Lietuviška literatūra Pietryčių Lietuvos mokyklų bibliotekose

Analysis of quality and quantity of Lithuanian literature available in national minority schools of general education of Southeast Lithuania is one of the most relevant pedagogic issues. The author was interested in the cultural-educational direction of school libraries of the region, i.e. development of cognitive needs, leisure, ethnic culture, and creativity of pupils; and the role of librarians as intermediaries between teachers and pupils in learning the state language, and as the gatekeepers of the knowledge of how a Lithuanian word finds it path to a child’s sole. Yet another direction is the investigative-educational work: school libraries are discussed as a source and one of the key primary sources for teaching and continuous learning for both pupils and teachers. In 1996, the research on the state of the aforementioned school libraries provides that: 1) Russian literature that remained since Soviet times was predominant in libraries of national minority schools situated in the regions of Šalčininkai and Vilnius: there was 2-5 times more of such literature than Lithuanian literature. 2) During the period of 1993-1996, school libraries situated in the regions of Šalčininkai and Vilnius received the most methodological literature in Lithuania form the Collector of Libraries and the Open Society Fund Lithuania. They almost got no books in Russian, required methodological materials, and fiction in Lithuanian, Polish, Russian, and other languages. 3) Most researched school librarians had no required qualification. When collecting library funds, there was no cooperation with regional public libraries although literature was scares