California Child Welfare Resource Library

Created in 1994 through a grant funded by CalSWEC, the California Child Welfare Resource Library serves as the central distribution point for CalSWEC curriculum development projects to both CalSWEC partners and customers worldwide.  In addition, it is repository for up-to-date, accessible child welfare resource materials for academicians and practitioners alike.  The library is administered by the Department of Social Work at CSU, Long Beach and managed by Resource Specialist Cheryl Fujii.

The California Child Welfare Resource Library enjoyed significant growth during fiscal year 2000-2001, increasing its patronage and visibility both domestically and internationally.  Through its marketing and promotion of curriculum products, acquisition of resources, and expanded provision of services to clients, the library assisted thousands of students and practitioners dealing with the social work challenges of the twenty-first century.

Among the year's highlights, the library:

• Received and distributed five scheduled curriculum products whose topics included children with disabilities, family group decision making, interagency collaboration, listening to children in foster care, and non-violent conflict management.

• Increased patron usage in the university and county categories, while sustaining usage in the training academy category.  The checkout of materials was up nearly 43 percent and the number of active borrowing partners increased 59 percent over the previous fiscal year.

• Acquired a select group of books, videotapes, and other resource materials, including approximately 50 new videotapes; 50 new books; 43 MSW theses completed by students who graduated from the CSU, Long Beach Children, Youth, and Families concentration; and numerous donated and no-cost items.

• Expanded its use of the Internet to promote dissemination of CalSWEC curriculum projects by:
  • Listing the library's Web site http://www.csulb.edu/projects/ccwrl/index.html with several search engines;
  • Posting a comprehensive description on the Child Maltreatment Bulletin Board, a world wide forum for child maltreatment research and practice, which attracted a number of practitioners and academicians to the site and products catalogue; and
  • Linking to other sites, such as New York University's School of Social Work.

• Enhanced the Website's user-friendliness by adding new information, including a listing of more than 360 abstracted videotapes sorted by keyword.  The site includes the holdings catalog, product catalog, and multimedia training packages, which link CalSWEC curriculum products with videotape resources.

• Created a Curriculum Style Manual, with the assistance of CalSWEC Curriculum Specialist Carin Harkness, to be distributed to future project grantees to assist them in conforming their curricula to the uniform style.

• Abstracted one-third of the older items in the collection database and all new items received in the current year to improve the usefulness of the holdings catalog by providing detailed information on resources.

• Extended the "books by mail" service to include schools with undergraduate social work programs as borrowing partners.

• Assisted other universities that are developing their own child welfare libraries by consulting with staff and providing information on resources.