Editorial: Standards: How Do We Measure and How Are We Measured?

In the United States, the first set of professional standards for school librarians arose from an effort to survey the status of secondary libraries around the country, and to then use those results to advocate school administrators for help in improving the conditions of the school libraries (National Education Association, Certain, North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, & American Library Association, 1920).In the nearly 100 years since the publication of the first standards, the subsequent iterations of the professional standards for school librarians have grown and evolved as the profession has, reflecting the new contexts and complexities of the roles of school librarians as new types of media entered our schools (American Association of School Librarians & American Library Association, 1960; American Association of School Librarians & Department of Audiovisual Instruction of the National Education Association, 1969), as our dedication to intellectual freedom deepened (American Association of School Librarians & Association for Educational Communications and Technology, 1975), as computers entered our schools (American Association of School Librarians & Association for Educational Communications and Technology, 1988), and then as those computers connected our students to the world (American Association of School Librarians, 2009; American Association of School Librarians & Association for Educational Communications and Technology, 1998).With the release of National School Library Standards for Learners, School Librarians, and School Libraries, the American Association of School Librarians' newest set of professional standards for school librarians, I think about the survey of secondary school libraries that was conducted before the initial set of standards were crafted, and wonder how (to paraphrase William Gibson) the uneven distribution of the future is shaping the current school library landscape.[...]AASL Standards writers Elizabeth Burns and Marcia A. Mardis (USA) detail a research-based approach to standards development in For and By the Community: Processes and Practices from the Development of National School Library Standards, the latest edition of our occasional column The Researchers' Perspective.