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The purpose of this paper is to present School Libraries Network Program (Ministry of Education) and its strategy concerning the creation and development of a national network, the elaboration of an Evaluation Model and the reference corpus of Learning Standards. This is the main goal of this presentation. Nowadays educational agents have a general concern regarding the tremendous transformation that technologies and social networks brought up to the present, placing on the agenda of educational institutions, policies, and new standards of reference about curricula and learning that today schools and school libraries must ensure. The conviction that school libraries can play an undeniable role in the acquisition of a set of critical skills vital in 21st century education, led us to the creation of learning standards for school libraries, associated with their mission and intervention in schools, called "Effective Learning in the School Library: the Portuguese School Libraries' Learning Standards Framework". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Education in Portugal is undergoing significant changes related to the government-led Technological Plan. This is a consequence of the major reconfiguration introduced by educational technologies now available to schools. Such a process presents challenges to schools libraries, which must respond adequately, change management and information management practices and engage in collaborative work with teachers. School Libraries aim at developing reading and information literacies and at implementing creative problem solving-based approaches to learning, such as inquiry based learning. Since its establishment under inter-ministerial initiative in 1996, the School Libraries Network (SLN) has strived to incorporate critical success factors identified in international literature. SLN has moreover implemented the School Libraries Self-Evaluation Model, to reinforce school libraries' educational role and promote quality and accountability. This paper aims at confronting the realizations and shortcomings of SLN with internationally identified concepts, standards and critical success factors, whilst revealing aspects of the Portuguese reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we propose to present and analyse the School Libraries Self-Evaluation Model created for Portuguese Schools. We focus on its principles and steps leading to implementation. The self-evaluation model is based on four domains which represent essential areas to the accomplishment of school libraries' teaching and learning objectives. Some of the features are characteristic of the Portuguese reality, but they are all directed towards critical teaching and learning dimensions of school libraries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]