Many scholarly studies investigating school library services provided to students with special needs primarily address aspects of collaboration with special education (SPED) teachers in an immersed school environment. Scarcely studied are ways that school library programs (SLPs) empower students in schools serving only students with a specific…

The purpose of this study was to determine if young adults have access through school libraries to LGBTQ-themed literature. The library collections in 125 high schools in one Southern U.S. state were examined for the inclusion of LGBTQ-themed fiction, nonfiction, and biographies, including a core collection of 21 recommended titles. Results showed…

Adolescents who receive current, accurate, reliable, and balanced sexual-health information are more likely to express healthier sexual attitudes and engage in healthier sexual behaviors than adolescents receiving limited or no sexual-health information. High school librarians have the potential to help meet sexual-health information needs of…

An analysis of postings on the LM_NET discussion list was conducted to better understand school library media specialist (SLMS) perceptions of the potential effect of structural challenges on their role in teaching Web evaluation skills. Structural challenges are institutional in the form of government regulation and school culture, and are…

This study investigated how school and public librarians can become better disseminators of health information and improve health information literacy in small and rural communities in a selected research area. We used the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas as our study area, composed of the economically depressed Cameron, Hidalgo, Starr, and…

In the past decade information literacy has received increasing emphasis in K-12 and postsecondary education, yet the information literacy skill levels of high school and college graduates continue to vary considerably. This report compares findings across a subset of data collected in three independent research studies focusing on students'…

Three hosted federated search tools, Follett One Search, Gale PowerSearch Plus, and WebFeat Express, were configured and implemented in a school library. Databases from five vendors and the OPAC were systematically searched. Federated search results were compared with each other and to the results of the same searches in the database's native…

A hallmark of school library media best practice is for the library media center to be open and accessible to patron use before, during, and after the school day and throughout the entire school year. Anecdotal evidence and informal discussion among school library media specialists indicate that library media facilities are sometimes used for…

Censorship of school library collections has risen significantly in the last few decades, and such attacks are increasing. American courts have ruled that students in schools have First Amendment rights and some degree of freedom of speech. Courts also have ruled that students have the right to information and to learn and discuss issues of…

This study reports on exploratory research that investigated biology teachers' perceptions of their online information seeking practices and how these practices influenced their instructional planning activities. Quantitative and qualitative analyses of the results of an online survey and ten in-depth interviews measuring use of specific online…