THE SCHOOL LIBRARIES AS A RESOURCE IN THE LEARNING PROCESS: A CASE STUDY IN CASTILLA Y LEÓN PRIMARY SCHOOLS

The aim of this paper is to bring new light on the school libraries as resource centres, based on the approaches that in the last years have taken these places as renovated spaces for socialization. These new perspectives about the renovated role of libraries at schools are taken as the theoretical background for the study, where the school library turns out to be a place where the main actors in the schools (alumni, professors, parents etc.) learn and also develop their resources from a social, ethical or environmental perspective. Taken this purpose in mind, the research team consider all the public primary schools in the autonomous Community of Castilla y León, in Spain, as the universe of reference. The methodology combines quantitative and qualitative information: a postal survey sent to all the primary centres (answered by the directors and people in charge of the library) is combined with in- depth interviews and focus groups with different actors related to these places.
The paper describes the main results obtained after conducting the survey. The outcomes coming from this tools offer updated and very interesting and innovative information about the school libraries from three different perspectives: firstly, as an instrumental one, where the questions focus mainly on the human and material resources of the libraries; the creative perspective is the second one, based on the activities developed in those places, and thirdly, from an ethic view, the questionnaire explore new social activities in libraries at schools.