Researching Data Sets to Develop State Library Standards

California is developing school library student outcome standards and quantitative standards for library program factors that provide the conditions for students to meet library outcomes. In an effort to make those program standards empirically based, the researchers analyzed three 2008-9 reputable data sets: California’s school library data set, AASL’s School Libraries Count data set, and a national School Library Journal data set. Standards were clustered into two sections: baseline factors, and statistical standards for resources. Findings revealed that school libraries that met the “baseline” standard were significantly different from those libraries that did not meet those standards. Once the baseline set of factors were determined, descriptive and correlational statistics were applied to the data sets, with the resultant figures based on the average figures supplied by those libraries that met the baseline factors.