Implementing the Junior College Library Standards

I P L E M E N T A T I O N of the Junior College Library Standards is one of the important tasks facing junior college librarians, administrators, and instructors in the 1960's. Even as the members of the ACRL Committee on Standards were finishing their work at the ALA Midwinter meeting in January 1960, they realized that completed standards are only a beginning, that the most difficult task still remains: implementing the Standards. A rigorous self-study of each junior college library, using the new Standards as a guide, is perhaps the most workable method toward accomplishing this. Due to the complex nature of the American junior college, a relatively new and strictly twentieth-century phenomenon, many difficulties in effecting application of the Standards confront librarians. Most crucial among these are the bewildering diversity of junior colleges, their changing role in modern American society, and their rapid growth due to burgeoning enrollments with its concomitant problem of insufficient finances. There is tremendous diversity in the number and type of programs and in the kinds of students in American junior colleges. While some of the junior colleges and community colleges offer only the first two years of the liberal arts program, others provide also terminal technical and apprenticeship training, preparation for business and management, nursing programs, and an astounding range of adult education courses. This wide range of curricula is designed to meet the differing preparation, aims, and abilities of varying student bodies. As to Mr. Tanis is Librarian, Henry Ford Community College, Dearborn, Mich., and a member of the ACRL Committee on Standards.