The latest Softlink Australian School Library Survey Report (2021) shares its results from responses to its survey from across Catholic, Government and Independent schools. This is something to which all library staff, teacher librarians included, ought to contribute each year. From my own point of view, I always have a look at annual budgets and staffing to see how my current situation compares, but support for libraries, the tasks of library staff, and the great divide in online subscriptions, including ebooks, are of some interest.
There are, generally, comparable numbers in how libary staff view how senior management support the library. Both independent and government school libraries show ‘moderate’ support as the dominant perceived level of support (government schools 31% and independent schools 39%) which invites all sorts of conjecture. I suppose schools are busy and dynamic places and there are a great many places to throw one’s support. This statistic always baffles me a little and I wonder what “very high’ level of support might look and feel like for us all. Generally, I feel a high level of support but it does seem to be predicated on a principal with an understanding and appreciation of a library within a school. “Moderate” suggests that one feels their job is safe. I am unsure how else to read this.
Common across government and non-government schools are the percentages of tasks performed, with curating relevant information and support resources figuring the highest with library lessons coming in second and then a near tie between 1:1 reserach assistance, information literacy and research skill instruction and ‘having a teaching role.’ What I would like to see higher, and what is my own goal at my current school, is “assist with curriculum planning.” This has long been a very difficult goal to achieve and yet it seems so incredibly fundamental to being effective in performing the other top tasks more effectively. One way to address this might be as easy as scheduling planning days to include TLs and not having all stages plan simultaneously on a single day. As always, the TL must advocate for their involvement and for their value to this process.
In light of this being a blog post for ETL 503 Resourcing the Curriculum, it must be noted the huge disparity between access to databases and ebooks between government and non-government schools. On online databases, 68% of government schools have zero access compared with 28% of independent schools. The story is similar with eBooks with 64% of government schools reporting no access compared to 28% of independent schools. The information landscape is a diverse one and hybrid collections would seem to be of great importance to fulfilling broad student (and staff) information needs. Unsurprisingly, lack of budget (58% of responses) is the top reason, and 28% said a lack of interest in students is the second reason. It would seem hard to display interest in having something when there is no point of reference for having it. This divide between schools having digital access to learning resources is a worrying one. There would be frustrating tension between the mandate of school libraries set by state governments, set budgets, and the collection policies which are to be written cooperatively by TL and principal at each school.
