The overarching assessment of youth services rendered by Leslie Edmonds in 1987 remains largely true today: that its most influential force remains not research, or evidence, or constant professional improvement or addressing field-based challenges, but "superstition." Research in youth services pedagogy, likewise, offers a perpetually…

Cites historical works, state of the art publications, handbooks, manuals, reports, and research studies that comprise the literature of school librarianship and discusses the need for bibliographic control of these materials. (CHC)

Reviews and assesses the level and type of research activity in school librarianship and discusses the use of the experimental, historical, and descriptive approaches by researchers in the field. Research that builds on prior efforts and the use of statistics are also described. A 60-item reference list is attached. (Author/JL)

Discusses the "axemaker" school librarian, drawing the concept of innovators for survival and growth of the human species, from Burke and Ornstein's "The Axemaker's Gift: A Double-Edged History of Human Culture." Examines contributions of library science to society and suggests that "Information Power: Building Partnerships for Learning" is the…

The first step in the demise of the Western Illinois University undergraduate library science instructional program, which produced graduates with a minor in library science who were qualified to direct school libraries, was its merger with an audiovisual (AV) program in the education department. The library science minor was originally under the…