SUPPORTING THE NATIONAL CURRICULUM - ENGLISH SECONDARY-SCHOOL LIBRARIES DURING A PERIOD OF TRANSITION

The National Curriculum for England and Wales, implemented following t he 1988 Education Reform Act, has had a profound impact on learning re source needs in schools. Whereas in many other countries the centraliz ation of decision making over the content and delivery of the curricul um is well established, the education system in the U.K. has, until re cently, been characterized by fragmentation and a lack of central poli tical direction. Teachers and librarians in the U.K. had previously wo rked within a culture which allowed considerable autonomy, with school library services provided by the local education authority as an addi tional resource for schools. School librarians are now being faced wit h the need to provide for a centrally directed curriculum, and to supp ort specific information skills teaching in schools, increasingly with out the support of a school library service, the service provided by p ublic libraries as agents of the local education authority, to supplem ent libraries within schools. The use of information technology has al so become more significant. A British Library funded project, undertak en at Loughborough University's Department of Information and Library Studies, has investigated the ways in which English secondary school l ibraries are meeting these new challenges as the U.K. education system undergoes profound cultural and organizational change. The management of change within school libraries was a major task, and it was here t hat strategies for planning mirrored those being undertaken in the sch ools as a whole. Applying the principles of school development plannin g to the library emerged as a major feature of effective school librar ies.