Measuring the results of the cooperation between public libraries and school - The Monitor the Library at School in the Netherlands

Abstract

On a commission of the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, a project team has developed a national internet-based monitoring instrument which charts the impact of the collaboration between elementary schools and libraries (in-school as well as out-of-school). The instrument consists of digital questionnaires to students, teachers and school librarians. The questionnaires are administered once per year. The second round of data collection has been completed and involved collecting data from approximately 30,000 students, 3,000 teachers and 300 reading consultants from all over the Netherlands. The main goal of the monitor is to help individual schools and libraries to optimize the impact of their collaboration. At each school, the teachers are given feedback from the monitor by the school librarian. The monitoring data makes it possible to pinpoint specific aspects of student classroom behavior, provides detailed information for discussions amongst teaching staff and to inform school policy. As the data is retained in a national database and has also been used for analysis at a national and provincial level.