The Charge: A New Library for the Twenty-First Century

The National Library of Education Advisory Task Force endorses the mission and functions of the National Library of Education as set forth in its authorizing statute, the Educational Research, Development, Dissemination, and Improvement Act of 1994. All requirements of the law will be fulfilled, and the Task Force notes that this work has already begun. The statute is incorporated by reference into this report and appears in appendix B.

The statute authorizes the Task Force to go beyond the requirements of the law in making recommendations on the Library's development. This report sets forth the vision of what the National Library of Education can become. A great opportunity exists to fulfill the requirements of the law in new and creative ways, and the reader is invited to share this vision.

The Vision

The responsibility of all libraries preparing for the next millennium is to take advantage of the information and technological revolutions that are transforming the way knowledge resources are developed, stored, managed, transmitted, and adapted for use. In addition, the role of a national library in the field of education should be to take advantage of the American tradition of diversity and decentralization in education matters by operating in partnership with all sectors of the education information community. The report and recommendations that follow present a picture of how these two beliefs may be combined to create a truly new type of library, a national educational resource that is a network of information providers spread across the nation and the world. In this vision, the term library resembles a verb rather than a noun, and the National Library of Education becomes a diversified function rather than a single place.

The vision for the National Library of Education is:

A future in which all persons have equal access to the information necessary to their personal and professional growth. To accomplish this goal, the National Library of Education will become the major national network providing access to education information through collections and other sources of education-related material.

The Library's Mission and Goals

Libraries are service organizations. They exist to serve, and they work cooperatively with one another and with other information providers. The advent of the electronic era has expanded the amount of information available and has transformed both access to it and the functions of those who provide it. A proper customer focus and the right organizational tools can turn the challenge of providing information in the electronic era into an opportunity to show how effectively government can serve the needs of the people.

The National Library of Education has the advantage of a customer-oriented staff. It also manages an array of contract services, in the form of the Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) System and the Institutional Communications Network (INet), that have well-deserved national reputations for quality service. It is beginning to develop a national network of partner providers. These organizational elements function as a part of the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI), a major component of the U.S. Department of Education.

It is the opinion of the Task Force that the statutory mission (appendix B) of the National Library of Education needs to be interpreted in nontechnical language that embodies a vision of the Library as a customer-focused network of information providers evolving into the virtual library of the future. The Task Force recommends the following language for the Library's mission statement:

The mission of the National Library of Education is to provide awareness and maximum access to high quality education information in all formats and from multiple sources, high quality assistance to information seekers, and to be accountable for all these efforts. Our customers are the educators, students, and parents of America at all educational levels and the agencies, corporations, and institutions that serve them. Our partners are the nation's education libraries, educational information providers, and educational organizations.

The mission statement embodies the four essential goals of the National Library of Education. These are:

AWARENESS, informing current users of the resources available in and through the National Library of Education and cultivating new customers through an active program of marketing and outreach;
ACCESS, providing all customers effective and efficient means to utilize the National Library of Education's information resources in all formats, whether housed within the Library's own collection or available through network partners;
ASSISTANCE, enabling users to learn how to use electronic and print information tools, effective and responsive reference services, and state-of-the-art technology; and
ACCOUNTABILITY, continually improving Library services through feedback from customers, network partners, and policy makers in government and in the field.

These four goals form the structure of this report and represent the heart of what the National Library of Education must do in order to fulfill its vision.

Principles Guiding the Recommendations

In preparing the recommendations in this report, the Task Force has adopted seven guiding principles based on the National Library of Education's legal authority, vision, mission, and goals.

The National Library of Education's authorizing legislation should be interpreted as broadly as possible. The act creating the Library should be implemented in a manner that addresses the spirit as well as the letter of the law. Clearly, the Congress intended, and the U.S. Department of Education has begun to implement, a Library that addresses the information needs of all its customers, creatively combines electronic and traditional services, and uses the notion of a national network to ensure the location of scare items and avoid needless duplication of resources as well as maximizing assistance to users.
The National Library of Education will be a one-stop information center. The Task Force interprets this requirement of law as the principle of providing direct reference service to as many users as possible and seamless referral to other sources of information, with the goal being to get people and information together rapidly and efficiently. A one-stop information and referral service is envisioned as linking together both a variety of information resources (the National Library of Education and other offices, contractors, libraries, and archives) and a variety of means to deliver information (telephonic, electronic, mail, and in-person).
All potential users of the National Library of Education will have universal access to its information and services. Providing universal access to education information means doing so in all formats (print and electronic), via all methods, and in as many locations as possible. Achieving this degree of access requires a commitment to all customers, wherever they reside and whatever the level of access to resources that they possess.
Users of the National Library of Education, as public taxpayers, will obtain information at little or no cost. Free or minimal cost is a tradition of libraries and public services in America and this should continue to be a principle guiding the National Library of Education's commitment to maximum access.
People using the National Library of Education will be helped to access and use essential information technology. Another principle of maximum access is the obligation to assist users to master the technologies and procedures they need to obtain education information.
The focus of the National Library of Education's organization and work will be toward the future of library and information services. The National Library of Education should embrace the concept of the virtual library and use its mandate to develop a national network of information providers. This combination can become an organized team of partners cooperating to provide education information in ways that conserve resources and maximize the strengths of each public and private sector partner.
The Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) program, the Institutional Communications Network (INet), and other libraries and related information clearinghouses mentioned in this Report will be totally integrated within the National Library of Education in a reorganized fashion. It is essential that these existing information services be permanently incorporated into the National Library of Education in order to fulfill the Library's mandate and more efficiently serve the U.S. Department of Education's information customers. ERIC and INet are world-class information and bibliographic reference services that serve as the model for a virtual library and a national network of education information providers. U.S. Department of Education officials have already wisely placed the administration of them within the National Library of Education, and should consider this for other internal libraries and information clearinghouses as well.

A Word About the Report's Organization

The recommendations that follow are numbered consecutively and grouped into five domains corresponding to the four goals of awareness, access, assistance, and accountability plus a set of important cross-cutting issues. Within each domain are one or more topic headings under which the specific recommendations are listed. Each domain comprises a chapter of the report, and textual commentary has been kept to a minimum. Following the recommendations are a series of appendices containing important documents pertaining to the report and the work of the Task Force.

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[Executive Summary]

[Cross-Cutting Recommendations]