Evaluating resources is a common part of a teacher-librarian's job. We regularly look to see what materials are out there, and best suited to our schools and students' needs. For the last 3 years I have been publishing reviews of music for the American Recorder Magazine. The sample article included here looks at a couple of new recorder tutorials meant for use when teaching students. Click on the link to read a review I wrote of some school aged recorder resources.
	Analysing the library collection and circulation statistics help the teacher-librarian make decisions about the program, and improvements where necessary. I used our circulation stats to show the teachers at my school a weakness in our program: the grade 9's are not using the library enough despite the rising number of research expectations. This PowerPoint display was shown to the staff at the first staff meeting of the year to try to encourage better use of the library's resources especially with the older students.
This year I created a webquest for my students as part of a larger unit on the Olympics. The unit is intended for our school's application package for the International Baccalaureate Org. as we are hoping to bring the IB program to Windfields next year. In the complete unit the students will also be designing and carrying out tests of physical fitness in Phys. Ed. classes; in math they will graph the results of these tests and the data collected from the webquest; and in their language classes they will debate current issues that arise with the Olympics each year. The teaching of this unit is shared by the librarian and 4 subject teachers.