L I B R A R Y / M E D I A C I R C U L A T I O N P O L I C I E S A N D
P R A C T I C E S
Our school library collections are made up of quality books that are selected
to meet our curriculum needs as well as students' interests.
During library classes, students have an opportunity to explore the collection
and to make independent choices of the books they would like to take home.
Our goal in having this independent selection is to foster the student's
confidence in his or her own curiosity and interests.
Therefore we do not censor, or direct, their selections.
At Cole School, each week students may check out one book at a time and may
take home a new one as soon as the first one is returned.
If a book is lost or damaged, we may request a replacement fee.
LIBRARY/MEDIA DONATION POLICY
We have the very good fortune of having so many books in the Cole library,
that we as a rule, do not accept donations of used books.
Many Cole families have vast collections of wonderful books that they have
amassed over the years and subsequently outgrown. We appreciate that they
wish to generously donate these books to the school.
Ours is a very discerning student body, with very up-to-the-minute tastes in
literature!
Our official donation program is The Cole School Birthday Book Club, which is
sponsored by the Boxford PTO.
Parents and guardians may donate money to the Club, and their child then
selects a new book inscribed with his/her name and birth date to be donated to
the general library collection. The books are pre-selected and purchased by
the librarian, based on extensive observation and discussions with the
students, circulation records, what's hot in children's library circles, etc.
For the past 5 years, proceeds from the Club have resulted in, on average,
$3,000 worth of new books for our library and these are the books that get the
most circulation.
The library collection is weeded each year. The books that are weeded are
then offered to classroom teachers and staff. The books are placed in the
teacher's lunch room for a period of time before they are discarded or donated
to charity.
Some of the other practical reasons, in addition to lack of space, for not
accepting donated books are
Books may not be what is appealing to current students,
Books may be something we already have in our collection,
Books may be in paperback format, which have a shorter shelf life,
Books take man power to process.
The books that are purchased for the Birthday Book Club come with library
processing and library cataloging, the cost of which is included and paid for
with Book Club funds. The cost for these services is minimal.
Individual, manual library processing of donated books, on the other hand,
requires many dedicated hours of data inputting, that are not available given
our current library staffing and scheduling configuration.
