Building a Collection for the School Library with Reference to Lyttelton Manor High School, South Africa

Abstract

The article attempted to discuss collection building at the Lyttelton Manor High School Media Centre (in Gauteng, South Africa) to support users’ needs. The purpose of this study was to investigate the information needs of the Lyttelton Manor High School learners with a view of building a well-equipped collection. The collection housed in the media centre has become too large and mostly contain books that were donated decades ago and has subsequently become outdated. The study employed a quantitative approach to conduct research on the learners by implementing a survey method in the form of a questionnaire. A convenience stratified systematic sampling technique was chosen to select the sample size from the population. The findings showed unambiguous user preferences to specific materials and resources as well as a growing need for electronic resource inclusion. In addition, the findings showed that the majority of the participants felt that the media centre did not have sufficient materials that they need. It was recommended that the media centre staff use the specific genres and topics chosen by the participants to build and weed out their collection and also to focus on building an infrastructure for electronic resources to be implemented and used in the future.