eContent requires meticulous, patron-aware (rather than traditional) cataloging. It is virtually (no pun intended) impossible to “display” eContent. There is no way to physically put it in the hands of students, if students are using their own technology. This is not happening for a few reasons:
Since vendors and library management systems have made it possible to import MARC records, librarians, as a whole, have been falling out of the cataloging practice.
Cataloging is time consuming, and tedious work.
Cataloging, as we learned it, doesn’t work for our students. We have to reinvent it. For example, at New Canaan High School, we add the project name as a subject heading to each title in the eCollection that supports it.
Martha Hickson on 10 Jan 14Like academic libraries, school libraries rely primarily on their parent institution for financial support. The latest nation-wide expenditures figures for school library media centers in public schools comes from Characteristics of Public Elementary and Secondary School Library Media Centers in the United States: Results From the 2011-12 Schools and Staffing Survey published in August 2013. The "Selected Findings" summary in the beginning of the Adobe Reader PDF version notes -- -- During the 2010-11 school year, public school library media centers spent an average of $9,340 for all information resources [Information resources include such items as books, periodicals, audio/visual materials, database licensing, and software. They do not include salaries, computer hardware, or audio/visual equipment.] (table 4). This includes an average of $6,010 for the purchase of books and $490 for the purchase of audio/video materials [Includes all copies of any tape, CD, DVD, or Blu-ray]. -- The number of holdings in public library media centers per 100 students was 2,188 for book titles and 81 for audio/video materials at the end of the 2010-11 school year (table 5).
