Standards for School Media Programs, 1920: A Lesson from History.

Abstract

Current events often give to histori cal documents a surprising relevance. This is strikingly shown when first national for school libraries, published in 1920 and impressively en titled Standard Library Organization and Equipment for Secondary Schools of Different Sizes,1 are compared with latest national for school libraries, published in 1969 under simpler but very significant title, for School Media Pro grams.2 As everyone interested in school libraries is by now well aware, 1969 emphatically state that today's school must have a central learning where both and nonbook materials are integrated under one administration for better service. Gone are days?or they should be?when school library could exist for collection alone, while nonbook materials, if present, were taken care of by other means. True, this concept of unified collections was given halfhearted ap proval by national school library of 1945,3 and was more fully endorsed by of I960.4 But both of these later equivocated. Instead of establishing multimedia library as norm and deploring or ignoring any vari ants, they were content to describe status quo, and by doing so con doned and even emphasized great est, and perhaps most crucial, failure of school library and of school li brarianship as a profession?namely, its inability to clearly define, as province of school library, se lection, organization, distribution, and servicing of all teaching materials re gardless of format. And yet there was superb historical precedent for rather than book philosophy of school li brarianship. This was contained in so-called Standards of 1920. Restudied in light of 1969 standards, they seem remarkably contemporary. Charles C. Certain, after whom report was popularly called, was at that time head of English De partment of Cass Technical High School in Detroit. He served as chair man of a committee of twenty-three members, including fourteen librari ans and nine other educators repre senting both National Education Association and North Central Association of College and Secondary Schools. The library which committee drew up were approved and published by American Li brary Association. They were based upon research, including regional sur veys of high school libraries inaugu rated as far back as 1915. The purpose of report was to provide school administrators with definite for high school libraries, which are described as the very heart of school.5 The report is vigorous, highly competent, and its philosophy and many of its suggestions are still appli cable, and, unfortunately, still unreal ized. But report was optimistic and bulk of it outlined what were described as attainable standards proposed for a five-year period. In general, these specified that li brary should be planned with the expert guidance of a trained li brarian, that is, it should be spacious, pleasant, centrally located, used ex clusively for library purposes, and fea ture direct access by students to all materials, not just for assigned and reference use, but for recreational purposes as well. Meticulous stan dards were set for every detail of equipment, supplies, materials, and ar rangement needed for realization of good school library service. While all of Certain of 1920 make fascinating reading for today's school library administrator, it is particularly those sections which enthusiastically espouse media center concept, and suggest specific methods of implementing it, that will be stressed here. In for equipment, report reads:

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