Aspirations, Modalities and Evaluation Tools of School Libraries: From International Standards to Current French Realities

Abstract

The regulation of the French educational system is in an on-going transitional process because its culture, deeply anchored in a republican history, remains very present. That is how, nowadays, two evaluation models for school libraries coexist in correlation with the recommendations from the IFLA School Library Guidelines:

(1) The inspection of the librarian teacher, based on a competency framework: this evaluation is individual and punctual and impacts his or her career ; and

(2) The general self-evaluation of the school which progressively utilizes a quality approach to develop common reflexivity and to enable a regulation of policies. It also allows the introduction of changes in practices: this collective self-evaluation is more motivating and spreads the awareness of working responsibilities. It shows the team how interdependent each member is with the other, and therefore shows that strategies of improvement made for all are of interest to all. Serving the goal of permanent improvement, the quality approach increases the overall added-value of the school policy – and therefore the added-value of the library. The quality approach turns the school into a ‘learning school’1(Bouvier 2001), always questioning and improving, in which the librarian teacher evolves in his or her practice, thanks to a collective experience and a unifying empowered role with educational and pedagogical projects.