‘‘ T
HE School Libraries Group (SLG) of CILIP – now in our 40th year – would like to introduce ourselves to you, in this our first in a new series
of columns for Information Professional. We plan to use the columns to showcase the work that we do in schools.
My name is Caroline Roche, and I am the current Chair of both SLG, and the Great School Libraries Campaign. I lead a team of brilliant school librarians, consultants and SLS workers on our committee, who come from all over the UK, and abroad. We have just celebrated our 40th anniversary and have published a special edition of our School Libraries in View magazine, which includes many fascinating articles about how SLG was set up, our history, and our future plans. Jonathan Douglas who is Chief Executive of the National Literacy Trust, wrote an article about the importance of school librarians to the literacy of the nation. He said: “School Libraries have a vital symbolic value. As champions of literacy offering equal access to reading experiences to everyone in the school community and proactively including the disadvantaged and socially excluded, the values of school librarians are a profound statement of the purpose and values of education itself. As part of the librarians’ professional body, the School Libraries Group safeguards those values and strengthens the ability of every school librarian to change lives through literacy.” – School Libraries in View, Issue 46, August 2021.
As we looked back on our history, we see that the values of our community remain the same – to include every child in the wonder of reading. School librarians reach out to disadvantaged children – especially those in receipt of free school meals (FSM), which is an
September 2021
We have many exciting projects we are working on, many of them to do with encouraging new librarians to start the journey to Chartership.
indicator of poverty and disadvantage, and those with English as a Second Language (ESL). Literacy is a route out of poverty, as the OECD Reading for Change research and the 2013 BCS70 report conclude.1
The Great School Libraries (GSL) Campaign was launched three years ago in response to the accelerating closure of libraries in schools, and as a consequence of a Mass Lobby for School Libraries which took place as a march on Parliament in 2012. This march resulted in the setting up of an APPG for School Libraries which asked us for evidence to support our claim that school libraries were closing. CILIP formed a data gathering group that devised a questionnaire, and this morphed into the GSL Campaign, which was launched in October 2018. We also worked with the School Library Association to unite for the good of all who work in school libraries. The questionnaire was launched in 2019 and it asked penetrating questions about how the school library looked, how it was staffed, what was its budget and type of resources, and much more. The results can be seen on the GSL website:
www.greatschoollibraries.org. We also have produced a large body of Case Studies to provide qualitative data, and are now ready to approach the APPG again.
When you head over to the website, have a look at the Case Studies in Lockdown. They show how school librarians continued to try to reach every student even when access to their physical books was restricted. An immediate digital pivot happened in March 2020 as schools locked down. Many educational and library providers generously allowed free access to usually paid for resources during the lockdown, and so librarians were able to provide anxious English teachers with class texts, allow research for students
Caroline Roche MA, MCLIP, is the Chair of the School Libraries Group and is a leader of the Great School Libraries Campaign. Caroline has been working in both state and independent school libraries for over 25 years. She is currently working in a leading independent school in south east London.
who were in the middle of Extended Project Qualifications (EPQ’s) or University applications, and much more. Book clubs changed to Teams meetings and carried on seamlessly. Some librarians posted out books to vulnerable and disadvantaged children who otherwise had no access to books at all, as public libraries were closed as well.
The SLG will continue to work hard for our members and will continue to partner with the SLA for the campaign. We have many exciting projects we are working on, many of them to do with encouraging new librarians to start the journey to Chartership. As Malcolm X tells us “the future belongs to those who prepare for it today”. That is what we shall continue to do – laying the groundwork for a future where every school has a fully funded library again, with a professional librarian at its heart. IP
Reference
1 Reading for Change OECD
https://bit.ly/3sPJZQn 2013 BCS70 report.
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