Demographic and economic trends indicate that in the future there will be fewer teachers available to teach growing K-12 school enrollments. In addition to this, public education is also experiencing funding shortages. Distance education seems to provide a solution for both of these problems as it offers an equitable way to distribute educational…

By mid 2001, researchers affiliated with the Library Research Service of the Colorado State Library and the University of Denver had completed four statewide studies on the impact of school library media programs on the achievement of U.S. public school students: Information Empowered: The School Librarian as an Agent of Academic Achievement in…

Brittle paper, cheap bindings, mistreatment, and poor storage conditions are threatening to destroy thousands of scholarly documents throughout the United States unless preservation activities are successfully incorporated into all levels of library operations. In order for the preservation and access to information movement to succeed, there must…

Basic options for the automation of management functions in the school library media center are the circulation system, the online catalog, the acquisitions system, and the serials check-in. In order to select the most appropriate system, library media specialists must: (1) research both the library's needs and the technologies available, and (2)…

Living in an "information society" implies dealing with a barrage of information on a daily basis, with success and survival dependent on the ability to locate, analyze, and use information skillfully and appropriately. Information literacy, which has been defined as the ability to effectively access and evaluate information for a…

This digest begins with a brief discussion of the current status of the relatively recent phenomenon of online searching in schools. The advantages and disadvantages of online access in this context are then outlined, and some suggestions are offered for school library media specialists who wish to initiate online information retrieval for their…

This study was designed to update the existing research and to examine the relationship between library media programs and student achievement. The schools selected for the study sample were not selected on a random basis; rather, they were library media centers (LMCs) that responded to a 1989 survey of Colorado LMCs. The study relied entirely…

This digest examines changes that are involved in an elementary school library media program when the school's instructional methods move from a basic skills to a whole language approach. These changes are discussed in terms of three curricular foci--theme studies, process writing, and literature-based reading--and new demands that are placed on…

"Information Power: Guidelines for School Library Media Programs," which was published jointly by the American Library Association (ALA) and the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) in 1988, is the most recent in a series of efforts to articulate and encode professional program and practice standards that have…

This digest discusses some of the major trends and issues found in a systematic content review of the professional literature of library and information science. Two "megatrends" are identified and discussed: (1) the concern for the impact of technology upon every facet of library work, in academic, school, public, and special libraries;…

This digest highlights the findings of an extensive review and analysis of the literature related to the role of libraries in education. The review was undertaken to demonstrate the critical role libraries can play in meeting the six National Education Goals adopted in 1990 by the President and the governors of the United States. The goals, which…