Library Association Guidelines for Secondary School Libraries

Citation

Harrison, K.C. (1999), "Library Association Guidelines for Secondary School Libraries", Library Review, Vol. 48 No. 2, pp. 95-111. https://doi.org/10.1108/lr.1999.48.2.95.6

There was a time when guidelines were known as standards, and books like the one under review were produced by committees not perhaps so expert as the one which has produced these guidelines for secondary school libraries. I know, because in the early 1970s when I was chairman of the Executive Committee of the Library Association, I also chaired a sub‐committee charged with the responsibility of producing standards, as they were then called, for school libraries. To assist me in this task I had two county librarians, both devoted to the cause of school libraries, plus several experienced and practising school librarians. This situation was all right as far as it went and, after numerous meetings, we succeeded in producing a publication which satisfied the profession at the time and, we believe, was implemented and had some considerable influence in improving the school library provision in several, though not all parts, of the UK. But times have changed, and for the better. Due to international, mainly American, influence the word “standards” has rightly been replaced by “guidelines”, and Library Association committees charged with the production of them, are now completely composed of highly experienced and devoted specialists.

Take this example, for instance. It does not try to cover school libraries as a whole, but instead it concentrates on secondary school libraries. It has been produced by a specially convened group of the Association’s Youth Libraries Committee chaired by Glenys Willars, the County Education Librarian of Leicestershire. Members of her working group included Elspeth Mitcheson, chair of the Youth Libraries Committee of the LA, Anthony Tilke, professional adviser to the LA in the field of Youth and School Libraries and editor of this publication, as well as school librarians working in Sheffield, Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire, Nottingham and Ripon. During its deliberations the Group was also helped and advised by 11 other specialists in Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, one representing the African‐Caribbean Library Association, an HMI, and Peter Beauchamp of the Department of Media, Culture and Sport. The information‐gathering net could hardly have been wider.

The resulting publication will surely be found invaluable by school library authorities. Essentially practical, commendably crisp and relatively free of jargon, it is presented in three parts under the headings of “The school and its library”, “Policy and planning”, and “The role of schools library service: what schools should expect”. At the end of each part the recommendations are summarised, and references are provided. There are concluding paragraphs by Stewart Robertson, an HMI whose opinions command the greatest respect, and there are four appendices. These are first, an accommodation checklist; second, specialist job descriptions based on those used by the Nottinghamshire Schools Library Service; third, the LA’s recommendations for school library resourcing; and finally, a reprint of the Unesco declaration on school libraries. Concluding pages are occupied by a very necessary glossary, a bibliography and an index.

It is remarkable to find so much detail in so brief a publication. The section on management of accommodation, for example, provides guidelines on lighting, signing and guiding, display, counter areas, seating areas, computer work stations, health and safety, security and numerous other aspects, all within the space of ten information‐packed pages. Glenys Willars and her team are to be congratulated on their efforts. These guidelines ought to have early and visible influences on secondary school library provision in the near future. The book has been expertly edited by Anthony Tilke who, I see, is shortly to leave the LA for an appointment at a school in Bangkok. The Library Association’s loss will surely be Thailand’s gain.