For the past few years, our state's association of school librarians (SCASL) has requested our school libraries participate in an initiative known as Snapshot Day. The idea is for each school library in South Carolina to choose a day during the month of November to collect data about its collection, circulations, technology, patrons, etc. so that data can be used to share within our school as well as compiled along with other libraries state-wide to be used as an advocacy tool. What better way to promote your library to people who may not understand what it is you do all day than to show them exactly what it is you've done in one day? Better still, why not pretty-up all that data with a poster that depicts information and scenes from that day? After gathering information based on my November 9th school day, I submitted the info to SCASL and created a poster about my library stats. The poster definitely grabs the attention of students and teachers and can be a conversation starter about the library collection and how patrons use our library. It's also an excellent gage for me to compare the previous Snapshot Day (conducted in April) with my latest one to see how my school library program is growing in its second year open...
My stats for November 9, 2012, were as follows:
Number of students attending my high school: 498
Number of teachers on my staff: 32
Number of school librarians on my staff: 1
Number of full or part time library assistants on my staff: 0
Number of computers in my school library and on mobile laptop labs: 72 (13 student desktops, 59 netbooks)
Number of mobile devices such as Kindles, Nooks, and iPads: 57 (20 Nook SimpleTouches, 8 Nook Color, 29 iPads)
Number of items in my library's collection: 3,088
Number of individual students visiting the library (not with a class): 88
Number of classes visiting the library and the total number of students in those classes: 9 classes/235 students
Number of teachers visiting the library (with and without classes): 11
Number of classes the school librarian taught: 4
Number of items circulated: 70
Number of individual student computer uses: 151
Thank you for your participation in this year's Snapshot Day! Awesome stats collected! WOW - 57 mobile devices including 29 iPads!
ReplyDeleteOne of the perks of being a new school! ;-)
ReplyDeleteI've been wanting to do a snapshot like this for a while but just haven't made the time for it. Quick question...how do you keep track/keep a tally of the number of students who come without a teacher? Do you have a sign-in or an automatic counter?
ReplyDeleteHa, I wish! Nope, I have to do it the old-fashioned way - a paper, a pencil and some stick tallies for the kids who come in. ;-P It's only for a day, so I make the effort to have my paper or post-it and pencil handy. I don't have a clerk either, so it's on me, BUT my circ desk it as the front door which helps. Also, it helps me to break it down by tallying students before school, students during 1st block, students during 2nd block, 1st lunch, etc. - then I can add them all up at the end. You may miss a few, but oh well. Good luck! It really is a helpful record to have on hand.
ReplyDelete