Another year. Another year of wonderful opportunities, exciting moments and dear people who supported me and made it such a special year. Of course there were plenty of challenges along the way, but that’s what helps me grow, learn and stretch. So here’s to another year.
I’ve just reread through my 2024 year in review and I can honestly say that 2025 was not nearly as overwhelming. I love creating these reviews as a record of the year. Those events of 2024 feel like so long ago. And now it’s time to reflect on 2025. Here we go.
Word for the year
It’s funny I start my yearly reviews with this section, but I can genuinely say I love my word of the years. I love the process of rolling words over in my mind to find the one that fits best, both for where I’m at and where I want to go, what I would like the year to be. My word for 2025 was Balance and I can say I honestly rocked it! It was such a perfect word and truly helped to guide my work and practice this year. My goal was to not let the stress of work take away my joy and health like it had in 2024. I can say it was still a very stressful year in some ways, but I was able to switch off a lot more, to disconnect, to take time away from work, to not work late into the night and to find joy in the things I love, including long conversations with friends, walks, Lego, baking, naps and time spent in nature. Balance was exactly what I needed and I’m proud of the balance I managed to achieve. There’s still work to be done (like taking lunch breaks each day) and balance is a word I’ll continue to carry with me, but it’s time to unveil my word for 2026.
Refocus. I’m not sure why, but this one is really sticking with me. It’s not as exciting as some words might be but it rings true for me. I played with a few OneWord reels, tossed some possible words around in my head, I even asked ChatGPT for a list of possible words and nothing tempted me away from Refocus. This year I want to refocus my energy and attention on things that matter. It’s a year of assessing my goals and direction. It’s a year of selecting just a few key things to put my time into. I’m hoping it’s a year of doing the basics well, figuring out what my dreams and goals are for the next step and refocusing on the projects I already have underway. So Refocus it is.
Professional life – work
In comparison to 2024, 2023 and 2022, this year was pretty straight forward and quiet. As I planned, it was a year of balance, in my own life and work life. A large building project didn’t take precedence over everything, nor did a (non-library-related) project.
I began work on the 2nd of January. When we left in mid December the previous year, we weren’t quite sure what shape the renovated (but still leaking) junior library would be in on our return. The answer? Not wet but very dusty. No building clean got done, so it was left to the library team, plus a team of kind volunteer family members and junior school staff to pull together and wipe down every surface, remove old furniture and return the collection to the space. I spent that weekend at the school getting the carpets cleaned and then the install of the new furniture began. It was amazing seeing the space come to life with beautiful library shelving and gorgeous new feature seats and tables. Moving the books in and onto these shelves was a treat and reminded me how much I adore proper library shelving. We installed feature shelving hero dots, and wall and window decals. The space looked so gorgeous, ready for the return of staff and students for the new year. Then it was time to put my attention back on resetting the secondary library and prepping for the year ahead. This year I had all year 7 and 8 English classes for fortnightly library lessons, plus a few year 9s as well. This is in addition to on-demand classes for Year 7 to 12 across all subjects of research, referencing and multimedia creation. So, this was a big increase from previous years and I’m grateful for the time and access and support the English department offer me. We also prepared for the opening of the junior library, with updated signage, brochures, and planned a special opening event. The term started smoothly, with a focus on reading. We hosted a manga bookshop specialist and added a lot of new manga books to our collection, after undergoing a serious weed of that section last year. It was great to see students select the titles they wanted.
We had a full team to start the year and we launched with a range of lunchtime activities and extra curricular clubs. Our 3D printers quickly became extremely popular. But it wasn’t long before disaster struck again. The area was hit by a cyclone in March and school was closed for a few days (that bit was fun). While the cyclone was mild compared to what was expected, the Junior library continued to leak. Thanks to our new ceiling type, the leaks were absorbed and then the ceiling tiles simply replaced. We continued to run dehumidifiers to protect the collection. The Innovation Precinct suffered far more damage, with leaks downstairs and with two classrooms upstairs with ceiling and wall damage. Thankfully these were timetabled classrooms and didn’t impact the library service itself, though the senior study area had to be closed. The area was closed off and we awaited building repairs. This wouldn’t happen until September, so it remained closed off for six months.
In term two we continued to install final pieces in the junior library space, like the coloured seat pads and updated signage. It was amazing to see how well the design worked and it is such a calming and beautiful space. In the Precinct, we moved some things around in the makerspace to make better use of the equipment and resources we were adding, and I relaunched our robotics club and Manga club. I once again took over the whole-cohort flex program and the year 11 Academic skills course. While a lot of work, these are incredible gifts of time and access to students that allow me to more consistently teach information and digital literacy to students, as well as study skills and a fantastic time to fit in guest presenter sessions that would otherwise be a nightmare to schedule. Sadly, I’ll be losing this time next year and am once again back to looking for time to teach these skills consistently across the cohort. The Library space hosted a principals conference and the Junior library hosted an author visit. I headed to Canberra for the TLPLC Conference, a beautiful conference celebrating non-fiction. Just a week later I headed to Geelong for the ASLA National Conference and it was so good to catch up with so many familiar faces and superstars of the school library profession. In this term we farewelled an IP team member who was moving on to an exciting new opportunity. I was grateful I didn’t have to advocate for his replacement, but the process was a long one and we were short staffed for the majority of the term.
Term 3 is of course all about Book Week, and it included shadow judging the Picture Book of the year awards in library lessons and prepping for author Sophie Beer to visit and work with the year 7 and 8 students. As has become tradition, we hosted the Creative Industries Showcase, which this year expanded to include Design Technology, as well as music and visual culture. It’s a big process of completely emptying and transforming our space. Our new staff members settled in and brought such creativity to the team. We continued to workshop and review our strategic plan to bring it into line with the school’s new strategic plan.
Term 4 passed in a blur, and I’m grateful to the staff who stepped up to work extra days to cover staff on leave. Once again extra projects passed my way became the focus of my time. There was good news this term, with word that our budget would be increased next year and our makerspace budget, if not returned to the amount we used to get, no longer completely reduced. I’m so grateful for our finance manager who so actively supports the library. With the help of our finance manager, I also applied for a grant to make some furniture changes in the secondary library, wrote policy for textbooks and secured additional funding for these and other resources, and we were able to increase the work hours of our library assistant for 2026, which was such a relief and so exciting for the year ahead. I finished the school year by working an extra week, the perfect time to reset, enjoy work without the hectic schedule and finish off some tasks.
It was a year of ongoing advocacy. Of working with people to show them what we do in the library. Of challenging beliefs and assumptions. Of taking hits and collecting myself and standing back up and going back in again. Of learning to not take on every fight, of being strategic. There are still things I need to let go, where the injustice grates on me. There’s also a deep desire for inspiration, to have a deeper strategic reason for each day. I will say, most of the advocacy paid off and I had quite a few wins, with an increase to our library assistant staffing for next year, an increased budget (thanks to the most incredibly supportive finance manager), the chance to apply for another grant (again, thanks to our finance manager, she’s awesome), and an opening into positive conversations I didn’t expect. It’s shows that gentle, consistent, ongoing, exhausting advocacy works. It takes time but it works. And you have to use every resource available to you. It’s terrifying and bone-wearying, but it works.
Things I’ve learnt this year
What have I learnt this year? Last year the lessons seemed so clear, this year they are a little fuzzy. I have learnt it’s important to take more time to rest. It’s important to fight for the right things and with perseverance you can win. I’ve learnt that friendship can be the most amazing gift.
Professional life – presenting and writing
Once again it has been an incredible year of connecting with school library professionals around the world. It was a bit quieter than last year, and that was by design.
In May I presented the keynote and chaired a panel discussion at the TLPLC Conference in Canberra. If you’ve never been to this conference, put it on your list. I was blown away at how beautifully crafted and intentional the conference was. I highly recommend it. I was also privileged to be able to attend the ASLA National Conference in Geelong. This was such a great event and amazing to catch up with so many incredible school library and book industry professionals. This community never fails to impress and delight me.
I presented to the CSU class again on Dynamic School Libraries and welcomed visitors to my library space from 2 school libraries. I was part of the Teacher Magazine Podcast with the amazing Maji Jorm and Tracy Kelly, hosted by Jo Earp. Listen here.
I celebrated ten years of sharing on Madison’s Library this year. I missed the date and didn’t realise until after, so had to celebrate a month late. I’m so grateful for the space and community this little corner of the internet affords me.
In October I attended the QSLA Future Libraries Conference and was honoured to be awarded a special commendation for the Teacher Librarian of the Year Award.
I shared 49 posts, down from last year’s 54 posts. And again my reading this year was pretty much non-existent. I did manage to dive back into a few old favourites, like the Poison Study series, but I find entering a new literary worlds really challenging. It’s something I’ll continue to work on and hope my voracious reading habits return. As a colleague shared with me at the start of the year, when your brain has recovered from the stress it does come back, the reading comes back.
My most popular posts this year were the Book Week 2025 Activity and Ideas To Celebrate, Easy Costume Ideas from things in your Wardrobe, Double-Sided Bookmarks with Canva, and Planning Library Displays for the Year.
Social media
I continue to share on social media, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Threads and BlueSky, though I don’t spend much time on the last two, as they are so full of American politics. I so enjoy the incredible articles and professional learning resources I find on LinkedIn, and hope to continue to use it more.
The Aussie Book Week Facebook Group has a staggering 12,700 members, which is incredible. Instagram I connected with 1686 people
Goals
As always I have a range of goals for the year ahead. This year they are simple, refocusing on the basics. I’m looking forward to a year of trying new things and doing the things I enjoy, new opportunities and making the most of every moment.