503 Modules 4 and 5

Reading the material for these two modules puts a situation at my school into perspective.
Part one Budget/Funding:
There isn't any Funding other than the odd donation and the annul book week book fare which in recent years (with a lot of hard work prior to) has raised increasing amounts of monetary value to purchase further resources.
Budget:
In the 6 years I have been at Driver Primary, there has never been consultation or collaboration to determine what materials of any sort are needed for the Library therefore what should the budget be to meet that or those needs. The budget has been established by the Principal and business manager and as it were, handed down.
There is no TL or anyone qualified operating the Library (Teaching and Learning Centre). There is an AO2 who is part time in the Library and in the front office and me - 0.5 ESL and 0.5 release lessons held in the Library.
The interesting part for me is that this year I have been briefly consulted with respect to the BER renovations of the Library - which comprises rooms being added onto which will not necessarily be used by the Library - new carpet and new shelving (that is what I was consulted about!!!). Further I have been moved from my previously occupied small (shared) office to the office in the Library. Being in the Library does make it easier for me to focus on it and its life.
For the first time in six years the Budget is handsome - a considerable amount more for the curriculum areas including Literacy and Numeracy and the Library.
But:
On what should this money be spent? There are committees covering the KLAs which are responsible for the selection of resources and ordering. That's fine but with a high turn over of staff and the very busyness of a teacher's day, there is little consistency of thought year by year on how we should resource the curriculum. The committees barely meet once a term and there has been a tendency for a long time for teachers to use the Library teacher and student resources to a degree but also to seek their own - online or otherwise. This raises the very real problem of not having a TL to guide the whole process of allocation of money for budgets, choice of resources and acquisition.
Amount of money:
Given the above problem there is the very real risk of spending the money for fear we won't get that amount again. Of having a principal who won't allow some selections to be approved because the teachers/students can find that online (in once a week lessons in the lab and 2 computers per class). Of the impression of all staff that the budget money is for print materials.
There is both joy at the amount of the budget but great concern at how the process of using it is going.
Acquisition process:
Did suggest to the Literacy/Library committee (I am the co-ordinator)that we focus on ordering both for Lit and Lib, on the curriculum. Good idea. Went through advertising brochures and spent several hours filling in green forms (8 lines per form to manually write out order) and wrote whether it be from Lit or Lib budget and handed in on 1st April it having been checked by AO2 to make sure we did not already have any orders. Goes to business manager then to principal for approval.
Staff meeting:
On Tuesday last (13th) staff were told that the Dept. wants ordering process to reflect what area of school will benefit from purchases, that is ordering has to be broken down into that for preschool, that for early learning and that for mid upper combined. I was approached by one asst principal and asked to go through order forms and photocopy and then mark what area each resource would be used for/by. Did that.
Also told that now all orders have to reflect whether the resource is for the above plus for student use, teacher use, Library, KLAs and classroom. (there are now 5 different coloured order forms)
I was also told that the order for Library would need to be broken down again into which KLA the resource would be for and therefore that cost would come out of relevant budget!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am frustrated that what should be a relatively straight forward process has become so unnecessarily complex.
Frustration really is compounded by the fact that I thought we were acquiring to resource the curriculum but heaven alone knows when the order will be placed and the resources ordered for the current area of the curriculum may come too late.

Part two Weeding
The readings for this module are very interesting with respect to pruning the resources. I have noticed this term that the shelves of student fiction and non-fiction books are stuffed full unlike that last few years. While I have endeavoured to be involved in acquiring appropriate resources for the Library it seems teachers are not encouraging students to borrow and are not using the Library to support their teaching. Granted there is disruption because of the building and the teacher resources have been moved to another area of the school but all material is still accessible.
What is obvious is that there desperately needs to be some pruning as there are books still on shelves which were purchased 20 to 25 years ago (the school celebrates 25 years later this year) and there needs to be a greater awareness of what is available for all school personnel to use. Curioulsy the picture book shelves are very comfortable as the preschool and early learning are borrowing!

The pruning needs to comprise removal of the old and shabby, out of date by way of information no longer valid or superceded, no longer part of curriuclum, not appropriate to environment of Top End (which could be considered censorship as students should have a holistic approach to knowledge but....), not used.
Dillon (2001) What is weeding? mentions that readers should not be in the Library - interesting - we have a massive number (which should also be pruned) for take home readers and guided reading as well as class novels for the more accomplished and older students. I wonder why Dillon actually says these should not be part of the Library collection?

A long post this - in conclusion - have reflected so much on this area of the course - I am treading carefully as it has been made clear to me (although principal knows I am doing course) that I am not a TL at the school so I am trying to diplomatically put suggestions across. I am though, using the information I am learning for my own benefit. I have finally got into using online resources to find information remembering 501, 401 skills and 503. The more I can practise the skills the more it stays in the memory and once I am one day employed as a TL, hopefully will be all the more skilled!