1. What is a School Library Media
Program
(or is it a School Library Program)?
And How Did the
Idea Get Started?
LIB 620 Library Management
Fall 2013

2. August 26, 2013
School Library Media Program? 2
School Library Media Program?
• Why such a mouthful?
– School?
– Library?
– Media?
– Program?

3. August 26, 2013
School Library Media Program? 3
School?
• Yeah, School?
– ―We are students of words: we are shut up in schools,
and colleges, and recitation-rooms, for ten or fifteen
years, and come out at last with a bag of wind, a
memory of words, and do not know a thing.‖
• Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882)
– ―I’m not going to buy my kids an encyclopedia. Let
them walk to school like I did.‖
• Yogi Berra

4. August 26, 2013
School Library Media Program? 4
School?
• Main Entry: 1school
– Pronunciation: 'skül
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English scole, from Old English scOl, from
Latin schola, from Greek scholE leisure, discussion, lecture,
school; perhaps akin to Greek echein to hold -- more at SCHEME
1 : an organization that provides instruction: as a : an
institution for the teaching of children b : COLLEGE,
UNIVERSITY c (1) : a group of scholars and teachers pursuing
knowledge together that with similar groups constituted a medieval
university (2) : one of the four faculties of a medieval university
(3) : an institution for specialized higher education often associated
with a university <the school of engineering> d : an establishment
offering specialized instruction <a secretarial school> <driving
schools>

5. August 26, 2013
School Library Media Program? 5
Library?
• OK, Library?
– ―A truly great library contains something in it
to offend everyone.‖
• Jo Godwin
– ―If you want to get laid, go to college. If you
want an education, go to the library.‖
• Frank Zappa
– Online Dictionary of Quotations

6. August 26, 2013
School Library Media Program? 6
Library?
– ―You see, I don't believe that libraries should be drab
places where people sit in silence, and that's been the
main reason for our policy of employing wild
animals as librarians.‖
• Monty Python skit
Gorilla Librarian
(script)
Watch the skit on Youtube

7. August 26, 2013
School Library Media Program? 7
Dictionary
definition of
Library?• Main Entry: li·brary
– Pronunciation: 'lI-"brer-E; British usually and US
sometimes -br&r-E; US sometimes -brE, ÷-"ber-E
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -brar·ies
Etymology: Middle English, from Medieval Latin librarium,
from Latin, neuter of librarius of books, from libr-, liber inner
bark, rind, book
1 a : a place in which literary, musical, artistic, or reference
materials (as books, manuscripts, recordings, or films) are kept
for use but not for sale b : a collection of such materials
2 a : a collection resembling or suggesting a library <a library of
computer programs> <wine library> b : MORGUE 2

8. August 26, 2013
School Library Media Program? 8
Media?
• What do you mean, media?
– Not mediums (that’s spiritualism)!
– Nor:
• “When the media ask him [George W. Bush] a question, he
answers, „Can I use a lifeline?‟”
~ Robin Williams
– 2media 1 : a medium of cultivation, conveyance, or expression;
especially : MEDIUM 2b
1me·di·um 2 : a means of effecting or conveying something:
b plural usually media (1) : a channel or system of
communication, information, or entertainment

9. August 26, 2013
School Library Media Program? 9
Program?
• What is a program?
– A program is a planned sequence and combination of
activities designed to achieve specified goals. Programs
normally involve
• equipment
• materials
• money
• personnel, and
• time
• This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library, Version 4.0,
published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 1999. No longer
available online.

10. August 26, 2013
School Library Media Program? 10
Program in a
dictionary?
• Main Entry: 1pro·gram
Pronunciation: 'prO-"gram, -gr&m
Function: noun
Etymology: French programme agenda, public notice,
from Greek programma, from prographein to write
before, from pro- before + graphein to write
• 3 : a plan or system under which action may be
taken toward a goal

11. August 26, 2013
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Important caveat about
programs
• From the father of hypertext
– ―I am a design chauvinist. I believe that
good design is magical and not to be lightly
tinkered with. The difference between a great design and a
lousy one is in the meshing of the thousand details that either
fit or don’t, and the spirit of the passionate intellect that has
tied them together, or tried. That’s why programming-- or
buying software-- on the basis of ―lists of features‖ is a
doomed and misguided effort. The features can be thrown
together, as in a garbage can, or carefully laid together and
interwoven in elegant unification, as in APL,
or the Forth language, or the game of chess.‖
• Ted Nelson—quoted in Software Engineering Proverbs
Ted Nelson

12. August 26, 2013
School Library Media Program? 12
Put „em together, and what
have you got?
• School Library Media Program
– The New School Librarian version 2001
Amanda Credaro

13. August 26, 2013
School Library Media Program? 13
History of School Libraries
• Not very well known!
– Although the American public school library is one
of this nation’s most ubiquitous educational
institutions, we know very little about its history.
• First sentence of:

14. Roles of the school library
in history
• Laurel Ann Clyde:
1. the school library established to support
the teaching and learning activities of the
school
2. school library established to provide
recreational reading
3. the library established to serve both the
school and the community
4. school library established as a scholars’ library to serve the needs
of a particular group within the school
5. the school library established as a memorial
• Based on Clyde, Laurel A. (1981) The magic casements: a survey of school library history from the eighth to
the twentieth century. PhD thesis, James Cook University as summarized in Laurel A. Clyde -- Thesis
L. Anne Clyde
1946-2005

15. August 26, 2013
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A Pioneer of School
Librarianship
• Hannah Logasa (1879-1967)
– General objectives of the library study-room:
1. To serve as the laboratory and workroom of the school
2. To make available library material for the use of teachers and
pupils
3. To coöperate with all departments of the school in the
carrying out of their objectives
4. To serve as the centralizing agency in the plan of school
organization
– The High School Library: Its Function in Education (1928)

16. August 26, 2013
School Library Media Program? 16
The Three Revolutions 1
• The First Revolution:
– Just after World War II, ―revolutionaries challenged the idea that
a school library should be a repository for books designed to
supplement a child’s reading. In the place of a warehouse, these
leaders dreamed of a center in each school, staffed by a trained
professional educator, which would contain not only printed
materials, but a wide range of audiovisual materials and
equipment as well.‖
• David V. Loertscher, Taxonomies of the School Library Media Program
(1988)
– Result? ALA Standards for School Library Programs (1945,
1960) then Standards for School Library Media Programs
(1969)
• NATIONAL SCHOOL LIBRARY STANDARDS: A CHRONOLOGY (no longer available on the
web).
• See also History of School Library Standards- A Timeline

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The Three
Revolutions 2
• The Second Revolution
– ―In the last ten years [i.e. 1970s and 80s],
a new concept, instructional development or resource-
based teaching, has emerged from the fields of
educational psychology and instructional technology.
Teachers and library media specialists work together to
systematically created sound instructional modules or
units for learners using the full resources of the library
media center.‖
• Loertscher, Taxonomies of the School Library Media
Program (2nd ed., 2000).

18. August 26, 2013
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The Three
Revolutions
3
• The Third Revolution
– ―Revolutionaries of the third kind include
administrators, library media specialists, and teachers
who are too impatient to wait while the library media
center evolves gradually from a passive warehouse
facility into an active participant in instruction.
• Loertscher (1988).

19. Information Power:
Guidelines for School Library
Media Programs (1988)
• 1st edition
– Guidelines for School Library Media Programs
• ―reasserts that library media specialists have the
responsibility to accept roles and responsibilities at the
highest levels of curriculum development. Given the
trends in education and the rate at which information is
produced, school library media specialists find themselves
at the crux of change, finally in a position to narrow the
gap between theory and practice.‖
– Curriculum Roles and Responsibilities of Library Media Specialists
by Berkowitz, Robert E. and Eisenberg, Michael B. ERIC Digest ED308880
(1989)
August 26, 2013
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20. August 26, 2013
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Information
Power (1998)
2nd edition
• Building Partnerships
for Learning
…Because Student
Achievement
IS
THE BOTTOM LINE
Information Power
PowerPoint 2000 version

21. Successor to
Information Power
August 26, 2013
School Library Media Program? 21
• Empowering Learners: Guidelines
for School Library Media Programs (2009)
– Empowering Learners advances school library
media programs to meet the needs of the
changing school library environment and is
guided by the Standards for the 21st-Century
Learner and Standards for the 21st-Century
Learner in Action.
• http://www.ala.org/aasl/standards-guidelines

22. August 26, 2013
School Library Media Program? 22
Kentucky Policy on Library
Media Programs
1st edition (2001)
• Integral to the school‟s educational program:
– ―The school Library Media Program is an integral part of the
school’s total educational program. In today’s information age, an
individual’s success in problem solving, becoming an informed
citizen, even in pursuing personal interests largely depends upon
the ability to access, use and evaluate information from a variety of
resources thus ensuring that students become information literate.‖
•

23. • Beyond Proficiency @ your library® is a web-
based tool to guide Kentucky school media
librarians, school administrators and SBDM
councils in creating and maintaining effective
library media programs for the 21st century.
August 26, 2013
School Library Media Program? 23
Kentucky Policy on Library
Media Programs
2nd edition (2010)

24. 4-page pdf
• 4 additional links:
– Characteristics of Highly
Effective Teaching and Learning
in the Library
– School Library Media Program
Rubric
– School Media Librarian
Evaluation Instrument
August 26, 2013
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25. August 26, 2013
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Other state standards
School Library
Standards and
Evaluation

26. August 26, 2013
School Library Media Program? 26
Remember
the quote
from Ted
Nelson?
• A Program is an integral
whole!
– ―I believe that good design is magical and not to be
lightly tinkered with. The difference between a great
design and a lousy one is in the meshing of the
thousand details that either fit or don‟t, and the
spirit of the passionate intellect that has tied them
together, or tried.‖
• ―meshing of the details‖
• ―the passionate intellect that has tied them together‖

27. School Librarian or
School Library Media Specialist
or what?
• AASL Adopts “School Librarian” As Official Term for
the Profession Forget media specialist or teacher-
librarian
– Forget media specialist or teacher-librarian. As far as the American
Association of School Librarians (AASL) is concerned, the official title for the
profession is now school librarian.
– The AASL board of directors voted in favor of the move on Saturday January
16, 2010 during the American Librarian Association’s midwinter meeting in
Boston. And that means ―school librarian‖ will be used in all of the
profession’s advocacy efforts and publications, including reports and press
releases.
– AASL votes to adopt the professional title school librarian
August 26, 2013
School Library Media Program? 27