While listening to Bonanno’s speech, and than reading the article, the main thing standing out for me was the library budget and how it impacts on student outcomes.

The connection between school library budgets and literacy levels, and school library staffing and literacy levels, is mind blowing. Research by the Softlink Australian School Library Survey  (2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014), show clearly the correlation between a higher library budget and NAPLAN results. Even more staggering is the link between the number of library staff and the results in NAPLAN. Although these results speak loud and clear, the trend of decreasing budgets and drastically decreasing library staffing is continuing.

Investments need to be made in the 21st century libraries. The library should still be the information centre of the school. We are doing our students a disservice by not prioritising this space!