Synopsis
In this detailed and thorough text, Woolls (library & information science, San Jose State U.) guides the reader from a brief history of the school library media center, to becoming qualified as a specialist and finding a job, to practical information on managing the center. Topics include planning, organizing, and leadership; building and maintaining the collection; managing access to information; and networking within the profession. With chapter exercises & extensive appendices, the book serves as a text for library & information science students, as well as a valuable resource for school library media center managers, both beginning and experienced. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
School Library Journal
People interested in becoming school librarians-or those in the process of doing so-would be well advised to use this text as their primary guide and manual. This edition of the classic text adds material and references utilizing both the AASL guidelines in the updated Information Power and responses pertinent to No Child Left Behind legislation. Organized intuitively as well as logically, the book begins with a history of school libraries, moves into their current and potential uses, and describes the process of becoming a library media teacher. The job itself is presented in subsequent chapters that explain in detail how to manage the program, facility, personnel, information access, budget, and services. Evaluation tools are offered that provide benchmarks for an array of important areas of qualitative as well as quantitative program achievement. Descriptions of collaboration efforts go beyond the classroom into marketing the services within and without the site, creating networks in the community, and developing professional and political contacts. Over 40 pages of appendixes provide examples, formats, and legal underpinnings for everything covered in the text and then some. Anecdotes, graphics, charts, and shaded boxes add to the conversational text, all enhancing a book that will be welcomed, highlighted, underlined, and dog-eared by overwhelmed new librarians and used for years by veterans. Woolls is clearly a woman who knows her stuff, knows how to teach it, and can show others how to do it well.-Mary R. Hofmann, Rivera Middle School, Merced, CA Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.