As part of the national Future Ready Librarians initiative at the Alliance for Excellent Education, Mark Ray and Shannon McClintock Miller serve as national advocates for school library programs and librarians. Mark and Shannon began their library advocacy careers in school libraries. For eight years, Shannon was the district librarian in Van…

Rural schools in high-poverty areas are often understaffed. This descriptive phenomenological study examined fourth-grade state research projects in high-poverty rural Iowa schools to reveal the influence of school librarians' staffing levels on student learning of research skills. To determine evidence of students' critical literacy, ethical use…

The functions, roles and responsibilities, and services of school media centers and public libraries at the local and state levels are discussed, as are the supportive functions and services provided by the State Library Commission of Iowa and the Department of Public Instruction. An extensive list of recommendations outlines the part that…

This handbook is designed to help Iowa library media specialists, teachers, and administrators develop quality library media programs. The first section summarizes the roles and responsibilities of the library media program. This is followed by a section that addresses personnel issues, including guidelines for professional and support staff; the…

This document examines the roles, issues, and needs of Iowa libraries in the age of the electronic information highway based on the responses of library practitioners to a request from the State Library of Iowa to briefly address these concerns. The report begins with brief discussions of traditional library services; electronic library services;…