Collection Development Policy
Purpose of the CIRC
The purpose of the Community Information Resource Center (CIRC) is to meet local needs for information and resource finding and to complement and expand educational opportunities for all residents. Currently three principal collections address this purpose:
- The adult-oriented collection aims
to supply useful, usable information to support improvements in basic education,
practical skills, health care, food quality and quantity, the production
of surplus goods, the development of small businesses, political participation,
and so on.
Such information may take the form of face-to-face training, distance education, books, tools and any other supportive means and materials.
Currently this collection is very small, awaiting formation of the local Library Committee and the development of a local input process.
- At the village schools the future
knowledge base is founded on the kinds of content students are exposed to
while they apply themselves to the 3 Rs.
Developing student awareness of the world, and of the unique place of their home within it, while strengthening literacy and numeracy, is the focus. Materials that connect to their surroundings are chiefly sought, along with others that provide useful contexts and comparisons.
The school-oriented collection – understood as a resource for teachers, pupils and parents – addresses itself to providing materials that meet the needs and interests of these three constituencies.
Collecting is most active in this area at present.
- The local knowledge collection
The CIRC has a further mission, of equal importance
to supplying information, and that is, collecting it.
The CIRC is intended to be a repository of local knowledge across
the spectrum of subject areas, and a means of gathering, preserving and
disseminating the knowledge productions of local inhabitants in written
and visual form.
Papermaking from plants, intermediate-technology printing, hand bookbinding,
balata-based linocut production, et al., are all activities within the scope
of the CIRC. This aspect of the library is still only in the vision phase of development.
Subject matter
The emphasis within the collection is:
- the region (South & Central America, Caribbean);
- the culture (Amerindian, colonial experience, low technology, high contact with the land and the means of survival on it);
- sustainable development (education, health, biodiversity, agriculture, husbandry, small business, appropriate technology et al).
Material on other regions and cultures is selected to form a comparative framework.
For example, the biomes of the world are the context for better understanding the neotropical savannas; the Native American colonial experience in North America can be compared and contrasted with the colonial experience of indigenous peoples in South America.
Currently the chief collection areas are:
- Child development
- Early learning
- Earth Science*
- Ecology *
- English language-learning
- Folk tales, fairy tales
- Geography
- Health*
- History (focusing on the differing perspectives of the region’s pre-European past, the European-American encounter, colonialism, post-colonialism)
- How-to (e.g. sewing patterns, woodworking…)
- Life science*
- Makushi language, life and culture
- Mathematics
- Physical Science*
- Picture books
- Small rural business development, microcredit
- Social Studies*
- Targeted materials to support and extend the existing Distance Education Program for teachers (GBETT and others)
- Teacher’s aids (not so much those perennially unused companion guides as helpful classroom strategies)
- Training methods, including group process
- Zoology*
*Books in subject areas marked with an asterisk (*) published more than 10 years ago are not useful given the purpose and limits of this library (e.g. health information). Encyclopedias, as well as atlases and globes with political data, etc. should be no more than 5 years old, since these items date quickly.
A note on quality
Equally important as the information they supply, the books are intended to encourage and support learning to read English fluently and with pleasure. They must be as accessible and delightful as possible, both visually and verbally.
While it is important to acquire materials that are relevant, diversity is by no means restricted, and an entertaining story from Poland or Nigeria is better than a dull one from Brazil.
The appeal must be universal, independent of an assumed familiarity with the history and culture of other lands or with modern technology, urban life, a developed-world standard of living, etc.
For this reason folk tales, fairy tales, fables, myths and legends and the like are often the best bet in fiction.
Yet stories can be a means of learning about other times and places. Uncle Jed’s Barbershop by Margaree K. Mitchell, for example, tells an emotionally compelling story while informing the reader about racial segregation and the Depression in the U.S., but it does not assume, nor depend on, any prior knowledge of this context.
Thus items cannot be chosen, unread, from catalogs unless previously reviewed and recommended by someone familiar with local circumstances. Thoughtful, hands-on selection is always preferred.
Current library holdings
The Yupukari library collection is being cataloged as it grows, using software that enables Web access. We aim to put the catalog online so that visitors may better understand what is being collected and how their donations fit with current holdings.