Foreword THE HE U. S. Office of Education undertook this study at the request of State supervisors of school libraries for data to aid school administrators and librarians in determining the cost of operating libraries. The work on this study of unit costs in high-school libraries was made possible by the American Library Association Committee on Fellowships and Scholarships which assigned one of its 1940-41 fellows to the Library Service Division of the U. S. Office of Education. The findings of this exploratory study have been gathered from a limited sampling of a group of selected high-school libraries. It is hoped that they will be of some value in (1) establishing quantitative costs of school library operation and (2) indicating a method which may be used as a basis for future studies. Appreciation is expressed to the participating schools for keeping time records and other statistical data; to the specialists in librarianship who acted as consultants; to the two schools which made a preliminary trial of the time sheets; and to Walter Crosby Eells for making available the data on the Cooperative Study of Secondary School Standards, which served as a basis for selecting the schools. The planning and execution of this study were done under the supervision of Nora Beust, Specialist in School Libraries, and Ralph M. Dunbar, Chief of the Library Service Division. BESS GOODY KOONTZ, Assistant U. S. Commissioner of Education. |