LIBRARY INSTRUCTIONAL SUPPORT SERVICES IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM

Statement of the Problem. The purpose of this study was to: (a) identify selected library instructional support services that are essential to the public elementary schools in the District of Columbia, (b) determine the degree of utilization of selected library instructional support services for meeting curricula objectives in the public elementary schools in the District of Columbia, (c) determine the need for increasing, decreasing, or implementing the essential library instructional support services for meeting curricula objectives in the public elementary schools in the District of Columbia.;The research instrument, the Library Instructional Support Services (LISSI), was developed and administered by the researcher to 93 subjects, male and female elementary school teachers, in six public school regions in the District of Columbia.;The purpose of the instrument was to determine the degree of importance these services have to the participants of the study, in meeting their curricula needs. The instrument was used to elicit the opinions of teachers on the importance of library instructional support services in their instructional efforts. The relationship between these opinions and personal-professional characteristics (age, sex, highest degree held, formal training in library media and audio-visual education), and academic grade assignments.;Total data collection time for the 100% response to LISSI was approximately five weeks. The final procedure employed in the study was quantification and treatment of the data utilizing the following statistics: chi-square, Pearson product moment correlation, and percentage. The .05 level was set as the standard above and below which hypotheses were confirmed or rejected.;Procedures. This study began with an identification of 47 library instructional support services which are currently provided by media specialists in the public elementary schools in the District of Columbia to the teachers as an aid to meeting their curricula needs.;Major Findings. Major findings in the study were: (a) in the opinion of 84 to 95% of teachers sampled, 20 out of the selected 47 library instructional support services need to be increased in order to reach the level of importance needed to meet the current requirements of the public elementary school curricula in the District of Columbia, 61 to 83% of the teachers indicated that all of the other selected services need to be increased; (b) male and female teachers under 30 years of age have a more positive attitude than have older teachers toward the importance of library media services in meeting their curricula need; (c) a greater percentage of teachers with bachelor's degrees relied more on the library media specialist for curriculum planning services than do those with master's degrees; (d) teachers holding master's degrees revealed a more sophisticated approach to the utilization of media services than did those with bachelor's degrees; (e) those participants who had completed six semester hours or more of library science or audio-visual education utilized the more sophisticated services in the planning, implementation, and evaluation of their elementary school instructional program, have a close working relationship with the school's media specialist, and are more demanding of the media center's services; (f) those teachers with no formal training in media are content to utilize basic, traditional library facilities and services, and (g) library instructional support services are utilized more in nongraded, informal and student-oriented settings than in structured, formal classroom settings; however, the curriculum evaluation services are utilized more in the intermediate grades.