Spaces for reading, ICT’s, creation, studying, teaching, mentoring, discussion, collaborative work, individual work – whatever is needed for learning. This could mean specific areas for subject disciplines – it should also mean a movement away from library jargon!

June Wall

ASLA NSW
Past President
ASLA
Vice President – Association Operations
Head of Library
St Ignatius College, Riverview

Allen Mayfield
Teacher Librarian

It’s great you have been speaking to NSW teachers, and parents and principals – I assume you are not just speaking to TLs, as we have all done for many decades. I’d like to hear all professional association members, not just asking TLs to advocate within their schools, important as that is, but speaking on ABC radio and at principals’ conferences, and speaking at ACSSO conferences and starting a real media campaign to see that every school, especially government school, in Australia has a qualified teacher librarian.

And, yes, we need our own Australian research also. Lyn Hay’s work is great. The work that Ross Todd is doing with Carol Kuhlthau in leading EBR is great. But why are there no units in pre-service teacher training on collaboration with TLs…surely something DET and/or ASLA could initiate. Who is speaking to principals? Who is speaking to parent associations? The media? Mary Manning in Vic was terrific recently on the ABC. The CBCA is part of a vital Alliance being formed to lobby for TLs. But why has ASLA done nothing with the ASLRP survey results which speak so strongly re the decline in government school library funding and staffing? Yes, Rudd is allowing some schools to build new libraries, but Julia feels no responsibility to see that they are staffed appropriately. Ask her.

And try asking ASLA national and every state ASLA branch just how many government school libraries they represent these days. That question seems too hard to answer.

Best of luck, Ian, with your efforts.

Georgia Phillips
Adjunct Lecturer
Faculty of Education
School of Information Studies
Charles Sturt University
Wagga Wagga, NSW

At no time did I say I am “unwilling to support” my “’sister’ states”. From 1991 to 2002 I was an active committee member of ALIA – and gave up many hours of personal time to attend School Libraries Section (NSW Group) meetings, ALIA NSW Branch meetings and national ALIA Renewal meetings – only leaving when I returned to classroom teaching in 2003. (Sadly for the local School Libraries Section, it did not survive the “renewal” program of ALIA, or the retirements of many of its commiittee. Try as we did, we couldn’t tempt too many new/young TLs to commit to advocacy from a professional association stance.)

However, you have not provided any strategies that TLs can use now, to make sure that we do have the ongoing/evolving support of “politicians, unions, and professional associations”. Yes, of course every student in Australia deserves equity, but has recent Australian research demonstrated that it really is the “services of a professional qualified teacher librarian” in NSW that increases student achievement of outcomes? What else can NSW TLs and their professional associations do to convince other states’ powers-that-be that they need trained teacher-librarians in every interstate school?

As I said in the previous post, NSW TLs can (and do) at least send messages via our actions in schools to the people making the decisions about NSW schools. Furthermore, we can make presentations at annual NSW DET and ASLA conferences, (as I have been doing these past three years since returning to teacher-librarianship – so far no interstate invitations, but I’m willing to travel). The whole point of evidence-based practice is so we can actually prove that TLs make value-added contributions to our students’ educations. Then, hopefully, we find ways to bring those successes to the attention of the other states’ stakeholders, demonstrating that they are missing out on a crucial human resource: a trained TL.

Something very dramatic does need to happen to alter the current state of play. You say the advocacy load should not be on the already-overburdened NSW TL – and yet how will the politicians and unions suddenly be convinced to take up advocacy on our behalf, especially if we decide we are simply too over-burdened to do it ourselves?

We can blow a lot of hot air their way, sure, and write lots of letters and blog entries – and the other states can gnash their teeth in jealous misery – but it is solid action research that is going to provide the evidence for change. We have a prime minister bequeathing grants for new BER school libraries – all over NSW – over the next two years. Isn’t that a strong sign of someone noticing the work of NSW TLs? (Why wasn’t the money shunted into other types of buildings?)

NSW TLs do need to commit ourselves to proving that these promising, current efforts are going to be worthwhile. Unfortunately, that’s more advocacy work for us. A lot more.

Ian McLean,
Teacher librarian,
Penrith PS, NSW.

Will schools really keep their old dusty books in a locked cabinet, or will some savvy entrepreneur sell them as rare books on eBay, and use the money to buy something more valued by the school population?

If schools think they can get by with library technicians “minding the books”, then that is exactly what they will do.

If teacher librarians ensure that they are always at least one step ahead of their teaching colleagues regarding information skills, higher order thinking, the effective use of IWBs, ICT and Web 2.0, and can prove, through evidence-based practice, that they do, in fact, make a difference to students’ achievement of outcomes, then schools will be fighting over themselves to engage/retain the services of a trained teacher librarian.

A word of caution, though: Equity is probably more easily achieved by scaling back NSW’s situation to match other states. So let’s not plead for equity too loudly. We need to send our messages – via our actions – to the people who will ultimately have the choice (if granted that choice) as to how to spend a school’s budget: the principal of each NSW school.

Principals who value the work of teacher librarians will always want a trained teacher librarian on hand. However, if they meet a teacher librarian who doesn’t rise to the standard they are looking for, maybe they will think a library technician will at least save a little money.

The hard work never ends. TLs can’t rest on their laurels. ICT keeps evolving and improving itself. And so must we. Or we fall into obscurity, like a Betamax video recorder or one of those portable telephones that resembled a house brick.

Ian McLean
Teacher librarian,
Penrith PS, NSW

Why? Because there will be no TLs.

Northern Territory remote schools have no teacher librarians (TLs). Western Australian primary schools have no TLs appointed. Victoria and the ACT count TLs as part of teaching staff, may or may not have a teacher deployed in the library and do not require that teacher to be a teacher librarian. Probably one in ten public primary schools in Victoria have TLs and more and more secondary teacher librarians are being replaced by less expensive librarian options.

An Australian Education Union survey of South Australian government school library staffing in 2001 found that “a third of all schools are understaffed and/or staffed with unqualified personnel” (Spence 2002). South Australian teacher librarian positions are under further threat in current enterprise agreement negotiations. Even in Tasmania and Queensland, principals are being forced by inadequate staffing budgets to downgrade staff in school libraries, often to clerical positions.

Meanwhile, since the early 1970s, NSW primary schools have been staffed with trained teacher librarians. While too often used for teacher relief planning time (and therefore unable to easily plan collaborative teaching themselves), they nevertheless are professionally trained in collection management, literacy support, leadership, collaborative teaching and other unique whole school skills.

If we are talking about equity, if we are talking about improving literacy and information literacy, if we are talking about authentic, resource-based learning and quality teaching, we must agree that ALL Australian students deserve professional school library services managed by professionally trained teacher librarians

I believe that a school library of the future needs to be as “future proofed” as possible when it comes to technological tools to assist Guided Inquiry and Literacy. The physical building for the next few years, at least, should be the hub of the school but it is the role of the Teacher Librarians to make a positive impact on student learning.

Even when the reality of our physical position becoming virtually ‘virtual’ eventuates, as Ian and many others have suggested, it is the quality of the “guide on the side” in the ‘virtual’ library that will make the difference. Ask a librarian! If there had been someone to interevene and guide Ian’s understanding of the iphone, would he have had a deeper understanding of its functions at an earlier stage? (He does appear to have an excellent understanding now though!)

I suppose I have skirted around the question of the physical library. I believe the library has an increasingly important role in schools for years to come, particularly in this Age of Information Overload. A large, flexible, comfortable, inviting space that is adequately resourced in terms of people and finance for quality resources such as literature, technological tools (including multimedia and a reliable IT system); and the equipment to house students, books, ICT and multimedia; necessary to work efficiently, will be most welcome.