School Library Equity

Welcome to The Massachusetts School Library Study: Equity and Access for Students in the Commonwealth.

Thank you for taking part in this survey. It is being undertaken by the Massachusetts School Library Association in response to a request by the School Library Commission. The study was charged by the Massachusetts Legislature and includes the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, the Center for International Scholarship in School Libraries (CISSL) at Rutgers University, and the State University of New Jersey. This is the first of a two-phase study that seeks to understand the contribution of school libraries to education in Massachusetts. Phase 2 will take place later in 2016.

The purpose of this survey is to establish the status of Massachusetts' school libraries in terms of staffing, collection and access to information, facilities, budget, and instruction. 
The study will provide important data that will contribute to policy and professional directions for school libraries in Massachusetts, and provide data to enable all stakeholders to work together to continuously improve the state's school libraries.  

It is important that we gather data from all schools in Massachusetts. You will be asked to provide your school and contact details so that we can follow up and resend the invitation to schools that have not yet completed the survey. You are however, by no means obliged to participate. The purpose is simply to remind participants who may be interested but have so far not filled out the survey. Contact information will not be part of the data analysis. The collected data will be kept strictly confidential and all the responses will be stored securely.  No reference will be made in any reports that could link you to the study.
 
You will be asked to complete this online questionnaire, which is made available to you from a secure Web server at the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education in Malden, Massachusetts. Completing the questionnaire will take approximately 30 minutes of your time. There are no foreseeable risks in participating in this study, and you will not benefit directly from participation. The knowledge that we obtain from your participation may lead to increased understanding of the impact of school libraries in Massachusetts, and thus indirectly be beneficial for you in your future work if you learn about the findings.
 
Before you agree to participate in this study, you should know enough about it to make an informed decision. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Dr. Todd at rtodd@rutgers.edu or drcarolgordonconsulting@gmail.com. You should be satisfied with the answers before you agree to be in the study. If you agree to take part in the study, you will be assigned an access code number that will be used on the questionnaire. Your name will not appear. This code number identifies your school for the purpose of sending a reminder to the school librarians who do not fill out the questionnaire after the initial announcement that the questionnaire is ready to be taken. This code number will be erased from the questionnaire after you have completed your responses and will not be accessible during the analysis of the data in the questionnaire.
 
Participation in this study is voluntary. You may choose not to answer any questions with which you are not comfortable. There are no costs involved in participating in this research. For participating you will receive no automatic compensation. If you withdraw from the study prior to its completion, you will receive no penalty. Your participation is voluntary; you may decline to participate without penalty. You may withdraw from the study at any time without penalty and without loss of benefits to which you are otherwise entitled. If you withdraw from the study before data collection is completed your data will be removed from the data set and destroyed.
 
This research is confidential. Data will include some information about you, such as position at your school, your educational qualifications and the length of your educational experience. Your name will not be identified. This information will be kept confidential. The research team and the Institutional Review Board at Rutgers University are the only parties that will be allowed to see the data, except as may be required by law. In published reports and conference presentations group results will be presented and illustrative quotations used will not enable the identification of the participant. Data will be stored at a secure Rutgers server.





 

 

MA School Library Survey HELP SHEET

Thank you for taking part in the Massachusetts School Library Study on Equity and Access for Students in the Commonwealth. The survey should take approximately 30 minutes to complete. Before you begin, please make sure that you have the following information at hand:
   Demographic and enrollment data for the school(s) in which you are employed 
   Library budget for the 2014-15 school year 
   Interlibrary loan data (if applicable) 
   Number of computers available in the library (desktops, laptops, tablets, etc.)  
   Collection data for the 2014-2015 school year
   Total number of cataloged items in collection (If you serve multiple schools, please provide
   information on the single largest school you serve)
   Number of DVDs, CDs, eBooks, databases, videocassettes, and audio cassettes
   Number of alternative reading material subscriptions (magazine subscriptions, newspapers, etc.)