A strong belief that school libraries are essential for student achievement was the impetus for placing school libraries and school librarians in the educational program. Along with the goal of placing school librarians in each school, a centralized library-processing center called Library Resources was established. Information retrieval capability is provided to each school library for the contents of the entire library collection in the district as well as individual library centers.

To provide access to the resources that are needed in the educational program, each school has a school librarian to administer the library program. The school library center must have the support of the community, the district administration and the teachers in order to provide all students with the capability to be well-educated participants in the future.

A school librarian manages each school library. The school librarian is responsible for the collection development plan and expanded use of all materials available. Instructional strategies in the library are developed in collaboration with teachers in each school building. Content housed in the library comes in many formats: books, serials, multimedia, computer software as well as access to what is not in the library. Electronic access is available with the network infrastructure currently in place.

In 1980 Library Resources received a significant grant from the Alaska State Library that helped start the library automation project for the Anchorage School District. The Anchorage School District began its association with the Western Library Network (WLN) with a commitment to the Alaska State Library’s long range goals of providing knowledge of where materials are housed and what is possible for library users to access. Thus Anchorage School District is a participant in the Alaska Library Network.

By 1983 secondary schools were able to obtain computer equipment and the library index known as LaserCAT was distributed in compact disc. Soon building level software (Follett Catalog Plus and Circulation Plus) was obtained for an automated circulation system using a local area network concept. Most secondary schools and only a few elementary schools had this capability.

With help from a bond proposal starting in 1990, all school libraries obtained equipment for the library program which results in a CD-ROM LAN based topology in every school. Retrospective conversion (RECON) work for all books was completed in 1993. All schools used a DOS platform with numerous CD-players. Some began using CD towers.

The library book bond project ($3,000,000) funded by the citizens of Anchorage made it possible for Anchorage School District librarians to enrich all libraries with new materials starting in 1992. This activity took several years to complete.

The first library automation task force took place in 1984 with the recommendation to use LaserCAT as ASD’s UNION catalog and Follett software for library automation on DOS platforms. The second library automation task force in 1990 recommended use of Follett’s UNISON software and LaserCAT as a UNION catalog in a CD-ROM based topology. The third library automation task force in the summer of 1999 recommended that we move to a WAN using SIRSI’s Unicorn Ecole.

Today we have 375,651 titles in the library database. We have over 1.26 million holdings in the system. Over 58,000 titles of the collection are in Reference and over 55,000 titles are in Biography. Knowledge of all resources housed in the libraries of the district is accessible for all users.

Library Resources prepares the library index with help from a bibliographic utility called OCLC. All school librarians use FIRSTSEARCH, which is a public accessible option to OCLC by password for collection development strategies.

The Anchorage School District made a substantial investment in library computer equipment for all school libraries. We are now able to offer ONLINE REFERENCE and other titles from the Alaska library database project. The library index has its own server at IT and several departments provide the administration of the software: IT, AV Services, and Library Resources.

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4/15/03