In February 1995, Superintendent of Schools David W. Hornbeck released a comprehensive plan for the future of Philadelphia's public schools entitled Children Achieving . Shown below are excerpts from this plan that discuss the role of school libraries. Also available is an Executive Summary of the complete Children Achieving plan with links to the full text. Just as technology transforms the activities and organizations of classrooms, technology recasts the library into another learning setting for all students. Technology forces changes in the roles and functions of school libraries and librarians.
Students can use libraries or technology zones to continue and extend their work in classrooms.
At the same time, a large portion of the traditional functions of the library should remain. However, to achieve this, library collections must be updated and supported with resources. As we change the role of the library, acquisition budgets for print materials must not be the main source of funding for technology in libraries. This new vision for school libraries has as a goal the appointment of at least one certified, technologically proficient librarian assigned to each school. It also requires expanded professional development opportunities for library staff, a revisiting of the capital program to wire school libraries with new and emergent technologies and the technological integration of all school libraries with the holdings of the pedagogical library, city libraries and other instructional data bases.