Home “We Collect TONS of Data … We Report What We Think Our Community Cares the Most About … We Learn so Much from It:” School Librarians’ Evidence Collection and Sharing Practices
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“We Collect TONS of Data … We Report What We Think Our Community Cares the Most About … We Learn so Much from It:” School Librarians’ Evidence Collection and Sharing Practices

  • Jennifer Moore EMAIL logo , Maria Cahill , Jeffrey DiScala and Wanyi Wang
Published/Copyright: February 6, 2023

Abstract

Evidence-based practice (EBP) offers school librarians a systematic process for developing, assessing, and revising their school library programs. Two of the seven steps in this process involve collecting and sharing meaningful evidence with appropriate stakeholders, often for advocacy purposes, strategically selecting communication channels and methods aligned with target audiences. Through a survey collecting both quantitative and qualitative data, 161 school librarians in Kentucky, Virginia, and Texas shared their experiences with evidence-based practice. The study reported here focuses on school librarians’ evidence collection and sharing practices. Findings indicate school librarians collect easily obtainable data and share evidence of practice widely; however, they are most likely to share with building-level administrators, and the channels through which they communicate with school personnel differ from those chosen to communicate with other stakeholder groups. Approximately half of participants share evidence for advocacy purposes, and only slightly more than half share evidence of their practice with other school librarians.


Corresponding author: Jennifer Moore, Department of Information Science, University of North Texas, 3940 North Elm, 76203-1277 Denton, TX, USA, E-mail:

Acknowledgments

We express genuine gratitude to the school librarian representatives at the state departments of education in Kentucky and Virginia, to the executive directors for American Association of School Librarians (AASL)-affiliated professional associations in Kentucky and Virginia, to the employees at the Texas Education Agency, and to all school librarians who devoted their time to this study and who did so while unexpectedly shifting to remote learning because of COVID-19.

  1. Research funding: This work was conducted independently and received no financial support.

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Published Online: 2023-02-06
Published in Print: 2023-03-28

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