School Libraries - Media CentersLearning Support : Minnesota Department of Education

School Libraries - Media Centers

School Libraries - Media Centers

School libraries & media centers serve as a critical foundation for increasing student achievement in Minnesota’s educational system.   Studies continually show that students realize higher levels of achievement when they have school libraries that are:

  • Sufficiently funded
  • Professionally staffed, and
  • Integrated with the curriculum.

Today’s school libraries & media centers provide access to a wide variety of both print and electronic information resources for teachers and students.  They support achievement of curriculum goals, assist teachers with integration of information & technology resources with curriculum, assist teachers in reaching continuing education goals, & teach students to use information resources effectively, ethically, and safely. 

*Research Project Calculator is a project funded jointly by MINITEX and MnLINK to develop Cool Tools for Minnesota secondary school students and their teachers.

The following Standards have been developed by the *Minnesota Educational Media Organization (MEMO). *Minnesota Standards for Effective School Library Media Programs. The *Information and Technology Literacy Standards also developed by MEMO provide a guideline for school districts who wish to ensure students are achieving 21st Century information skills in conjunction with the current Minnesota Academic Standards.

*Links to third-party sites are provided as a service to Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) Website visitors. See our disclaimer regarding these sites in our copyright information linked at the bottom of this page. Links will open in a new browser window.  

School Library Media Center Census


Metronet, the metropolitan area multi-type library system, through federal Library Services & Technology Act funds provided by the statelibrary, has coordinated two school library media center census projects.  The complete “Check It Out” reports on both the 2002 & 2004 School Library Media Center Census projects are available at http://www.metronet.lib.mn.us/survey/index.cfm and http://www.metronet.lib.mn.us/survey2004/index.cfm.