Education for School Librarianship: Expectation vs. Reality

Abstract

A SERIOUS discrepancy exists between the expectations that school librarians have for library education and the realities of that preparation as revealed by library school professors who participated in a 1974 study, The Future of School Library Media Centers, conducted by the present writer. The purpose of the study was to ascertain what trends practitioners, leaders, and professors foresee for the last quarter of the twentieth century and what innovations they would like to have introduced in school library media centers during that period. The practitioners are school librarians randomly selected from the membership directory of the American Library Association. The officers and leaders include all officers and committee members of the American Association of School Librarians (excluding educators) listed in the A.L.A. Organizational Handbook. The professors are those listed in the AALS Directory as having an interest in school library organization and administration. Thirty-five per cent of a total of 370 returned firstround questionnaires on which they list two trends they foresee and two innovations they favor for the future. Twenty-eight trends and twenty-nine innovations were distilled from the replies and included on the second-round form. Forty-four per cent of the original 370 returned the second questionnaire on which they ranked each item

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