School Libraries in National Education Council Decisions: A Document Analysis Study

Abstract

School libraries support educational and training activities, as well as access to information. Accordingly, in this study, it was aimed to analyze the decisions taken on school libraries in the National Education Council the highest advisory body of the Ministry of National Education, and to reveal the degree to which school libraries are kept on the agenda in the decisions of the council and the degree to which libraries are given importance in the council. In this context, the documents belonging to all the National Education Council decisions made between 1939 and 2021 were used. In the documents, it was determined whether there are decisions on the concepts of “information, book, library, librarian, school library, reading” determined within the scope of the study, and in what context, if any, the decision was made. Document analysis, one of the qualitative research methods, was used to examine the documents. Voyant Tools, one of the web-based text analysis and text editing tools, was used for the analysis. While the determined concepts were not included in the decisions of the councils of 1946 and 1953, they were all included in the council decisions of 1982 and 2021. Considering the relationship of the library with education, the library, the librarian and the school library started to come to the fore as of the 7th council (1962). The librarian and the school library didn’t take part in the decisions after the 11th council (1982) until the 20th council (2021). This study contributed to the literature by revealing the place of school libraries, which have an important place in education, in councils where advisory decisions are taken to regulate the education system. There are no studies analyzing the all council decisions of the twenty National Education Councils held from the past to the present, specifically for school libraries. From this point of view, it is thought that the study will contribute to the literature.