New district library media specialist outlines plan emphasizing media literacy, collection review and community engagement

Jamie (library media specialist) presented a district libraries report to the RSU 40 School Committee describing short-term goals, collection-management work, professional development and plans to expand media-literacy instruction.

Jamie said she has spent time visiting each school and surveying staff about collaboration and inquiry-based lesson planning. She proposed a short-term focus through the end of the school year on community building among librarians, shared professional development (half-day meetings and a May visit to the Friendship School), and a district collection-management plan. "A consistent message that I've heard from all the librarians is that they really need to meet their libraries," Jamie said, describing a deliberate "weeding" process to retire outdated materials and to redirect purchasing based on circulation data.

Jamie described several concrete steps and tools: tracking collection currency (average publication dates), using the CREW method (a common library weeding standard) to guide…