PASSIONATE ABOUT SCHOOL LIBRARIES
It’s a question I absolutely love. “How did you get into working in school libraries and is that something I can do?”
Working in a school libraries is the best job in the world (I’m biased, but just try and prove me wrong!). Yet becoming someone who works in a school library is a path shrouded in mystery. I know I certainly didn’t realise it was an option that was open to me until much later on in my search for a career that felt right and fit me.
I’m in the midst of redesigning our Junior School Library. it’s very exciting but there is also a lot of pressure to get it right. What should we include? How do we pick colours? I totally love it and have enjoyed looking for inspiration from libraries around the world.
School libraries have and continue to rapidly evolve, adapting to the changing needs of students and the education and learning environment. Today’s library spaces should be dynamic, flexible environments that encourage collaboration, innovation and creativity. But designing a school library to achieve all this can be tricky. Whether you are completely renovating the space, undertaking a new build or just making small updates to an existing space, there are lots of decisions and considerations to be made. From flexible furniture to tech-friendly zones with VR, 3D printers, and makerspaces, modern school libraries are being reimagined to inspire curiosity and cater to a variety of learning styles. Exploring the latest design trends has helped me, so here are a few I have discovered that are shaping the future of school libraries.
I want to be more reflective, share more about the daily happenings in my school library and the challenges I face, so here’s the first of my Life in the Library posts.
It’s been a busy two weeks of the fourth school term here in Queensland. I started the term by attending the IFLA and ALIA Research and Effective Practices Seminar, Sustainable Reading at Every Age and Stage. It was great to connect with school and public library staff from around Australia for some incredible discussions and presentations on supporting reading.
Book Week is a special time in the school library and the Children’s Book Council of Australia have announced their theme for the 2025 celebrations. It is their 80th anniversary, 80 years of Book Week.
It’s been almost a year since I last wrote about building a reading culture. It’s been an interesting year. This post was meant to be about the steps we’ve taken to move towards a reading culture but I’ve decided to change that and instead take some time to reflect and reassess.
Over the past few years, I’ve looked at organisational culture research, culture change research and methodology, reading culture research, and tools for measure reading culture. I also used those tools to measure our reading culture starting point.
It’s a question I absolutely love. “How did you get into working in school libraries and is that something I can do?”
Working in a school libraries is the best job in the world (I’m biased, but just try and prove me wrong!). Yet becoming someone who works in a school library is a path shrouded in mystery. I know I certainly didn’t realise it was an option that was open to me until much later on in my search for a career that felt right and fit me.
Another month of professional learning is heading your way. What are you in the mood to learn about? AI? Strategic planning? Immersive reality? There is something for all school library staff. Enjoy.
If you are a follower of my website (thank you, for that, it means a lot), you might have noticed that I haven’t really been posting much for a while. It seems around late 2023 I started to slow down a lot with my writing and sharing. There were a few reasons. The first was we had just undertaken a massive and extensive move into our new library space. The new build process was sadly not one I enjoyed. Everything was a fight to be listened to and so many opportunities were lost and missed due to lack of collaboration. I literally cry over the stupid shelves we were provided by the architects. But I digress. My focus turned to just achieving everything that I needed to achieve in the work day and it had become all consuming. My time for writing and energy for that diminished. That has continued into this year with more change and more challenges at work.
Professional learning. There is something so powerful being in the space to learn. Maybe it’s having that break from the routine of work, or finding time to engage with something you enjoy or want to know more about. Maybe it’s being invigorated by connecting with others or learning something new that you know will impact how you work and the people around you. Professional learning is something that really helps me to re-centre myself in good practice, refocus on what I want to achieve and motivates me to keep going. It’s funny, because professional learning is also something I seem to drop when I so desperately need those three things. So, here’s a list of professional learning ideas and links for school library staff for September 2024. I hope it inspires, re-centres, motivates or refocuses you.
School library budgets – they never go as far as you need them to. Maybe your collection needs an update. Or you have a project you’d like to implement. And then there is the dream of the school library renovation which needs a large chunk of funding. If you aren’t likely to receive the funding or budget you need from your school administration, then it might be time to consider applying for grants. They can be an excellent way to supplement a library budget, purchase specific items or fun an entire renovation.
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