Research and Practical Experiences of Recent Years That Support the Concept of the School Library Materials Center

I have said before and I would like to begin by saying again that, "in my book, " there is no more challenging or exciting work and there is no job of greater importance to progress in every sector of society than that of managing the availability and flow of knowledge through all media. This is the business of librarians everywhere and within elementary and secondary education, it is the business of the school librarian. The School Library Materials Center concept is one answer given by our profession to the challenge of modern educational communi-cation and information service requirements. It is an important idea, and since the approval in 1956 by the American Association of School Librarians of an affirmative statement which defined the role of the school library as an instructional materials center, this idea has become increasingly a guiding principle employed in planning school media services. The chief limitation of the concept, and of the phi