Library Reference material, like most good things in life, have a shelf life (pun intended). Library’s and Learning Commons across the country have to make an effort to regularly assess and review the reference materials located on their shelves. It is often good for teacher-librarians to follow the advice of Reidling who suggests that it “…is more important to have a small but relevant and up-to-date collection of materials than a large collection that is neither useful nor of good quality.” (Reidling, 23). The process of evaluating the quality and relevancy of reference materials will be discussed in this blog, will offer examples of what to look for when evaluating dated materials and will offer an example as to how dated reference materials can be easily (and cheaply) replaced.
What to Look for in Dated Reference Materials
As Guardians of Truthful Knowledge, the modern-day teacher-librarian must be constantly monitoring and assessing in-stock materials for relevancy, accuracy and functional use. It has been my own personal experience that high school students are quick to favour access to digital sources of information over printed text, and when one looks around a high school library and finds many out-dated materials, it may not be surprising as to why.
Reidling in her book Reference Skills for the School Librarian (3rd ed.), suggests some guidelines for the replacement of reference materials that include the replacement of print history books after 10 years (Reidling, pg.24). Aside from age, there are other factors that teacher-librarians may want to consider when evaluating a reference material and the following rubric may be helpful;
Examples of Out-dated Reference Materials and a Possible Replacement
Starting in 1985, Time-Life Book publisher created a reference series of books that provided a comprehensive and accurate account of a variety of nation-states in their series called the Library of Nations. The Library of Nations series was organized in a more biographical account of nations and their peoples. The text was supplemented with graphs and charts that reflected a variety of then current trends. Climate graphs, charts on consumer preferences as well as industrial and agricultural national output were included. Images of people at work and at play were included with historical maps and images related to a particular nation’s history. By all standards at the time of publication the Library of Nations was an excellent factbook for any student doing a basic research study of a country like the Soviet Union or West Germany.
However, when assessed using the rubric outlined above, the series would defiantly be assess as “Not Meeting”. The fact that the Soviet Union and West Germany do not even exist in the same geographical form in 2020 suggests that the material is out-dated and in need of review by the teacher-librarian. The information regarding the per capita consumption of foodstuff may have been current in the 1980’s, but diets and access to new foodstuffs have changed since the 20th Century. In addition, population graphs and data have changed dramatically and as a reference material, the Library of Nations can now only offer some historical information, not current data. What is needed instead is a replacement resource that can be utilized by teachers and students to better understand the world as it is today.
The World Factbook
The World Factbook is a free, online resource created and maintained by the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States. The website is designed to provide the user with up-to-date factual information about the world’s nation-states. The website describes itself as;
The World Factbook provides information on the history, people and society, government, economy, energy, geography, communications, transportation, military and transnational issues for 267 world entities. The Reference tab includes a variety of world, regional, country, ocean and times zone maps, Flags of the World and a Country Comparison function that ranks the country information and data in more than 75 Factbook fields.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/
When assessed using the same rubric that was used for the Library of Nations, it is easy to see that the World Factbook is exceeding in all criteria. The World Factbook is being constantly updated and has the added benefit of able to compare countries with 75 different fields such as population growth rates, industrial production, GDP, energy products and production, and even data related to climate and natural resources. In addition to providing all sorts of factual information about a country, the ability of this digital resource to post the most current of information available is important.
Final Evaluation
When evaluating the functional use of reference materials in a library, printed materials that offer factual information used to be the dominate reference form. Today, factual series such as the Library of Nations can easily be replaced with free online material such as the World Factbook. The role of the teacher-librarian is evolving from a collector of factual information, to guardian of truthful knowledge, someone who can direct requests to current fact based online research sites. By creating a database of reliable and truthful informational links on a school website, teacher-librarians can help students and teachers wade through all the misinformation and “rabbit holes” that online search queries often promote. Students do lack that broad-based background knowledge that a teacher-librarian may have (Reidling, pg 13) and they then rely on the teacher-librarian to point them in the right direction. In the past, that direction may have been to reference shelves to a series like the Library of Nations, but today is a link to digital resources like the World Factbook.
Works Cited
Riedling, Ann Marlow, Loretta Shake, and Cynthia Houston. Reference skills for the school librarian: Tools and tips. ABC-CLIO, 2013.
Teacher-Librarians: Guardians of Truthful Knowledge, Blog Post, Trickey, Bill, https://blogs.ubc.ca/libe467/2020/02/02/teacher-librarians-guardians-of-truthful-knowledge/
Allan, Tony ed. Library of Nations: Germany, Time-Life Books Inc., 1986
Brown, Dale and Martin Mann eds. Library of Nations: The Soviet Union, Time-Life Books Inc., 1985
World Factbook, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/resources/the-world-factbook/