History of School Libraries

Nineteen forty-five, however, saw a return to a peacetime economy. The economic gains made during the war continued and between 1945 and 1960 America's gross nation product increased by 250 percent. (Chafe) Another byproduct of the war was the incredible increase in technology. The use of film and filmstrips became the cutting edge in education and they were the bastion of the school librarian. Now the library was a media center!

That same year, 1945, The ALA published their post-war standards entitled, School Libraries for Today and Tomorrow. It suggested that school libraries would:

1. Participate effetely in the school program as it strives to meet the needs of pupils, teachers, parents, and other community members
2. Provide boys and girls with the library materials and services most appropriate and most meaningful in their growth and development as individuals
3. Stimulate and guide pupils in all phases of their reading so that they may find increasing enjoyment and satisfaction and may grow in critical judgment and appreciation
4. Provide an opportunity through library experiences for boys and girls to develop helpful interests, to make satisfactory personal adjustments, and to acquire desirable social attitudes
5. Help children and young people to become skillful and discriminating users of libraries and of printed and audio visual materials
6. Introduce pupils to community libraries as early as possible and co-operate with those libraries in their efforts to encourage continuing education and cultural growth
7. Work with teachers in the selection and use of all types of library materials which contribute to the teaching program
8. Participate with teachers and administrators in programs for continuing professional and cultural growth of the school staff
9. Co-operate with other libraries and community leaders in planning and developing an overall library program for the community or area. (Davis)

These guidelines became the basis for the school library as it exist today, however at the time they had little affect on the programs in American schools. Although the economy was growing rapidly most school districts were not keeping pace with the rest of society. Americans had long accepted that public education was not their first priority and school libraries were even lower on their list.

World events however provided the catalyst that would propel American public education forward. American paranoia over Soviet capabilities demanded that American school children become better educated. As the cold war accelerated Americans, who once thought of themselves as the technological leaders of the world, began to doubt their greatness. The Soviet Union was proving to be a worthy competitor for that title and with the launch of Sputnik in 1957 Americans felt they were losing the race. This prompted President Eisenhower to support the National Defense Education Act. This bill did more to pump federal money into America's educational system then any previous legislation had. (Chafe)

The National Defense Education Act (NDEA) established the trend for educational funding that became the basis of many of the statutes today. Of course, the NDEA not only funneled money into education it also established curriculum guideline for content areas that were considered critical to the advancement of defense, such as math and the sciences. The most important part of the act for school libraries was Title III, it gave schools the federal money they needed to purchase instructional material and it gave rise to the idea of the instructional media center. (Krettek)

The 1960s saw the continued growth of the economy. “By the end of 1963, auto sales were up 10 percent, profits after taxes were up 60 percent, the country was in its thirty-fourth month of unbroken economic expansion and the cost of living was holding steady.” (Chafe, 234) The 89th Congress, under LBJs leadership, passed an unprecedented amount of legislation, much of it benefiting education. While the NDEA went a long way to fund schools, it was the 1965 bill;

Elementary and Secondary Education Act created under President Johnson's “Great Society” programs that really catapulted schools and school libraries forward. This act under Title II allocated federal monies for library resources, such as “books, periodicals, documents, audio-visual materials, and other related library materials.” (Krettek, 344)

Title II money was meant to supplement school budgets, not replace them, so local districts and private school were still basically funded by local monies, but the federal funding increased school budgets exponentially and allowed for:

1. development and revision of standards for instructional materials
2. selection of materials appropriate for pupils and teachers who will use them
3. use of instructional materials in school programs for innovative, curricular, and instructional techniques
4. demonstration of superior media programs
5. support of special educational programs such as those for pupils in hospitals, correctional institutions, and school for the mentally and physically handicapped
6. provision of materials for bilingual and early childhood education programs
7. implementation of Right-to-Read objective by introducing and making accessible a wide range of media designed to assure the acquisition of basic reading skills by all who enter school
8. support of instruction in the area of social problems, such as drug abuse and environmental ecological education (Krettek,, 345)