Recreational borrowing is declining and students’ engagement with the fiction collection has decreased. The collection is currently shelved alphabetically. Genrefication of the fiction collection is being proposed as a strategy to address the issue.

The scenario described above is similar to one that I found myself in at the end of 2019, when I sat back to look at the haphazard way resources within the fiction collection had been clearly labelled with a genre sticker. It was inconsistent, which I found particularly annoying. I also noticed that students seemed to find it difficult to find books they wanted to read. I would ask students if they needed help, and they would note, “I’m looking for a romance”. I would point at the books that had been marked with a sticker, and would be asked if that’s all we had. “Of course not,” I would reply, “that’s just how some of them have been labelled.”

Genrefying the collection would be a challenge for me, I knew, but I had researched the benefits. I spoke with my HT, who also saw the merit of the move. I had collected data from students asking them how they picked books to read, and how easy they found it to find a book they wanted to read on our shelves. But I never asked them if that’s how they wanted the fiction collection to be arranged. Genrefication was about what I wanted, and the benefits I saw.

For change to be successful though — and for school libraries to thrive — the school community must feel ownership over it, and open to this change. Communicating change after the fact does not count, but rather, I should have invited the opportunity for community input in whether the collection was rearranged. Through open channels of communication, I could have advocated for my role within the school, and demonstrated what a large-scale job genrefication was. I could have gained the opportunity to find out if genrefication was what the community thought best (after all, they are the ones who know the students best), and if they decided for the idea, gotten buy-in.

A suitable leadership style for a principal looking to facilitate leadership in the teacher librarian would definitely be transformational leadership. Transformational leaders use trust and communication to encourage participation and goal alignment with individuals within the organisation. In such an environment where staff are empowered to be collaborative and work together, the teacher librarian would have the ability to emerge as an informal leader.

As for leadership styles that the teacher librarian could use in this transformational environment, they could use instructional leadership, as ideally that is where their ‘expertise’ lay: in teaching and learning, specifically as it relates to student engagement and achievement. Using the qualities of an instructional leader, the TL would be well-positioned to provide support to teachers in achieving their, and the school’s goals. It also helps in this case that the library is often the learning ‘hub’ of the school.