|Abstract:||Previous papers have presented both philosophical and theoretical
aspects of the changes and developments that have been taking place
in the school library field. These have been supplemented with considerations
given to the practical problems arising from the newer
media being used in modern teaching programs and the role of the
school library at all levels in servicing the needs of students and
teachers who are using successfully these multi-media resources for
more effective learning.
To maintain perspective while projecting one's thoughts into the
possible future developments of the school library as an Instructional
Materials Center is both difficult and perplexing. In a country as
vast and complex as ours, where basic patterns of education vary
greatly from section to section, and where each area has its own deep
seated roots in the past, no single pattern of education or of school
library programs emerges clearly. The fifty states have fifty patterns,
and within each state there are great variations among the
schools of teaching methods, of library service, of the type and
amount of teaching materials made available, and of the administrative
patterns for servicing book, pamphlet, periodical, audio, and
visual resources in a school or in a school system. This complexity,
as we know, stems from the fact that our federal constitution delegates
the responsibility for educating children and youth to the states,
who in turn delegate the responsibility to the citizens of each community.
The people alone can decide whether they want to provide
quality education with functional school facilities and adequate or
superior learning resources, or, whether they want to provide for the
bare necessities of teaching as required by state regulations. Leadership,
or the lack of it, at the state and local level determines to a
great degree what is provided for the children of a state and community.
Even within a school district itself, inequalities of school
plants, school facilities, teaching staff, and instructional materials
may be very apparent to anyone concerned with the problem and willing
to take the time to investigate.