Texas Adopts School Library Standards

[Jeanette Carolyn Larson <jlarson@TENET.EDU>]

Following 18 months of input, comment, work, and revision by two
committees, the Texas State Library and Archives Commission adopted new
standards for Texas school library programs.  The responsibility for
developing new standards was assigned to the Texas State Library during
the 1995 session of the Texas Legislature.

The standards provide descriptions for four levels of school library
programs ranging from Exemplary to Below Standard (if you don't even hit
the Below Standard "level" we don't think you have a library in the school).

The adopted version of the school library standards is at our web site at
http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/LD/pubs/schoolibstand.htm

Comments received about the proposed standards ("official" comments
based on the version published in the Texas Register--comments are not
very extensive because we had already gone through several "unoffical"
versions with a lot of comment)  with staff responses and
recommendations are at
http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/LD/pubs/comm_rep.htm

All of the staff recommendations were accepted by the Texas State Library
and Archives Commission and the changes were incorporated into the
adopted version.

Jeanette Larson
Texas State Library
jlarson@tenet.edu