The School Library

by American Library Association

The school library

A necessity in modern education

It is impossible to prepare students adequately for their class work or for life without a generous supply of good books. No school of any grade, whether it be the elementary school or a great university, is properly equipped unless it has a well organized library.

A good school library helps to make good citizens

What is a school library?

It is a collection of books, periodicals, pamphlets and pictures, grouped and arranged for use, administered by someone who knows how to make books serve both pupils and teachers.

The school library is the laboratory of every department, the laboratory in which boys and girls may acquire a knowledge of how to use books, and the most valuable of all habits—the habit of reading.

The well equipped, properly administered library is the heart of the school it serves.

What are the chief functions of a school library?

To supply books and magazines to supplement class work, to provide cultural reading, to impart a working knowledge of books and libraries, and to develop the habit of turning to books and libraries for information; to provide the teacher with professional and cultural reading and with material for use in the preparation of classroom work.

A well equipped school library is a laboratory for every department

=== How is a school library administered? ===

The most successful school libraries are administered by trained and experienced librarians who may or may not have had teaching experience. Where the school library is conducted in co-operation with the public library, the librarian of the public library either appoints or recommends to the school authorities a school librarian who will rank with other department heads as a member of the school faculty.

What relation should the school library have to the public library?

In some cities a definite agreement exists whereby the public library provides the school library service. In others the librarian of the public library acts in an advisory

These boys and girls are forming habits that will last a lifetime

capacity on school library matters. A school library attains its maximum success only in closest co-operation with the public library, whether independently or jointly administered.

How it it supported?

By annual funds provided in the public school or public library budget; sometimes by state grants.

Many successful school libraries are administered as branches of public libraries. in all cases close co-operation with the public library is essential.

Where can I get more information about school libraries?

Write to the supervisor of libraries in your state department of education, to the secretary of your state library commission, or to the librarian of the state library at your state capital; or to the American Library Association, 78 East Washington Street, Chicago, Illinois.

"The school and the library, the teacher and the librarian. have come to occupy in these latter days a closer association of effort than was the case in the past. Tomorrow, they will be still more closely drawn together."—John J. Tigert. U. S. Commissioner of Education.

American Library Association, Chicago, Illinois

---