Think about ‘your’ library – as teacher librarian. What evidence is there that the library supports transliteracy practices? What do you think could be done better?

Currently, I am working as the TL at a small central school in NW NSW, and am at the beginning of my TL education. Perhaps it is for this reason that, as I reflect on what evidence exists for the support of transliteracy at the library I manage at the school, I am coming up short. We have a bank of 8 computers, and I have recently been in discussions with the Principal and the Technical Support Officer to obtain a bank of laptops for the library space. Our Oliver site provides access to a range of digital resources, but these were added to the collection by the previous TL. I had a casual conversation once last year with another member of staff about the possibility of adding eBooks to the collection in the future, but have not progressed any further with this.

Clearly, my library space does not support transliteracy as well as it could. This is due, I believe, to a lack of knowledge on my part, a gap that I am eagerly seeking to address now. Transliteracy needs to be supported more in our school library, as these are the skills that students will need to develop to become informed and literate 21st century citizens. To be able to navigate society and the workplace, our students will need these skills, and the lack of updated digital and multimodal texts in our collection is therefore very concerning, to say the least.

Steps and Learning for the Future

Work needs to be done to add to the digital collection on a regular basis – not just webpages and videos, but digital literature, augmented and virtual reality and interactive literature too. This is but one method to support the development of transliteracy in our students, but it is, I believe, a crucial step in the process. Reflecting on my own practice, it is clear I will need to engage in more thorough research about digital literary texts and transliteracy, so that I may offer more support for the development of this vital skill.