An Introduction to Library School Accreditation in North America and the American Library Association Office of Accreditation

The American Library Association (ALA) Office of Accreditation (OA) accredits library education programs in the US and Canada through a system based on standards. Programs seeking accreditation use these standards to evaluate themselves. Then this self-study, along with other reports and a visit from OA representatives, is used by the OA in a process that takes roughly two years. If successful, the program becomes inculcated with self-evaluating measures constitutive of its ability to educate librarians and information professional and the final result is also a credential others can accept as a sign of quality. Programs seeking initial accreditation must perform to the same standards but another set of steps and a longer period of time allow such programs to work toward accreditation.