A Regional German School Library Association: A Story of Success?

Introduction"A country without a library would be like a garden without plants, a meadow without flowers ..." wrote Umberto Eco in his novel "The Name of the Rose", and in the course of a school library seminar the participants collected statements, which were just as striking, such as "A school without a library is like a journey, which takes you nowhere" or "A school without a library is like a desert without an oasis". These metaphors emphatically express the necessity for school libraries.In 1987, 30 persons from 16 school libraries in Hesse came to a first informal regional meeting that was later called the first Hessian School Library Day. Long before the so called PISAshock, the disappointing outcome of the achievements of German students in reading and math, the main concern of this Regional German School Library Association - called LAG - was to work on the students' problems extracting information from texts. It was thought that well-equipped school libraries could be helpful in this task (Schlamp, G. K., Bree, H. G. & Fritz, M., 2013).A traveling library, which goes to its customers in the schools, was put into practice in 1995. When the ambitious plans for regional help centers came to nothing, LAG had proposed this traveling advice center. The Ministry of Education developed the mobile education unit - a truck with an extension for cultural and instructional purposes.Soon thereafter the Project Office for School Libraries was developed. The Project Office, under responsibility of the Ministry of Education, advises schools in the development of and the work in the library. Additionally there are two teachers with half of their workload working in the Hesse Department for Public Libraries that belongs to the Ministry of Science and the Arts.Association ActivitiesSchool Library ConferencesIn 2017 the 23nd School Library Conference was held. Like the years before this further education event had about 30 seminars and through the years 170 speakers (among them 14 authors) on reading promotion, media education, IT and data protection, guided inquiry, library education and organizational matters. The conference is hosted each year by one of the member schools and this gives participants the opportunity to visit other school libraries. For years the Hessian School Library Meeting had been unique in Germany. "The mother of all school library meetings" now has imitators. There are currently school library meetings in several states, like North RhineWestphalia, Berlin/Brandenburg, Bavaria, Saxony-Anhalt, Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein.The founding of LAG Schulbibliotheken in Hessen enabled teachers to become active and work on school library topics outside the official channels. The Hessian Ministry of Education was open-minded and a close cooperation began - the LAG became a non-governmental organization, whose recommendations were highly valued. Up until the central Hessian Teacher Further Education Institute was closed down, 25 one-week-courses on school library topics were held. More than 400 teachers, librarians and parent helpers participated.Successful ProjectsThere was also a course in working with the thematic bookcase "Die Bibliothek in der Kiste" - Library in a Box. The participants could spend a week reading and planning how to use the bookcase in teaching. This successful project, also financed by the Ministry of Education, has reached 60,000 pupils over 20 years. Schools often used the list of 30 to 40 books and other media per topic to help construct their own libraries. Other schools could use the bookcases for 8 weeks - free of charge.1992 was an eventful year for the school libraries. It was not only the start of Library in a Box, it saw the introduction of the Austrian OPAC program - LITTERA - in a modified version which met users' needs in Hesse. Supported by the "Servicestelle EDV in Schulbibliotheken", a special institution to help work with LITTERA cataloguing software in schools, the program became available for school libraries and their textbook stocks for a moderate fee. …