The School Library In The Changing Metropolitan School Environment

Change has become a constant, and the acceptance of this factor in all areas of our living has had the effect of continually challenging the assumptions that guide our personal and public relationships, and our productivity. That there are some important challenges to the assumptions on which school library service operates is the basis of my discussion today. The setting is the school the school which Dr. Hansen has discussed. When School Libraries Today and Tomorrow was formulated in 1945 to provide standards for the development of post-war school library service, the first objective outlined for the school library was to serve the school in the accomplishment of its educational purposes. That objective continues to be the focus of planning for library service in the school, and is reflected in the judicious planning of this program . The definitions of the school library could be made only in the light of such an interpretation of the problems of the metropolitan school as Dr. Hansen has provided. The immediate environment of the school library is the school; and to the extent that that environment is modified and changed by demographic and sociological factors, as well as by evolutionary innovations in educational goals and methods, the school library is challenged to re-evaluate traditional modes of organization and avenues of service. The school librarian shares with every school staff member the responsibility for meeting the needs of increasing and shifting populations that change the socioeconomic character and the educational commitment of a community, and at the same time he shares a part of the responsibility of every librarian to the continuing intellectual life of man and the records of his culture.published or submitted for publicatio