1. Primary school
2. Secondary school
3. Tertiary school
4. Format: Classroom

If you are a student librarian, or planning to be one, then you are responsible for one of the most important places on campus—the library! To carry out your responsibility, you have to have a firm grasp on the things that libraries do such as classification, promotions and customer management. This course guides you to learn and master these skills.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Explain the services your library has to offer and promote them effectively
• Explain how your library collection is organised
• Develop an action plan for promotional activities
• Conduct orientation and book sharing programmes
• Identify the elements of a good library display
• Read stories to children or share about the books they have read with their schoolmates

Course outline

Module 1: Library services and management

• Services in school libraries
  • circulation and information services
• Collections in school libraries
  • organising the collection
  • understanding Dewey Decimal Classification System
• Classification
  • keeping the collection relevant and up-to-date
• Shelving and shelf-reading skills
• Working as a team

Module 2: Library promotion 1:

• Generating ideas to promote the library
• Creating an action plan for promotion
• Conducting library orientation programmes
• Developing library guides, publicity flyers and newsletters

Module 3: Library promotion 2:

• Generating ideas for library programmes
• Creating an action plan for library displays
• Selecting books for displays
• Tips on putting up book displays

Module 4: Promotion of reading

• Ideas to promote and stimulate the reading habit
• Tips on story-reading
• Tips on book-sharing