The Wilkinson County Library Media Center offers a variety of services to students, teachers, staff, parents, and community members. Services include in-facility lessons for students, books and audiobooks for diverse learners, collaborative planning and resource curation for teachers, and limited materials access for parents. The media center functions in the five roles of media specialist: teacher, instructional partner, information specialist, leader, and program administrator. Circulation policies allow students, staff, and parents to check out materials with renewal requirements. Scheduling is semi-fixed with middle school scheduled on certain days and flexibility for other users. Collaboration between teachers and librarians involves lesson planning and resource sharing. Improvements could expand BYOD

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Strategic Management Plan
SMP4: Services
Menu of Library Media Center Attractions
K. Hope Goodner
Georgia Southern University

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Services
Services of the Wilkinson County Library Media Center are offered to all patrons,
including students, teachers, staff, and parents, including diverse patrons, and patrons with
disabilities. Services offered to students are in-facility lessons designed through collaboration
with content specialists and slightly restricted access to resources, materials, and information.
Services offered to diverse learners include a limited number of books for ESOI students,
audiobooks, and access to ereaders. Services provided to teachers and staff are collaborative
planning, leading the way in resource curation, preparation of and providing access to monthly
reports detailing activities of the facility. Services available to community members and parents
are unlimited in-house and limited circulation access to materials and resources within the media
center.
The school library media center offers services in each of the 5 roles of the media
specialist. The SLMS functions as a teacher by teaching lessons pertaining to reading enjoyment
and comprehension, information literacy skills, and ethical use of information. Functioning as an
Instructional Partner, the SMLS collaborates with content area teachers to provide21st-Century
Learner lesson planning and implementation, as well as supplementary support for classroom
lessons. In order to serve the function as Information Specialist, the SLMS maintains a constant
line of contact with the staff and students of the school in regards to helpful resources and
availability to services, working in conjunction with the role of instructional partner to provide
management of ethical use as well. By being a member of the Design Team of both middle and
high schools and maintaining participation with organizations such as the American Association
of School Librarians and the local public libraries, the SLMS functions as a Leader in the school
community, an integral part of developing a successful 21st
-century student population. The

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Program Administrator function is accomplished by development and maintenance of a program
mission, management of budgeting and staffing, and procurement of accessible and interesting
resources for the student patrons of the library.
Circulation
Circulation policy for students allows them to check out up to 3 Accelerated Reader
books at a time with a renewal or return required after two weeks; however, this policy is rarely
enforced strictly. Middle school students are only allowed to check out books in the middle
school section, while high school students are allowed to check out books from both the middle
school and high school sections. Special permissions may be given by middle school parents that
allow their children access to high school books. Reference materials, other non-AR books,
audio-visual devices, cannot be checked out, but can be used within the facility by students.
Nooks, iPads, and laptops may be checked out individually with teacher permission and parental
consent. Privileges for students who meet certain Accelerated Reader goals are awarded each 9
weeks and include the AR store, Points = Free Time days, field trips, and parties.
Responsibilities of students are to care for the facility, other patrons, and resources in a
respectful manner. Consequences for overdue books are parent contact and holding report cards.
Lost book fees must be paid by middle school students in order to move to high school students.
Lost book fees must be paid by high school students in order to graduate. Fees are added onto
Senior Dues to ensure this.
Circulation policy for staff allows them to check out books, audio-visual equipment, and
reference materials with a renewal or return required after two weeks. Staff may also check out
iPads or laptops by the number, day, and block they are needed; these materials must be returned

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by the end of the school day to be locked in the media center overnight. Consequences for
overdue materials are written contact from the media center. Responsibilities of teachers are to
care for the facility, other patrons, and resources in a respectful manner.
Circulation policy for parents is limited to one resource or material checked out at a time
with a two week return date. This policy can be overridden by a media center staff member.
Responsibilities of parents are to care for the facility, other patrons, and resources in a respectful
manner.
Scheduling Policy
Hours of operation are from 7:30 AM- 3:30 PM Monday-Friday on days of the school
year calendar. The schedule is a semi-fixed schedule, with middle school scheduled on Tuesday,
Wednesday, and Thursday, and high school scheduled on Monday and Friday. While scheduling
is in place, flexibility is easily attained by contacting the media center staff and requesting a time
change. Face-to-face contact or email suffices as the method of request. At any time throughout
any day, individual and small groups of students of all grade levels have open access to the
media center. Since this media center serves a vast variety of age groups and two different
schools on opposite sides of the same building, this semi-flexible scheduling is appropriate in
that it minimizes the interactions between students of different age groups. Although the schools
share the media center, they are in fact two separate schools with separate needs based on their
different populations. In order to best serve the needs of the diverse learners in the learning
community, the semi-flexible scheduling works seamlessly.
Collaboration is managed in the media center through interactions between the media
staff and teachers at both schools. Most collaboration comes in the form of collaborative

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planning for individual lessons to take place in the library that exist as a part of larger units in the
content-specific classrooms. Usually teachers and librarian collaborate to structure the individual
lesson addressing the Standards of the 21st
-Century Learner to take place in the media center,
where the librarian acts as the instructor and the content teacher acts as a supporting co-teacher.
Much of the collaboration that takes place is face-to-face during teacher planning time or through
the school email messaging service. No specific forms or requirements for documentation exits.
Collaboration also takes place in the form of resource curating and sharing. Oftentimes, the
librarian will support content teachers by helping curate multiple media and print resources to
use with specific lessons and units to take place outside of the facility.
Assessment
Overall, the Wilkinson County Middle High School Media Center serves the patrons of
its learning community well, offering a wide variety of services and scheduling to fit with the
needs of diverse patrons. However, improvements should be made to make it a more fully
functioning 21st
-century library. Bring Your Own Device is limited to certain days only approved
by the principals of the different schools. Web 2.0 tools are often unable to be used because they
are blocked by the new firewall installed at the beginning of the 2013-2014 school year. Progress
is being made in order to present the blocking of these tools. Currently, the process involves
submitting an IT ticket requesting the unblocking of specific resources for specific days. In order
to create more open access, the filter settings should be redefined. Ebooks are becoming a more
easily accessible element in the school library media center. With the purchase of a class set of
30 Nooks at the beginning of the calendar year, progress is being made towards easy access to
ebooks. The learning commons concept is limited by the age of the school building. Built in

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1956, the facility is constructed of cinderblock walls, with no way to easily install more electrical
outlets, and very closed concept floor plans that do not allow for the creation of an open and
inviting area. Budgets also prevent the purchase of new furniture to update the design to a more
modern one.
Although the services of the Wilkinson County Middle High School Media Center mostly
align with the philosophy of providing access to all forms of media in an environment that
promotes willing engagement in the independent and supported learning processes,
improvements can be made. Information access is constantly being broadened for the benefit of
all patrons by decreasing the limitations of the filter, increasing opportunities for BYOD,
purchasing new ebooks, and gradually moving towards a learning commons concept, with full
implementation set for alignment with the transfer to a newly-constructed school building for the
2016-2017 school year.
Each of the services provided by the facility aims at creating a community of diverse
learners who not only have a lifelong love of learning, but abilities to effectively use information
of various media formats, and who are especially prepared for life in the World of the 21st
-
Century, by demonstrating knowledge on End-Of-Course Tests and Student Learning Objectives.
Each of these elements is accomplished through the close collaboration between the media
specialist librarian and the content area teachers at the schools served by the facility in an effort
to align with the mission: Higher Levels of Learning – Every Student, Every Day.