Policies & Procedures

Policies & Procedures

Our Mission

The mission of the Rutherford County School System is to provide an educational environment that encourages and enables each student to develop his/her potential and become a responsible and contributing member of society.

Our Promise

To promote life-long learning by the students of LaVergne Middle School, the media center specialist and staff will provide leadership and support for the development, promotion, and improvement of the school curriculum, professional materials, and students’ information seeking skills and interest in reading.

Student Policies and Procedures

The library opens at 7:15am and closes at 3:00pm. Students may come to the library without their agenda before school, 7:15am until 8:00am. Students will visit the library with their reading teachers on an regular rotation.

Students may check out two books at a time, for a period of two weeks. Students will check out books by providing the library staff with their Student ID number. Students may NOT check out books for another student. A book may be renewed indefinitely, unless another person has requested the book or if the student has overdue books or outstanding fines. Once a book is checked out, the student assumes responsibility for the book.

If books are damaged or lost, a fine will be assessed up to the price of replacing the book.

Check your account from class! Student accounts can be checked from the classroom to see if you owe fines or have an overdue book. After logging into a computer, select Student Apps. Open LMS Card Catalog (picture of a stack of books) and choose My Info on the tool bar. Enter your Student ID number and your password, which is your last name. Example: 55555555 brown

Internet access is limited to assigned work only. Students must have an Internet usage form on file (AUP). 

Students must have permission from the library staff to print from the library’s computers. There is a charge of 10 cents per page (black and white only).

Students may search the catalog from any school computer before entering the library. Open the STUDENT APPS folder on the desktop and select LMS Library Catalog (the picture of the stacked books). Search by Author, Title, or Subject. Write down the call number of your book choice in your agenda to save time when visiting the library.

All students must return all books by May 11th (this date is subject to change) for inventory. Students that do not return books or pay fines may be at risk of missing out on field trips and events.

Maintain a quiet, courteous atmosphere. You are expected to study, read magazines, or look for books.

Students who disregard the rules will be asked to return to their classrooms and their checkout privileges may be restricted. Check-out privileges may also be restricted if you leave your books in the halls or classrooms or if you mistreat your books.

A Scholastic Bookfair will be held twice a year. The library and school rules apply during this time. Students will have an opportunity to browse the bookfair during reading class; after this chance, students may leave the classroom, with teacher permission, only when an item is to be purchased.

Teacher and Staff Services

The LaVergne Middle School Media Center’s collection materials have been selected to reflect the needs of the curriculum and the learning community. Faculty, staff, and parents are welcome to recommend materials for selection by filling out such request forms. The media specialist has these forms on hand and at the end of this handbook.

The LMS media center provides a professional library for the faculty and staff of the school community. This library offers class set kits, guidebooks, and other professional resource materials. Most class set kits include books, teacher guides. Class sets are chosen based upon the Rutherford County grade level reading list.

Teachers may check out media center materials for as long as they need them. The teacher checking out the material remains responsible for the item even if he/she loans the material out to another faculty member. Teachers should consider time as a factor since others may also request use of the material. Special consideration should also be made concerning the relevance of the material with one’s subject matter and test objectives. For example a video on endangered species should only be check-out by sixth grade teachers since it is on the 6th grade objective list. This can help to avoid overlapping. In some cases, overlapping of skills and objectives is necessary and understandable.

The media center will provide flexibility and fairness to all teachers through cooperative instructional planning as well as providing teachers with the necessary media resources to enhance their curriculum.

The media center will provide assistance in school-wide planning of curricular and instructional planning.

The librarian will run a report for homeroom teachers, notifying them of the missing and overdue student items. Please encourage students to bring back library books in an effort to maintain our collection. 

Class Scheduling Procedures

The LaVergne Library Media Center provides open access and flexibility to its patrons in accordance with the Rutherford County Media Guidelines and those of the Association of American School Libraries recommendations and guidelines.

Students must have a note when visiting the library from classes. If a teacher requests a student use the library (on his or her own) during any other time of the day, the student should possess a signed note and an assignment from that teacher. This policy keeps the reading teachers best informed of the number of times a student is accessing the library. This effort helps teachers become aware of the times a week a student visits the library without completing a book.

Teachers please send no more than five students at a time to the library (unless bringing a class to do scheduled research).

Teachers may schedule classes for media center activities with the librarian. During the scheduling, topics such as materials requested for book carts, research, technology, and assessment may be discussed between the librarian and the teacher. This cooperative effort will provide the media specialist with the necessary information to gather resources that will enhance research efficiency.

Teachers may schedule up to three days at a time for the library. Scheduling is on a “first come, first serve” basis. As soon as you know you are going to incorporate the media center into your curriculum, please schedule your classes.
If a scheduled time you wanted is not available, please leave your name and the dates for scheduling at the circulation desk with a media clerk. Cancellations are possible and you will be notified of the open time.

ABSENCES: If an emergency occurs, a teacher may choose to meet with another teacher scheduled and work out a way to switch schedules. This is not the responsibility of the media specialist. Please notify the media specialist of these changes, as she will need to make changes in readying materials. Substitute teachers are not permitted to bring classes to the library in the teacher's absence. Please make other arrangements for switching days with another teacher.

Procedures for Bringing Classes to the Media Center

Students should return any books that are due upon arrival to the media center.

Students must have an Acceptable Use Policy form signed by a parent or guardian on file with the STS or Rutherford County for Internet Usage.

Teachers are expected to provide active supervision.

All computer rules must be followed especially asking the librarians before printing.

Behavior Consequences

1st offense: Reminder of rules provided verbally by librarian
2nd offense: Students that ignore reminders will be sent back to class with notification provided to the teacher
Some behaviors are so severe that the student may be sent back to the class without any verbal reminders.

Positive reinforcement will be provided for appropriate behavior. Examples are bookmarks, verbal praise, notes in agendas, or passes to other media center activities.
LaVergne Middle Library adheres and follows guidelines set forth by Rutherford County School. Please refer to Rutherford County Schools webpage to read the policies for the following:

4.402 - Selection of Instructional Material (Other than textbooks)

4.403 - Reconsideration of Instructional Material and Textbooks

4.404 - Use of Copyrighted Material
Selection Policy

Materials are selected to serve the breadth of the curriculum and the needs and specific interests of our students with individual learning styles. The LaVergne Middle School Library Media Center provides a wide range of materials on all levels of difficulty, in a variety of formats, and with diversity of appeal. To a lesser extent, general materials on teaching and parenting are collected.
The day-to-day operation of the LaVergne Middle School Library Media Center is the responsibility of the media specialist, who coordinates, selects and purchases all materials. While extensive help and advice is sought from administrators, teachers, library assistants, students, parents and others affiliated with school library, final responsibility for the selection of all materials lies with the media specialist.
Selection Criteria: There are general selection criteria, which apply to all library media materials. LaVergne Middle School adheres to the Rutherford County Board of Education’s policy regarding selection of materials as well as reconsiderations of instructional materials and textbooks. Rutherford County Board of Education Policy # 6-6.

Selection process: Requests and suggestions are sought from staff, parents, students and other members of the LaVergne Middle School community. Concurrently, reviews are pulled from the literature of professional organizations and other reviewing sources recognized for their expertise. The removal of materials no longer appropriate and the replacement of lost and worn materials still of educational value is part of the selection process.
Gift materials, free and inexpensive vertical file resources and sponsored materials are evaluated by the same criteria as purchased materials.

COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT POLICY

The LaVergne Middle Library Media Center exists to provide resources to support the curriculum and recreational needs of the students and staff of the school community and to assist in the development of information literacy of its clients.

The aim is to provide a balanced collection which:

supports the school’s priority areas
reflects the local community as well as information of a global nature
supports curriculum needs
contains selections from the Volunteer State Book Award list as well as national book award lists in the appropriate age levels
reflects the recreational needs of the students
includes a wide range of formats, e.g. books, videos, CD-ROMs, audio tapes, computer programs, internet access, periodicals, DVDs

The criteria for collection development will be according to:

relevance to current or future curriculum
appropriateness of level to intended users
appropriate of physical format and appearance of material
cost, value and suitability for library use
accuracy and currency of content
authority and reputation of authors, producers or publishers
scope of the work, adequacy of coverage and level of detail
treatment of subject matter, taking in to account language, bias and approach
organization and accessibility of information, layout, index, table of contents, glossary, white space, diagrams, photos etc.

Reputable journals and selection aids will be consulted to identify potential additions to the collection, such as but not limited to:

School Library Journal
Titlewave
recommendations from colleagues, students, and listservs
Wilson Library Bulletin

Booklist
Library Journal
Newbery and other book award lists

New York Times Book Review
School Library Journal

ASSESSMENT AND INVENTORY PROCESS

An essential step in collection development is assessment of the needs of the curriculum and student population with regard to library media resources. Library media specialists will develop yearly plans to assist in ongoing assessment.

Assessment of the collection includes taking inventory of existing materials, running monthly circulation reports, and weeding outdated and inappropriate materials.

The inventory is a process by which holdings are checked against the automated cataloging system and the actual item to determine if the resource is still part of the collection and still meets selection criteria. The objective of this inventory is to ensure that the automated cataloging system accurately reflects the collection, which is the key access point for students and teachers to locate information within the library. Library media materials should be weeded if they:

Are in poor physical condition
Have not been circulated in the last seven years
Are outdated in content, use, or accuracy (Copyright date should be considered; however, do not make a decision to weed based solely on the copyright date of the material. Some older material may be considered classic or may be of great historical value to your collection.)
Are mediocre or poor in quality
Are biased or portray stereotypes
Are inappropriate in reading level
Duplicate information which is no longer in heavy demand
Are superseded by new or revised information
Are outdated and unattractive format, design, graphics, and illustrations=
Contain information which is inaccessible because they lack a table of contents, adequate indexing, and searching capabilities
Are not selected in accordance with general selection criteria

Withdrawing Library Media Materials

Although the final decision to withdraw materials from the library media collection is one which is made by the library media specialist, subject area, grade level teachers, and other faculty members may be invited to review the items marked for withdrawal. Withdrawn materials should not be sent to classrooms; the same standard of quality applies to all other instructional materials within the school. Duplicate or paperback materials may be considered for donations to classrooms or other schools in need.

CONSIDERATION FILE

Library media specialists should maintain a CONSIDERATION FILE for future purchases. This file should reflect school needs, staff recommendations, and reviews. Technology has greatly enhanced the efficiency of creating consideration files, e.g., Follett's Titlewave. For items not available book jobbers who have online ordering and collection development, create a database to input ordering information for resources which are recommended for purchase and to output a list of resources to order. Some suggested database fields are: Title, author, publisher, copyright, review source, price.
Rebinding Procedures

Some books can be easily repaired by the library media specialist and staff.
If a book cannot be repaired locally, a decision must be made to rebind or reorder the book.

Rebinding is usually not an attractive or cost efficient option. Books that are rebound will have plain cloth covers without printed titles, illustrations, or book jackets. The best candidates for rebinding are expensive reference books and textbooks which are updated and expected to stay in the collection. Out of print books should be carefully evaluated as to their merit before rebinding. Books which have dirty, torn or brittle pages should be repaired or reordered and not sent for rebinding.
Follow these procedures for books that need rebinding:

Be sure that books meet the minimum binding requirements of 3/4" to 1" inside margin for optimum readability
Remove circulation cards from books.
Update automation software to provide a record of books sent for rebinding
Box books for pickup in accordance with rebinding company instructions


STUDENT and PARENT RECOMMENDATIONS FOR
LIBRARY MEDIA CENTER MATERIALS

Name_____________________________________________ Date_______________

Address___________________________________________ Telephone___________


I would like materials on these subjects in the library media center:



I would like the following books in our library:



The library needs more information on the following subjects:



I would like to have the following non-print or electronic resources in the library media center:

FACULTY RECOMMENDATIONS FOR
LIBRARY MEDIA CENTER MATERIALS


Teacher's Name ________________________________________ Date________

Subject Area: ___________________________Grade Level:__ Reading Level:__

Curriculum Unit ____________________________________________________

Special Needs (Visually impaired, ESL, G/T):

Type of media requested, e.g., book, video, computer software, CD-ROM

Please list specific recommendations. Provide review source, if known:

Author
Title
Type of Media
Publisher/Producer
Copyright Date