Libraries give children opportunity for power, freedom and wisdom. They provide access to information, carefully chosen resources, stories, and help when it is needed. Libraries are for shared learning, for rich deep engagement, collaboration and equal access. Libraries open doors to the next stage of learning, to future careers, and to a better life. Libraries offer the critical link between people of all ages and their learning needs.

The school library staff, services and resources impact the teaching and learning of every student and every teacher. A dynamic, well-resourced school library positively affects every lesson taught because time is saved finding quality resources, high quality assistance is provided through collaborative working relationships, and a thriving culture of reading underpins academic and social health.

In addition, school libraries run by qualified teacher librarians, supported by qualified library staff, also ensure that students learn to evaluate online sources, help students and teacher use technology well, reduce teacher workload, collaborate with teachers to create and deliver high quality assessments, resources and lessons, and help students create a positive digital footprint.

School libraries do this through having qualified staff teaching essential skills, such as critical thinking, problem solving, organisation and collaboration. They also provide quality resources and services that save the time of students and teachers, and enable deep learning.

Qualified library staff write policies and frameworks in concert with both whole school and library priorities. In addition to their curriculum input, qualified library staff strives to ensure that each student can independently access the facility to become lifelong learners, lifelong readers and global citizens. Through integrated library lessons, the teacher librarian has the opportunity to explicitly teach information and digital literacy - hugely important skills needed for the future. Library staff also network within and beyond the local area to ensure that the school community is aware of relevant opportunities to flourish. In inquiry learning, teachers and qualified library staff bring their skills together to teach students the 21st century skills of information literacy, critical thinking, working together, and finding solutions in well-designed assignments.

Quality, qualified library staff attract keen and reluctant, successful and struggling learners. Library staff make teachers’ jobs easier so that they have more time and energy to give to students and to planning lessons. They save time for teachers and students by:

• Providing easy access to what they need
• Teaching them how to find things more quickly
• Helping them organise their information more efficiently
• Helping them create well-reasoned and creative assignment products
• Helping them understand the inquiry learning process as a tool for use now and into the future.

A teacher librarian is uniquely qualified within the broad fields of education and librarianship with curriculum knowledge and pedagogy combined with library and information management knowledge and skills.

Teacher librarians have three major roles

• Curriculum leaders - including working with principals and senior staff to ensure information literacy outcomes are a major school focus, are involved in curriculum planning, planning, teaching and evaluating collaborative with teacher to ensure effective integration of information resources and technology into student learning, maintaining literacy as a high priority.
• Information specialists - including providing access to information resources and providing training and assitance to students and staff in the effective use of these systems, and providing specialist assistance to students using technology and information resources.
• Information service managers - including developing and implementing strategies for evaluating resource collection and determining curriculum and student needs, developing policies, procedures and criteria for selecting resources which meet curriculum, informational and student recreational needs, developing information systems and services in response to student and and teacher needs, promoting the effective use of resources and information sources, systems and services.

This definition has been copied with permission from the Australian Library and Information Association website. Please see their website for more details.

Librarians and information specialists have a strong focus on assisting people and organisations and possess unique technical skills to manage and retrieve information. They thrive on change and seek challenges that require creative solutions.

Typical tasks may include

• managing a library
• supervising and leading staff
• designing, directing, formulating policy and applying services to meet the information needs of clients
• providing expert advice on strategic information management, access, organisation and retrieval
• marketing and promoting a library or information management service.

This definition has been copied with permission from the Australian Library and Information Association website. Please visit their website for more details.

Library technicians usually work under the supervision of a librarian and have a strong focus and vital role in customer service. With a focus on operational and technical aspects of library and information, typical tasks and responsibilities may include

• assisting with loan and reference queries
• maintaining library resources, records and systems
• entering and editing data into databases
• undertaking cataloguing and classification

This definition has been copied with permission from the Australian Library and Information Association website. Please visit their website for more details.

Library assistants work as part of a service team assisting librarians and library technicians with library and office tasks and procedures.

Tasks may include

• Responding to enquiries and providing assistance to library users
• Reshelving returned library resources
• Assisting clients with how to use information services
• Using electronic information management and cataloguing tools for data entry.

This definition has been copied with permission from the Australian Library and Information Association website. Please visit their website for more details.

To find out anything about your child's school library visit your school's website. Check if they have a dedicated library website or social media accounts. Visit the library to meet the staff and introduce yourself. Ask if you can join, access the facility or borrow resources. You might even like to ask if they require volunteers, so you can gain a deeper understanding of the services provided and their challenges.

There are a number of ways you can help ensure your child's school has qualified library staff.

• Get support from other parents. Work with any staff the library might have to target the school's library needs.
• Contact P+C and the School Board.
• Speak with your school principal.
• Start a petition.

Check out our Mission page for more ideas.

Some things to consider in the situation:

• What is the teacher librarian's timetable?  Sometimes the teacher librarian can be heavily booked by a set timetable of classes outside the library. Sometimes a teacher librarian may have such short lessons with every class that he/she only has time to facilitate library borrowing.
• Does the teacher librarian have any support staff?  If not, he/she will have to be doing all the work of keeping the library functioning - this will take precedence over team-teaching research skills.
• Perhaps you have the “wrong” person in the job. . . like any profession, teacher librarianship has a range of people with a range of capabilities.  A good teacher librarian is proactive, friendly, and switched on to the needs of the community (students AND teachers).

Want to take steps to ensure your child's school is run by qualified staff? Check out our Mission page for ideas on how to take action.

Actually, teacher librarians are active, interactive teachers whose library is their classroom. There may be spaces within the library that are dedicated to silent study or reading, but libraries also make space for group work, active learning, and activities such as makerspaces. Take a trip into a quality school library, you’ll probably find that it is a lively, bustling space.

Many online resources are not free, not trustworthy or do not fit the research or information needs of students. The online environment only makes teacher librarians more vital. The teacher librarian can steer students and teachers to reliable and relevant resources, be they online or within the library’s physical collection. They can also teach students and teachers to learn to evaluate sources and websites.

Teacher are experts in the content, not necessarily experts in the “process” of how to do research. The teacher librarian fills that gap when team-teaching and collaborating with planning assignments and offering professional development to teachers. The teacher librarian, with access to all teachers and all students across subjects, year levels, and class groups, can ensure that all students are taught important research skills, online safety, and skills such as consistent referencing. Through inquiry learning, teachers and teacher librarians teach the skills of information literacy in a process approach, which students can apply throughout their lives, whenever there is an information need.

School libraries improve students' lives, now and into the future, providing them with improved opportunities. The impact on students is our central focus. We know that students need school libraries for better outcomes, and we want to support our communities to advocate for their children's futures.

When choosing the campaign name, we decided that "Students need high quality library services run by a team of qualified library staff who have enough administration time to create and maintain them" was too long! The Students Need School Libraries campaign is actually about the qualified library staff that students need. It's people who build and maintain effective services and establish a warm, welcoming culture.