Evaluating School Library Services

ATTEMPTST O improve the school library through an appraisal of its present strengths and weaknesses are not new, but emphasis upon the effectiveness of its educational service rather than upon the adequacy of its facilities is of relatively recent origin. Changes in the instruments and procedures for evaluation of the school library have corresponded closely with changes in educational measurement and evaluation. Quantitative standards or norms for the secondary school library were adopted by regional accrediting associations and state education departments as a part of a larger schedule of regulations for the entire school program. Because these standards were stated in numerical terms they were easy to enforce and were useful in stimulating a school to supply the necessary framework around which an effective school and library program could be organized. Growing dissatisfaction with the rigidity and deadening effects of quantitative standards resulted in a comprehensive investigation of the problems of accrediting by representatives of the six regional educational associations, which was known as the Cooperative Study of Secondary School Standards. The Evaluative Criteria,l published as a result of the work of this group, sought to judge the worth of a school in terms of the achievement of its objectives. The detailed specifications of the quantitative standards were replaced by descriptive statements of acceptable educational practice, and schools were weighed in terms of these statements. Standards of regional associations and state agencies were influenced by the Evaluative Criteria, and many of the specific requirements for the library were replaced by general qualitative statements. These changes in standards resulted, in part, from the growing movement in education to broaden the scope of evaluation and measurement of student achievement. Educators had been stressing for