Kim Hayward - School Library Media Portfolio Reflection 3.

3.2 Access to information

Candidates support flexible, open access for library services. Candidates demonstrate their ability to
develop solutions for addressing physical, social and intellectual barriers to equitable access to resources
and services. Candidates facilitate access to information in print, non-print, and digital formats.
Candidates model and communicate the legal and ethical codes of the profession.
Artifacts
ISTC 601 Library Media Administration
The capstone project for Library Media Administration was to create a virtual and physical library media
center using the criteria required by the state of Maryland, the ADA, and examples from award winning
libraries. This project was created as a group project where we all had input into each section. One of the
parts of the library project was accommodations for special learners. This section details how the library
will be equally accessible to all students.
ISTC 789 Practicum & Portfolio
The ISTC 789 unit plan for teaching the Super 3 research process includes a lesson on why and how to
cite sources when completing research. The students will be required to cite their sources from PebbleGo
and non-fiction texts that are made available.
Relevance
These artifacts are relevant to this standard because both of them describe different ways that a library can
have equitable access to print, non-print, and digital information for all students, regardless of possible
barriers that could exist. The library project was designed with ADA regulations to provide equal access
for physical disabilities, and the website is being designed to allow access to a variety of leveled materials
and possible ESOL materials for students and parents with English as a second language.
The ISTC 601 library media center project addresses the standard because the floor plan and virtual
library allow equitable access for all students. The physical library was designed with wide aisles and
non-padded carpeting for easy wheelchair access, lower sections of the library check-out desk, and
shelving as well as light switches. Signage was made to be high contrast with braille included. Playaway books and bi-lingual books were included in the collected to encourage equitable access. In
addition, to the physical library design, a virtual library was designed with a variety of resources for
students, parents, teachers, and others in the community. These resources included data bases, websites,
articles, and other non-print or digital formatted resources. All of these features support standard 3.2
access to information.
The ISTC 789 Practicum & Portfolio research unit plan is relevant to standard 3.2 because it contains a
lesson on citing sources and why it is important. The students will learn about intellectual property and
understand that whoever creates something is the owner of that information. This models and
communicates the legal and ethical codes of the school library media profession to the students we are
teaching.

Analysis
The creation of these artifacts provided me with an opportunity to create a physical and virtual library, as
well as unit lessons that promote the ethical and legal codes of our profession. The needs of all learners
were taken into account when designing the library. Physical limitations, such as wheelchairs, vision and
hearing impairments were considered and planned for. Many types of resources were included for a wide
variety of students, parents, and teachers. The ethical use of these resources was taught and encouraged
through citation lessons and generators.
The ISTC 601 Media Center project was intended to make us aware of the many issues that must be
considered when providing equitable access to students in a school library media center. In my current
practicum placement, I can understand how this information was useful. Children in wheelchairs, with
hearing impairments and special needs all come to the library. Some of the furniture and aisles are
difficult to navigate for some students and there is a part of the library that is set up with benches for a
small instruction area that has bad acoustics. The virtual library still needs to be set up for Deerfield
Elementary and it will include non-print and digital sources. Now that I am working in a library, I can see
how creating a library with all of the communitys needs in mind is important. If I had input into the
creation of a new library, there are access issues that I would make sure to address.
The ISTC 789 unit plan for research has not been implemented yet. The beginning of the process has just
started but the unit will include a lesson on the importance of citing sources and how to do it. The higher
level classes will receive a more detailed description and be asked to do a more complete citation,
whereas, the lower ability groups will have a scaled down lesson using pictures. In this way, all of the
students will get the lesson but it will be differentiated for ability level.