School Library Media Specialists Research Articles

THE TOTAL educational system resides in an atmosphere of ferment and upheaval. Its extensive nature makes it vulnerable to a public, composed of both producers and consumers of the educational product, which is not sparing in its criticism. The credibility of some of the censures may be questionable the validity of many cannot be discredited. But that is not the crucial point! The critical issue is are we perpetuating a past-oriented system or are we constructively facing the problems with the best of pedagogical know-how? Library education, a segment of the total educational community, cannot remove itself from this challenge for educational reform. It must encourage and support a creative and innovative transition which is more than a rearrangement or redeployment of the traditional elements of a library school curriculum. The School Library Manpower Project, administered by the American Association of School Librarians, a division of the American Library Association, represents an effort to produce direction for change in a specialized area of librarianship. Its unique focus is on school library media education and the preparation for three distinct positions the School Library Media Specialist, the Head of the School Library Media Center, and the District School Library Media Director as defined in Occupational Definitions for School Library Media Personnel.1 The educational and social concerns, the predictions of the futurists

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