There are somewhere around 80 thousand schools with library media centers (SLMC) according to the latest published data. These are important libraries but we know little about them from these data. There are under 10,000 public libraries and under 4,000 academic libraries so a universe survey is possible: that is, each can be surveyed. With the SLMC, it is necessary to draw samples from the population and those samples will results in estimates of the characteristics of all SLMCs in the US from those samples and resultant calculations. The publications listed here are those published by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES.) The dates of the formal publications focused on the SLMC here range from 1974 through 2013. The 1974 publication was another found at the Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) and was published under the Library General Information Survey (LIBGIS) program, a predecessor library collection effort by NCES but the only one I have found so far. That means there are earlier data from NCES not available via their Website. Their job is not to archive library data, that should be up to librarians and perhaps the ICPSR. LIBGIS is the past; what about the present?
Here is a brief description via NCES [accessed on November 19, 2022] on the Library Statistics Program (in part:)
Elementary/secondary public school library media centers data and information from 1993-94 through 2011-12 can be accessed on the Schools and Staffing Survey website. More recent data can be found in this National Teacher and Principal Survey table.
The Schools and Staffing Survey Website is currently here: https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/sass/ and the National Teacher and Principal Survey table mentioned is here: https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/ntps/tables/ntps1516_20180119002_s1n.asp. This latter link is to a table available in two Excel formatted spreadsheets that can be downloaded, one is the estimates of a number of variables and the second is a spreadsheet of the standard errors of those estimates. Those two tables are included below in the first listed item.
The data on these libraries, then, now appear in larger publications and it looks like a table here or a table there. However, the National Teacher and Principal Survey has a search block and one can search for school libraries, say, and find detailed drill downs on these larger publications. The Excel tables mentioned were found this way. So, this might be a way to find newer data. It is not ideal but it is not bad as far as I can see. It may be a reasonable compromise if the search mechanism is as good as my brief experience suggests.
Surveying all the School Library Media Centers is a difficult problem and typically, NCES has sampled them and issued reports. These are the publications I have found or identified.
| Type of publication | File type | Title | File name | File size | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spreadsheet | .xlsx | Number of schools with a library media center and number of full–time and part–time school technology specialists and librarians/library media specialists, by selected school characteristics: 2015–16 | ntps1516_20180119002_s1n.xlsx ntps1516_20180119002_s1n_SE.xlsx |
17KB (total) | August 2013 U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS), "Public School Data File," 2015–16. |
| First Look | Characteristics of Public and Bureau of Indian Education Elementary and Secondary School Library Media Centers in the United States: Results from the 2007-08 Schools and Staffing Survey | 2009322.pdf | 1.2MB | June 2009 NCES 2009-322 |
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| First Look | Characteristics of Public and Bureau of Indian Education Elementary and Secondary School Library Media Centers in the United States: Results from the 2007-08 Schools and Staffing Survey | 2009322.pdf | 1.2MB | June 2009 NCES 2009-322 |
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| Fast Response Survey | Internet Access in U.S. Public Schools and Classrooms: 1994-2005 | 2007020.pdf | 659 KB | November 2006 NCES 2007-020 |
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| EDTab | Characteristics of Schools, Districts, Teachers, Principals, and School Libraries in the United States: 2003-04 Schools and Staffing Survey (NCES 2006-313 Revised) | 2006313.pdf | 1.2MB | March 2006, revised June 2007 NCES 2006-313 School and Staffing Survey |
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| America’s Public School Libraries: 1953-2000 | 2005324.pdf | 768 KB | March 2005 NCES 2005-324 School and Staffing Survey |
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| Fifty Years of Supporting Children’s Learning: A History of Public School Libraries and Federal Legislation From 1953 to 2000) | 2005311.pdf | 820 KB | March 2005 NCES 2005-311 School and Staffing Survey |
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| ED Tab | School Library Media Centers: Selected Results From the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS: 2002) The Education Longitudinal Study 2002 has a separate Website. This is one publication of many from that study and, I believe, the only one related to SLMCs. |
2005302.pdf | 882 KB | December 2004 NCES 2005302 |
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| ED Tab | The Status of Public and Private School Library Media Centers in the United States: 1999-2000 | 2004313.pdf | 611 KB | March 2004 NCES 2004313 |
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| Documentation | Documentation to the NCES Common Core of Data Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey, 1999-2000 | psu99gen.pdf | 333 KB | ||
| Technical Report | Evaluation of Definitions and Analysis of Comparative Data for the School Library Statistics Program | 98267.pdf | 535 KB | September 1998 NCES 98-267 |
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| Technical Report | School Library Media Centers, 1993-94 | 98282.pdf | 1,068 KB | August 1998 NCES 98-282 |
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| Statistical Analysis Report Schools and Staffing Survey |
School Library Media Centers in the United States, 1990-91 | Available from GPO? Ordering information. |
November 1994 NCES 94326 |
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| Data file? | Survey of Public and Private School Libraries and Media Centers, 1985 | Not available | Identified at ICPSR ICPSR 2227, 2002 |
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| Data file | PDF ASCII ASCII ASCII |
Library General Information Survey (LIBGIS) I: Public School Libraries/Media Centers, Fall 1974 (documentation) Data file SAS program SPSS program |
cb2225.pdf da2225.txt sa2225.txt sp2225.txt |
1,221 KB 1,847 KB 29 KB 31 KB |
ICPSR 2225 Mar |