September 1999

"Olson's perspective misses the point of Library Power, which was never intended to be a reading support program."

Staff -- School Library Journal, 9/1/1999

Library Power's True Strength?

"Olson's perspective misses the point of Library Power, which was never intended to be a reading support program."

Renee Olson criticizes the evaluation of the DeWitt Wallace-Reader' s Digest Fund's National Library Power Program for not attempting to correlate improved school library services with student reading scores (Editorial, May 1999). Because the evaluation did not focus on Library Power's effects on reading achievement, she suggests its findings fall short. Obviously, we're disappointed she feels this way, especially since she is passing judgment on the entire evaluation based on a brief summary provided at the request of School Library Journal in advance of the release of the full report.

Olson's perspective misses the point of Library Power, which was never intended to be a reading support program. The national evaluation of Library Power shows that school libraries, when integrated into the mainstream of educational life, enrich instruction in ways that go well beyond providing support for student reading.

Library Power is based on a vision put forth by the American Association of School Librarians in Information Power: Building Partnerships for Learning (ALA, 1998) of what students need to know and be able to do-as effective locators, evaluators, and users of information.

Library Power helps students master these skills. It does so by giving students access to well-stocked libraries that are available to them all day long. These libraries need to have resources that are tied to the curriculum teachers are using for many subjects. And teachers and library media specialists need to work together to ensure this coordination. Li-braries need to become vibrant educational centers that are integrally connected to the school's goals. That is the vision of Library Power, and where it has been realized, school libraries are valued and funded. The Fund's evaluation documents ways to fulfill this vision.

We hope that when the full evaluation becomes available, members of the school library community will take the time to review it carefully and arrive at their own conclusions about its value. At the very least, we think they will be impressed by the rigor of the study. As the largest applied research study related to school libraries to date, it provides the most comprehensive collection of data ever compiled on the contributions school library programs can make to teaching and learning.

ADAM STOLL
EVALUATION OFFICER
DEWITT WALLACE-READERS DIGEST FUND
NEW YORK, NY

Electronic Publishing a Plus
John Selfridge of Grolier Publishing (Book Review Letters, February 1999, p. 76) states that "the only books truly worthy of a binding take a year, and almost always a lot longer than that, to produce." He further implies that electronic data naturally suffers from inaccuracies. As a major publisher of on-demand supplementary educational titles, I can assure Mr. Selfridge that this is not necessarily true.

Unfortunately, the book that takes a year or more to produce is often drastically outdated by the time it reaches a young reader. The need and demand for top quality, accurate, timely titles, especially nonfiction on current events for students, requires publishers to move out of their stodgy mode. We carefully and constantly research more than 5,000 titles, which, because they are in electronic format, are easily updated in time to be printed and bound for each day's orders. Like some, I do not predict the death of traditional publishing. However, I do not like to see a major traditional publisher automatically and categorically trash the exciting new electronic publishing, which is providing teachers and students with an array of much needed, virtually instant information on such timely subjects as Kosovo, cloning, and the millennium.

High standards have far more to do with the intentions of the publisher than with the printing format. As part of our new " AcCopyright Now!" publishing program, we actually print the date and time on the title page of many of our books. If you had ordered a copy of our Oklahoma Disasters and Catastrophes the day the dramatic tornadoes ravaged that state, you would find it reflected that timely news. Unheard of? Impossible? No. It's just the future and the future is now. Some dedicated publishers are doing a fine job with it, so please don't turn off folks to the idea that they can have accuracy and timeliness simultaneously. Today, thanks to electronic data, they can.

CAROLE MARSH
FOUNDER & CEO
GALLOPADE INTERNATIONAL
PEACHTREE CITY, GA

1,000 Authors and Illustrators
We read with interest the article by Lillian Gerhardt ("Tilling the Field of Children's Literature," July 1999) about the need for a study of forces that have shaped children's literature and library services. We have been working for three years on the Encyclopedia of Children's Literature (ECL). We hope the ECL will serve librarians, teachers, parents, and children seeking a brief introduction to more than 1,000 notable authors and illustrators in English-speaking countries. We are also including approximately 100 topic and genre entries on leaders in the field, awards, trends, and special topics. The Encyclopedia of Children's Literature, however, does not begin to fulfill Gerhardt's dream; it is a comprehensive overview of contributors to children's literature during the past 150 years; we make no attempt to analyze or evaluate their contributions.

The ECL is scheduled for publication in spring of 2000 as a Giniger Book in association with Continuum Publishing Group New York. The time has indeed come to analyze the accumulated body of work for children.

BERNICE E. CULLINAN
SANDS POINT, NY
DIANE G. PERSON
CO-EDITORS
THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF CHILDREN'S LITERATURE
BROOKLYN, NY

CORRECTIONChristopher J. Tracy (Letters, July 1999) is the librarian at Kenmore Junior High School in Kenmore, WA, not Virginia, as we printed. Also, the edited version of Tracy's letter mistakenly implies that he believes that all school librarians need an MLS. The letter originally stated, " An MLS for professional library positions, or a library/media endorsement and teacher certification for school librarians, are the established standards."