Annual Activities Report
2001-2002
The Instructional Resources Unit (IRU) provides K-12 educators with curriculum implementation support, professional development resources, and educational research materials; departmental staff with essential library services and resources including the latest educational research; teachers-in-training with library services as preparation for teaching; and the above clients, including the general public, with library services to facilitate lifelong learning and parental involvement.
The IRU continued to build local capacity to improve teaching and learning, focusing on seven activities.
- Selection, acquisition, and cataloguing of learning resources, provision of print and electronic access to the IRU collections, as well as reference and information assistance. The IRU provided library services in support of K-S4 curriculum implementation, the Special Education Review, the Aboriginal Strategy, educational research, and professional learning address K-S4 educators' needs, such as best practices, school improvement, research based decision-making, and school library development. With more than 10,700 registered clients, staff answered over 22,000 queries and circulated over 122,000 resources. Clients were actively using IRU's electronic resources, including 2,016,322 hits/visits on the Online Catalogue, over 91,000 searches completed on the electronic databases and over 295,000 hits/visits on the IRU web site.
- Acquisition, cataloguing and dissemination of resources identified through Western Canadian Protocol and Manitoba Reviews of learning resources
- Develop
and disseminate print and electronic publications, including bibliographies,
catalogues of new resources and of professional learning documents.
New and revised bibliographies included: Anti-Racist
Education (
177 kb), Conflict
Resolution: Safe Schools ( 236 kb) , The
Holocaust ( 124 kb), Human
Rights ( 91 kb), Parental
Involvement ( 112 kb), Promising
Partnerships ( 148 kb), School
Bus Safety ( 145 kb), Students
at Risk ( 75 kb), and Substance
Abuse Prevention ( 183 kb).
- Application of leading-edge information technologies both for services and collections, creating a virtual library accessible to all Manitoba K-S4 educators, teachers and Department staff.
- Provision of copyright clearance and copyright assistance, through the Schools/CanCopy/Pan-Canadian Agreement 1999-2004, as well as copyright information assistance. Development through the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada, a framework for national digital copyright policy, which was recommended to the federal government, for the revision of copyright law.
- Provision of efficient and effective delivery for new School Programs Division documents and other education literature, to specified groups and individuals in schools and Board offices via monthly bulk mailings. In 2001-2002, over 700,000 items were distributed through bulk mail services.
- Provision of multicultural library services and resources in the areas of Diversity and Equity Education, Spanish language education, human rights education, English as a second language, and Black history.
