and they remain under the supervision of adult library staff.

Hours & Operations
The CCGMS MC operates within the following policies, barring rare exceptions:
● Open 8:40-9:05 & during scheduled lunch times, without a pass; 9:05-3:55 with a pass.
● Each teacher may send up to 4 students at a time to MC as needed during the day (with a pass.)
● During homeroom, teachers may send two or three students at a time.
● ELA classes are scheduled Monday, Thursday, & Friday; open for reservations on Tuesdays and Wednesday or anytime when the schedule allows for it.

Checkout Policies & Fines
Our primary goal is to get books in kids’ hands and to encourage students in their personal reading pursuits. Students may check out up to 5 books at a time for a period of two weeks each. We allow one renewal (also for two weeks) on or before the due date; after it is overdue, the student may keep the book until they are finished but may not renew it again. During this time, and anytime a student has an overdue book or fees owed at CCGMS, they may not check out others until the book is returned or fee paid unless the SLMC overrides to waive.
We do not charge fines for overdue books, but we do charge replacement costs for lost books and books that are overdue for more than 30 days. This cost is not to exceed $30 and can be cleared through payment or through returning the book. We also accept replacement books as long as the replacement is in good condition. Occasionally we charge damage fees; these equal 20% of the book cost and are to
be charged only if 1) the damage significantly affects the life of the book, and 2) if it is certain the damage happened while the student had it checked out. Note that the school may require a clear library account before a student may participate in certain activities. Our student services department and teachers work with us to evaluate specific situations and determine if payment should be waived.

Selecting Materials for the Library Collection
Materials in the MC serve many purposes and are evaluated based on several criteria, such as currency and accuracy of information; appropriateness of tone, including sensitivity toward diverse cultures and groups; cost; durability and accessibility of the format; quality of the writing; and adherence to and support of the North Carolina Standard Course of Study. We make all selections with our library users in
mind, and we use curriculum materials, survey data, collection and purchase analyses, PLC/SLT reviews, and relationships with our readers to inform collection development.

The SLMC is the primary selector of materials in the library, and all materials purchased or added after July 13, 2021 are reviewed and voted on by the School Improvement Team per CCS Board Policy 3200. While the SLMC should be familiar with middle grade literature/resources and should read from within the collection, it is not possible for them to read or even preview each text selected. In order to choose appropriate and high quality materials of interest, the SLMC uses professional review and selection sources, including but not limited to the following:
● School Library Journal
● Junior Library Guild
● Wilson’s Junior High School Core Collection
● Booklist, Publisher’s Weekly, and Kirkus reviewing publications
● Awards lists from the American Library Association/YALSA, among others

Mature Books
Materials in the CCGMS MC are carefully selected to meet the needs of students in grades 6-8 at various levels of maturity and understanding. Some books may seem silly and elementary, while others may seem uncomfortably mature. We believe the reader has the right and the ability to navigate these choices without our interference. We are happy to provide readers and their families with information
or guidance to help them determine if a book meets their needs. We also understand that some books have content geared toward students in high school. If publishers or professional review sources classify books as appropriate for older students (usually age 14+ or grade 9+), we may place the books in our Mature section. Students may check out Mature books if they return a Yearlong Mature Book Permission Form, or they may request a form for approving one book at a time (both available on the MC website). We believe this process enables students and parents to evaluate reader maturity and book content together as our students learn how to become independent and self-aware readers, and it allows us to include a wider range of books in our collection and to meet the wide range of needs and interests our students have. If a parent no longer wishes to grant their student permission to read books in the Mature section, it is the responsibility of the parent to notify MC staff of the change.

Even with these processes in place, students or parents may encounter content that makes them uncomfortable. When this happens, please return the book so it will be available for others who have different reading needs and comfort levels. We are happy to provide guidance for future book selections that will hopefully help the reader feel comfortable with the content.

Deselecting (Weeding) Materials from the Collection

A healthy library program regularly evaluates its holdings and removes some copies based on several criteria, including but not limited to:
● Physical condition
● Currency and accuracy information
● Excess of copies
● Lack of circulation
If copies are suitable for further use, teachers may keep them for classroom libraries and student use. Unreadable copies will be kept in the library for various classroom or decorative projects or may be destroyed. We do not sell or trade for credit any of the books that have been in the library collection.

Donations
We welcome donations of books and other materials that are in good condition! We follow our standard selection protocol with donations and reserve the right to be selective about the donations we add to our collection. When we have leftover items that we will not include in our collection, our practice is to give them to teachers for inclusion in classroom collections or repurpose them. If you choose to donate
items, you must understand and agree to this process of handling donated materials.

Social Media Accounts
The SLMC may assist with operating social media accounts for the MC on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. These accounts are intended to support the mission, vision, and values of the CCGMS MC and the school while connecting students, staff, families, and community members in a shared love of reading and library services. CCGMS administrators have the passwords to access these social media
accounts and have the right, along with the SLMC, to delete posts/comments, block users, report communications to proper authorities, and otherwise freely manage the content and interactions on the social media accounts to ensure the alignment of content with CCGMS/CCS values and expectations of conduct.

Adopted: May 2023
Adapted from:
Warr, L. (2020, March 18). Hickory Ridge Middle School Media Center Policies, Procedures, and Collection Development. Hickory Ridge Middle School Media Center. Retrieved August 29, 2021, from https://www.cabarrus.k12.nc.us/Page/76174.
References for Comparison:
Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools. (n.d.). School library collection development [policy]. Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools. Retrieved from https://www.chccs.org/Page/6370