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05Feb2010
School libraries: the next chapter

Posted by Jonathan Douglas

Discussion about the future of libraries has been marked in the past 12 months by both political debate over public libraries (an All Party Parliamentary Group review and a Department for Culture Media and Sport consultation) and campaigning activity for school libraries (notably by the Campaign for the Book with support from the School Library Association).

School libraries have a vital role to play in the creation of reading cultures within schools. A rich collection of books and resources, promoted by a professional reading enthusiast, working across the school community means that a school library should be a powerhouse of reading, reaching into all areas of the school’s life and into the community and homes of students. For this reason the National Literacy Trust (NLT) has for a long time supported the importance of school libraries as a resource in raising literacy standards.

To address the strategic future of this vital resource the NLT with the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council is supporting a commission to be chaired by Baroness Estelle Morris. We hope that this will push forward the conversation about how school libraries can be made more effective in a changing educational context. The commission will report after the next election with a refreshed vision for the future of school libraries.

The commission has yet to meet and the commissioners have yet to draw up their terms of reference. However preliminary conversations with policy makers, professionals and government contacts have started. Many stakeholders are already expressing their hopes for the commission. I have three personal hopes which I would like the discussions to focus on:

1.School libraries for those who need them most. The starting point for the planning of school library provision needs to be an identification of the pupils who will most benefit from the support the school library has to offer. These pupils will have lower levels of literacy, will be less likely to have books in their home and will be unlikely to read for pleasure. A deep understanding of who these pupils are, what their socioeconomic and ethnic background is and what their home and community cultures are helps to create a powerful and relevant school library.

2. School libraries that promote literacy effectively. The explosion of the reader development movement in libraries across the country has meant the proliferation of reading groups and reader promotion activities. We know that children who are more likely to read for pleasure are more likely to have higher literacy skills. Yet it has not always been the case that literacy work in schools has fully utilised the school library as a central resource. I would hope to see the commission assert the need for school libraries to be more closely aligned to national strategies to promote literacy.

3. A vision for the future of school library services. One of the reasons that I was particularly keen that Baroness Morris should lead the commission was that when she was minister I had heard her speak about the importance of school library services. She remembered how important they had been to her professional practice when she was a teacher. I had never heard this from any minister before. Local authorities’ school library services are a vital resource for schools, supporting teaching and learning. Over the next few months we will gain a clearer picture of how local authorities will relate to school improvement in the future. It will be a complex picture where School Improvement Partners will become more important as the support from the national strategies is removed. Positioning school library services in this landscape will be vital if their full potential is to be realised.

The role of the commission is to lead new thinking, it is not an advocacy activity. But I hope that the vision and enthusiasm it stimulates will support arguments for the role of the school library.