State Education Resource Center Library

If you didn’t know anything about the State Education Resource Center Library on Industrial Park Road in Middletown, you might assume from its unassuming name and location that this must be some sort of warehouse of books for teachers and that there probably would not be any trained staff to help with research. Luckily, you would be wrong. The SERC Library is no warehouse and is instead a very welcoming library with staff trained to assist with any and all research in the education of children and youth in Connecticut.

Legislated into existence in 1969 as the Special Education Resource Center, SERC evolved into a resource for both special and general education, including early childhood education and school improvement. In 2005, as a result of a change in State legislation, SERC changed its name (if not its acronym) to better reflect this broader mission. SERC “is known for providing high-quality, research-based professional development to educators, service providers, families, and community members as part of its commitment to improve the achievement of Connecticut's children and youth.” The Library is a central component in this mission as SERC consultants try to incorporate library resources into the work they do in their programs and initiatives. Much of this activity involves helping school districts respond to the various state and federal education requirements and much of the SERC Library collections support this specific function.

Despite the more formal role that SERC plays in supporting school districts, the Library “is open to the public and provides access to a wide variety of educational resources to all educators, parents, student support services personnel, administrators, prospective educators, and other interested individuals in Connecticut and its surrounding states.” From Ph.D. candidates to high school students, from working teachers to parents, the Library serves a varied clientele with different needs and research abilities. Approximately 11,000 Library members borrow materials as individuals and most items in the SERC Library collections circulate.

The more popular of these collections include: Testing material, often used to respond to specific educational requirements and given to students in schools by trained personnel; Instructional material, used directly by teachers in classrooms ; and In-Service Education material, used by working teachers for professional development. Other resources include: Professional Books, Family Books, CD-ROMs, Vertical File Resources, School-Family-Community Partnership Resources, and Young People's Books. All these collections are represented in the SERC online catalog. Also, the Library has a number of major online databases available for use in the Library, including H.W. Wilson's Education Index and EBSCOHost’s ERIC, Education Research Complete, and Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection databases. Journal articles may be accessed via these databases or by using the extensive collection of education journals available in house. Many of these specialized journals are not available in electronic form.

The SERC Library is much more than a just a depository of education-related library materials. As the SERC Library’s “ Beliefs and Values” statement says, “We seek to acquire the best and most comprehensive collection of materials in the field of education. We are dedicated to making our Library as user-friendly as possible by providing exceptional personalized assistance to our patrons.” It is the customer-concerned, service-oriented staff that make this library a treasure. Each person using the library gets individual attention and assistance. A long list of bibliographies, prepared by staff, are available to help jump-start research on common topics. The online catalog may be available over the web, as are the bibliographies, but a visit to this Library is often much more focused and effective than what one is accustomed to in academic libraries with similar collections. Library staff also welcome visits by classes and will visit organizations to promote the use of SERC Library services. In addition, the Library helps SERC disseminate a wide variety of government and non-government pamphlets and other resource materials on special and general education topics.

In planning for the future, the SERC Library is looking to expand its offerings of online resources. SERC also wants to make the Library a more integral part of its professional outreach service. A new community room will allow the library to bring programming specifically to its library customers and community members at large.

The staff at the SERC Library includes Co-Coordinators Donna-Lee Rulli and David Cormier, Library Assistants Megan Bozzi and Yolanta Garcia, and Library Associates Susan Cohan, Barbara Wallach, and Diana Whitehill.

The SERC Library is open six days a week and is located at 25 Industrial Park Road in Middletown. For more information, go to their web site at http://www.serc.org/library.


An edited version of this article appeared previously in Connecticut Libraries.