Bookstock and Other Resources

11. Library study places were at an average of approximately 11 places per 100 pupils; the median value was 5.7 places per 100 pupils, showing that some schools were particularly well resourced compared with the majority.

12. Overall, 8.7% of school libraries did not have any computer workstations; 52.7% had 1 to 4 workstations and 38.5% had 5 or more workstations. This represents an average of approximately 1 work station per 100 pupils; the median value was 1 per 200 pupils which, again, shows that some schools were particularly well resourced compared with the majority. Provision in Northern Ireland was poor; there were some particularly well resourced school libraries in England and Wales. Special and independent schools stood out as under resourced in this area.

13. Non-fiction stock holding was at an average of approximately 9.12 items per pupil with a median value of 6.04. For fiction, this reduced to an average of approximately 4.60 items per pupil with a median value of 3.00. For both fiction and non-fiction, some schools had much larger book stocks than the majority. In terms of the total book stock the average per pupil was 13.4 with a median of 9.2 items per pupil. Special and independent school libraries tended to have a better provision of stock per pupil than the other sectors. There was a rather dramatic trend comparing provision with size of school. Generally smaller school libraries had a much better provision per pupil. Differences on usage (borrowing per pupil) did not reflect this better provision. Whether this can be taken to suggest that the larger school libraries make more efficient use of book resources is a point for discussion.

14. School libraries in Wales (60.3%) and Scotland (65.4%) tended to stock more computer software than the other countries. LEA maintained schools (59.8%) reported higher on this item and independent schools lower (41.3%).

15. For CD ROM disks, special school libraries tended to stock these less often (50%). There was a trend with size, ranging from 55% for smaller schools to 100% for schools with over 2000 pupils.

16. For commercially produced videos, 76.3% of Scottish school libraries stocked these but only 47.9% of Northern Irish schools did. Special schools (41.4%) and independent schools (48.1%) also scored low on this count. Over 85% of 2000+ pupils schools stocked this item.

17. For "talking books" (audio cassettes), only 36.2% of Northern Ireland school libraries tended to stock these but 76.9% of Scottish school libraries did. Special schools tended to stock this item (70.7%) but independent schools did not (44.2%). In 76.2% of schools with 2000+ pupils this item was stocked but the level dropped to 46% for 100-500 pupil schools.

18. With published resource packs the Northern Irish schools faired poorly (36.2%) and Scottish schools well (60.9%). Special schools (34.5%) and independent schools (37.5%) did not find these popular.

19. For additions to stock this represents an average of approximately 1.11 books per pupil; the median being 0.49. For other materials the numbers are 6 items per 100 pupils on average and less than 1 item per 100 pupils for the median. The difference between mean and median reflected the feature of a few school libraries having large additions to stock. Looking at total stock and comparing additions to stock allowed an approximate rate of replenishment to be estimated. Care must be exercised with these figures since it is unlikely that any school would replenish the whole stock in about 50 years, which is suggested by 20.4% of the school libraries. The survey results also suggest that only 29% of school libraries will replace stock in 10 years or less. There was a tendency for the English school libraries to have a higher replenishment rate per pupil. Special schools would appear to have either very good or very poor replenishment of books; independent schools tended to have very good replenishment rates, although this is not true of all independent schools. The proportion of schools adding ‘no books per pupil’ drops from 47.4% for the smallest schools to 7.1% for the largest schools. Also, the proportion of schools adding over 2 books per pupil drops from 28.9% for the smallest schools to 4.3% for 1000-2000 pupil schools. For over half the schools with 100+ pupils less than one book per pupil was added to stock per annum.

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