What do schools need?

After eighteen years of professional commitment to library media services for youth, I found myself perplexed by the question, What do schools need? Perplexed because my personal perceptions were so clear or so I thought. Yet, I could not focus and translate them to the written word. It became necessary to sit and recall years of professional behaviors and experiences in the school and public library. It also became necessary to summon relationships and accomplishments, gained or lost, due to those behaviors. What I saw showed growth and tremendous change, but not nearly enough. It was frightening because I found that the majority of our problems were due to us; we did not know who we were or what we should be doing. I turned to research and fellow professionals for help. I had to know what was being done in the school library media centers of this country. There was too much fragmentation in my mind and in the evidence to determine what was needed now and tomorrow. What I discerned schools to need from librarianship and what I see them needing in the future was tied to how we perceived ourselves as being and what role we are willing to play.Institute sponsored by University of Illinois, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, cosponsored by the Youth Divisions of the American Library Association: American Association of School Librarians (AASL), Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), Young Adult Services Division (YASD)published or submitted for publicatio