In our current society, young people must learn to research, evaluate and use information available and know how to use it to produce new knowledge thereby gaining skills which are the critical tool to face the fast growing changes in society, the accelerated scientific and technological development that characterises our time and the constant outdated knowledge. School response to this challenge includes the inevitable development of individual and organisational change processes through a strategy to build new participation forms and relationships between educational players and the affirmation of new pedagogic practices in the school. In this regard, literacy is the most inclusive concept to express the crosscutting role that school libraries currently play in learning and in the curriculum.

The school library is a privileged structure for the development of a new school model by favouring the appearance of new educational action modules. The library promotes research work and the production of documents in different formats and languages, facilitates the acquisition of information skills, stimulates pleasure in reading and develops work habits leading to autonomy and taste for lifelong reading. School libraries therefore play a crucial role, not only in the context of specific activities developed in the context of various subjects, but also in projects with an interdisciplinary or trans-disciplinary nature and also in spending free time, and all their resources should be deployed in all educational solutions offered to students. Therefore, the school library can, and should, constitute an essential element of educational policies favouring an improvement in educational quality and building a better adapted school to the demands of the society in which we live.

On the basis of the assumptions listed above, the Ministry of Education decided to create, in 1996, a School Library Network Program, in partnership with the Ministry of Culture, with the main purpose of installing school libraries in schools of all teaching levels. Therefore, it was considered that the creation of a library network would be one of the measures for the national educational policy.

The development of the SLN Program arises from a set of principles and guidelines which make up the conceptual input of this Program:

• school libraries are basic resources in the educational system and it has been recognised that they play a critical role in the fields of reading and literacy, acquisition of information skills and improvement of culture, in general;
• each library should be a multimedia educational resource centre which is free and aimed at the consultation and production of different document formats;
• school libraries are fundamental units in the pedagogical organisation of schools and they are critical tools to the curricular development related to teaching activities and non-school teaching activities, and also to the spending of free time and leisure;
• the development of a school library should be understood as an endogenous process, notwithstanding stimulated and sustained externally, and as an organisational innovation, capable of inducing changes in the school itself; to this extent, it is an integral part of its pedagogical project;
• in order to meet their objectives, libraries should provide for a set of conditions: facilities and equipment adapted to the diversity of their duties, a documental fund adjusted to the interests and needs of the school community, a team of teachers and technicians with adequate training and their own budget allocation.

Together with the Regional Departments of Education, Town Halls and schools, the Coordinating Office of the SLN, plans, supervises and follows up the creation and development of school libraries in the different teaching levels.

To that extent, the expansion and consolidation of the SLN Program depends on the existence in the coordinating Office, in the RDEs and in the local authorities, of a group of services and professionals that, according to their institutional context, intervention area and specific training, work together and complementarily towards these common objectives.

The execution of the Program is developed at various levels:

• Annual launch of applications addressed to schools, which aim to install new libraries and update those that have already been integrated, involving the spaces, furniture, equipment and documental fund, and support/disseminate good practices;
• Integration of school libraries in the context of the school and educational system;
• Allocation of human resources to libraries, which are integrated in the SLN: timetable credits for team composition in secondary schools and teacher secondment to support school libraries in Primary Education;

Provide technical-pedagogic support, carried out by members of the Office and by field collaborators (teachers appointed by the Office for this purpose), by Regional Departments of Education and by the SABE:

• Creation and renewal of facilities and equipment;
• Management of documental funds and information;
• Training of management body teams, teachers in general and employees;
• Creation of resources and tools for sharing information, experiences and knowledge online;
• Development of partnerships;
• Promotion and participation in international initiatives, by disclosing and confirming the role of school libraries in the context of our educational system.

The integration in the SLN is done through annual applications in which schools submit the library installation and development project that is afterwards analysed and selected by the SLN Office.

Since 2004, there has been another application system: the merit application, which is aimed at identifying the existence of good practises and stimulating schools whose background and work done has already surpassed the installation and organisation phase, demonstrating a good exploration of the potential of libraries in schools.

These projects, where the library is seen as an organisational structure that supports the school’s entire pedagogic activity, should also foster cooperation/partnership systems (constitution of local work networks, sharing of resources, definition of common policies and strategies) in areas as diverse as:

• Organisation, management and disclosure of information;
• Development of literacies;
• Innovative pedagogical practices which are based on a crosscutting use of the library.

With regard to human resources, the Program clarifies the critical aspects which the school should observe for the constitution of the teams, in the summary report and in its originating order: “To ensure its functions, the school library should be managed by an educational team with skills in pedagogic entertainment, project management, information management and documental sciences and should be made up of a teacher librarian, other teachers and assistant library and documentation technician(s)”.^[i]

The coordinator should have more skills and training, in addition to a profile adequate to leadership, interpersonal contact, management of teams and to the articulation with teachers and the School Board. On the other hand, the team must have complementary features and know-how in the fields of reading literacy, information and ICTs. The team should also integrate, at least, one full-time member, also with specialised training and with a profile that must be both adequate to the requirements of documental management and to the interpersonal relations.

In schools within the 1st phase of basic education, the mono teaching scheme implies the application of other policies related to the human resources to be allocated to the libraries. Therefore, the Program transfers every year a group of teachers to support one or more schools, in accordance with the number of students and the geographical proximity.

The SLN Office will follow the objectives which have been set in the Program in order to contribute to the construction of the School Library Network nationwide, arising from a network concept which gathers together the potentialities and resources of the SLN Program and other partnerships involved in an effective articulation, cooperation and sharing, thereby being an effective access and construction tool of knowledge which is decisive for the development of individuals and of the society as a whole and also for the exercising of citizenship.

^[i] Veiga, Isabel, et al (1997) “Relatório Síntese: Lançar a Rede de Bibliotecas Escolares”, Lisbon: Ministry of Education