Libraries share some common functions; and librarians share common professional ethics, service orientation, and methods. Nevertheless, there are wide varieties in function and practice among libraries in different sorts of institutions, serving different clienteles. This Alki focuses on a particular type of library—the school library media center—and the library professionals who serve it. The authors identify the distinctive characteristics of school libraries and librarianship, as well as common interests with the rest of the library community. They describe current issues, challenges, problems, and joys of school librarianship. They do not hesitate to raise difficult questions, particularly regarding the competition for funds that school libraries in Washington public education face.
Photographs in this issue show school libraries in action. Included are three photographs of the same school library in three periods of the century. On this page is the Training School corner of the library at Cheney State Normal School almost ninety years ago. Other photos depict the library of the Robert Reid Lab School of Eastern Washington College of Education (the Training School’s successor), and the library of Robert Reid School today. These photographs reveal some of the changes, and also the continuities, in school library work over the past century
Alki Editor: Carolynne Myall
Alki Editorial Committee: Sue Anderson; Kathleen Ardrey; Karen Diller; Nancy Huling; Cameron Johnson; Eva-Maria Lusk; Kathy Bullene, intern; V. Louise Saylor, chair; Rhines, LINK editor
