Interview One, Melanie Crumpton

"Curate: Make meaning for oneself and others by collecting, organizing, and sharing resources of personal relevance." (AASL, 2018, p.93)

I interviewed Melanie Crumpton, one of the librarians at James Island Charter High School, and asked her how she interprets the CURATE AASL Shared Foundation in her library. Ms. Crumpton spoke about the work she has done with her fiction collection, nonfiction, databases, and resources she has compiled in response to teacher and staff needs.

Several years ago, the librarians at JICHS chose to genrefy their fiction collection. Ms. Crumpton said the process took a few years, beginning with a consensus among the librarians and clerk as to the genres they would organize into, and including the classification of each book. As books are added to the collection now, the three staff members discuss the genre and the media clerk labels accordingly. Ms. Crumpton feels that genrefying has increased circulation in her library, and she has the stats to prove it. She feels that especially as students read less and less for pleasure throughout high school, genrefying helps to get the books students want to read into their hands more readily.
The librarians at JICHS have done extensive weeding of their nonfiction collection, but carefully consider each title as they weed; Ms. Crumpton noted that is isn't just about the last time a book circulated or even its publication date - she pointed out that some older titles contain what is still the best published information on subjects, so to weed the book based on simple data would be a mistake. This observation is an important one for me to take note of - coming into a library that has never been weeded (in 20 years!), I was eager to weed the majority of the nonfiction section; however, careful consideration of content should give me pause before eliminating the entire nonfiction section!
Ms. Crumpton believes that an important part of her role of 'curator' is to select appropriate databases

for use by the students at JICHS. The librarians spend library funds on high-level databases and put a lot of effort into sharing them with teachers, encouraging their use in course content, and teaching students how to use databases. Yearly subscriptions make it possible for the library to reevaluate annually the needs of their community and which databases are working for them.
The librarians offer a menu of adaptable lessons to teachers as a means to foster research skills in the students at JICHS. In order to accommodate these lessons, which include a 'health fiction unit', where students read a fiction novel that includes a health topic, Ms. Crumpton looks to add or remove resources as needed for these projects.
Finally, Ms. Crumpton spoke about the diversity audit they conducted in their library last year. This audit is her most important work - in 'making meaning' for her school's population, the audit forced the librarians to consider the windows and mirrors they offered in their collection, and where it was lacking. Each addition (or subtraction) from the collection is carefully considered according to the results of the diversity audit, and records are maintained to assure integrity. While a considerable undertaking, the librarians made us of Destiny reports to compile data, and Ms. Crumpton suggested that any library built on the shared foundations must absolutely conduct their own diversity audit.
American Association of School Librarians.(2018). AASL standards framework for learners. Chicago: ALA.