Covers library budget crises, community book brawls, ongoing library issues, and efforts to combat inflation. (Author/PF)

Media specialists are working hard to get schools up to speed in the 21st century--teaching information literacy skills to students, helping teachers use technology, and harnessing Web-based tools such as blogs and wikis to enhance learning. However, the same educators report that limited funds hamper their ability to make good on these plans. An…

The events of the year are reviewed: financial upheaval, bookbanning, developments within the ALA, and new services and programs.

Reviews the factors that tend to limit youth services budgets in public libraries, and discusses the need to collect relevant data on the use of libraries by children and adolescents to justify financial support of youth services. Strategies for collecting such data are outlined and appropriate resource allocation is discussed. (CLB)

Media specialists and teachers spend an estimated $1.4 billion annually on nonfiction titles. And even though most librarians, like Shirley Morand of New Richmond High School in Ohio, expect budget cuts this academic year, they still plan to dish out a sizable chunk of money on books that support students' textbooks, according to School Library…

Discussion of microcomputer applications in a medium-sized school library highlights planning, computer software functions, circulation processes, reference services, print reports (bibliographies, overdue book notices, circulation analysis), special functions, equipment needs, and funding possibilities. (EJS)

Description of public libraries that are combined and housed with school libraries focuses on successful library combinations in Canada and Australia. Topics discussed include community needs; cost factors; staffing and administrative issues; cataloging differences; location considerations; services offered; funding; and advantages for rural…

Presents full text of the Educational Priorities Panel Report, researched and written by Robin Willner (May 1985), which examined mandates, services, materials, staff, and use of New York City (NYC) public school libraries. Comments by key people formerly or currently involved in administration of NYC's public school libraries are included. (EJS)

A survey of high-tech (n=289) and non-high-tech (n=219) school library media centers revealed that most high-tech schools (38%) are in the South and that most (35%) are high schools. Analyzes patterns in funding, types of technology, automated management, expenditures and collections, staffing and salaries, participation in staff development…

Describes outreach services that children's librarians can develop to help solve the problems of illiteracy and aliteracy. Highlights include story hours; cooperation with school library media specialists; outreach programs for day care or early childhood centers, family day care homes, low-income housing projects, and community centers; and…

The sixth in a series of "School Library Journal" reports on trends in school library expenditures for program development shows that commitment to the teaching and motivating of reading is in conflict with fascination with technology and that access to books is being seriously curtailed by the deteriorating state of school library collections.…