Fall Library Planning Checklist for NYC Schools

The era of the “budget dance” is over for New York City’s school libraries thanks to the newly established baseline budget, giving librarians and media specialists greater budgetary confidence when planning collections. This summer, take advantage of this stability to optimize your collection, using this fall planning checklist as your guide. 

Start Early to Optimize Your Budget and Collection

Capitalize on your newfound budget stability by starting your procurement process early. This allows time to assess your needs and align purchases with your priorities, so you can maximize the impact of your funding on your everyday literacy efforts. It also helps ensure you receive popular titles and formats that your community anticipates. Consider these steps:

• Take advantage of predictable funding to develop a thoughtful purchasing plan.
• Evaluate collection needs before budgets are committed.
• Improve title availability by ordering before demand peaks.

Take Stock of Your Current Collection

Before placing your fall book order, evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of your existing collection. Consider the publication age of current titles against circulation trends, look for worn or outdated materials, and identify subject gaps to assess where your investment will have its greatest impact. Collection analysis tools like TitleWise^® make it easy to visualize collection health and uncover opportunities for improvement. Consider the following:

• Review the average age of your collection by subject.
• Identify high-demand areas with limited or outdated materials.
• Replace damaged, missing, or obsolete titles.
• Use TitleWise insights to support data-informed collection decisions.

Confirm Your Library Purchasing Funds and Priorities

Understanding your available funding and purchasing priorities empowers you to build an engaging collection that’s aligned with your overarching goals. Whether you aim to expand popular collections, support literacy initiatives, update curriculum resources, or all of the above, focusing your efforts on priorities and goals gives you confidence in your decisions while streamlining the budgeting and ordering process. Consider the following:

• Confirm your available purchasing budget and spending timeline.
• Review district or branch collection development priorities.
• Allocate funds across subjects, formats, and age levels.
• Balance immediate needs with long-term collection goals.

Identify What Your Readers Need

You know better than anyone the unique literacy needs of your community. Take time to consider language needs, accessibility requirements, curriculum support, and formats that engage striving readers when planning your fall book order. Focusing on what you know about your community – their wants and needs – helps build a collection that reflects its diverse interests and learning requirements. Consider the following: 

• Expand multilingual collections that reflect your community.
• Include print, eBooks, audiobooks, and other accessible formats.
• Support classroom learning with curriculum-aligned resources.
• Increase engagement with high-interest, accessible titles for reluctant readers.

Build Your List in Titlewave

Titlewave^® simplifies collection development by providing expert recommendations, curated book lists, collection analysis, and real-time inventory data in one place. Build, save, and revise your fall order list with all the information you need to build diverse, complete, and effective library collections.  Use it to:

• Browse curated lists created by collection development experts.
• Search and filter titles by subject, audience, format, and reading level.
• Check real-time title availability as you build your order.
• Save, revise, and share lists throughout the planning process.

Export Your Titlewave List to FAMIS

Your Titlewave list is easily transferred to FAMIS, so you can follow the official FAMIS library ordering procedure. The transfer process is intuitive, but your local NYC Follett Content team is available to guide you and ensure your order documentation is complete:

• Export your finalized list from Titlewave into FAMIS.
• Prepare and place your order in FAMIS.
• Work with your local team for guidance throughout the process, if needed.

Connect with Your Local NYC Follett Content Team 

Follett Content is here to ensure you never have to navigate the purchasing cycle. Your local NYC team partners will help you from planning through ordering, providing personalized recommendations, collection expertise, pricing support, and customized quotes. Whether you're refreshing a single section or developing a comprehensive purchasing plan, we're here to help every step of the way. 

Ready to connect with your local NYC team? Let’s schedule a quick chat to discuss your needs.

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