Issue 126

Congratulations on winning the ASLA Teacher Librarian Award. Can you talk to us a little about what it is that drew you to becoming a teacher librarian?

I was originally an early childhood teacher, so my first degree was a Bachelor of Education in early childhood. I did that always with the knowledge that I wanted to become a teacher librarian. My mother is a teacher librarian, and I spent a lot of my teenage years watching her do her teacher librarian degree, and then doing kind of unofficial work experience or volunteering as a child in her school libraries. When I was at uni, I would do her Book Week displays with her and I would download SCIS records for her – SCIS has actually always been a part of my life. But I guess it was my mother who inspired me to be a teacher librarian and showed me that there was that pathway.

So, after completing my early childhood degree, I dove straight into pursuing a graduate diploma to become a teacher librarian.

Megan Daley, Teacher Librarian and author of Raising Readers

Here's the thing though – at that time, you weren't usually allowed to do it without five years of teaching experience under your belt. To prove that I was capable, I had to write a special academic essay. They put me on a billboard at the university as the youngest teacher librarian ever, which was hilarious because now I'm one of the older teacher librarians.

On your website you say, ‘the worth of a teacher librarian is not easily quantifiable’. Can you tell us a bit more about what you mean by that?

It's very difficult to collect data on the value of what a teacher librarian does, in terms of inspiring a love of recreational reading and supporting classroom teachers to teach information fluency.

Much of what we do as teacher librarians is not necessarily seen by parents or by school administrators and the wider community. Those of us who work in the industry intimately understand the value and the importance of the work of school library staff. But for those outside of our circles, I think we do need to collect data – as much as numbers and data aren’t my thing.

I think it's very important that we have evidence and data to show and talk loudly about our worth. There are a few academics in that space, like Margaret Merga and Dr Mel Green. Mel Green recently wrote a PhD collecting evidence around the importance of imbuing a love of recreational reading in young children. It followed myself and other librarians, documenting the way we did that. I think collecting evidence like that, which supports our impact, is really important. Teacher librarians don't exist in NAPLAN data explicitly, but we are actually there in a different way. We are in a lot of the NAPLAN data, but you don't necessarily see the teacher librarian as being the one that has improved the NAPLAN data. I would argue, anecdotally and through the work I've done with people like Dr Mel Green, that the teacher librarian is very much in that NAPLAN data. I want to see other people unpacking and recognising what we've added to that space.

Your book Raising readers has become a bestseller. What do you think it was about the book that struck a chord with parents and educators?

I actually did an event last night at an independent bookstore in Brisbane and they were interviewing me about Raising readers. I was really interested that this bookshop owner’s copy was just covered in post-it notes, and he’d highlighted parts in it. That was really gratifying to see how much he thought of it. He spoke really warmly about the book and said it was so easy to read and easy to access.

I had this hope that I could distill my knowledge and experience as a teacher librarian into a book that parents and educators could read, almost as effortlessly as flipping through a magazine. I didn't want it to be heavy in tone. I didn't want to do a PhD. I had thought about doing a PhD myself, looking at early reading development, but I wanted it to be very accessible.

I think that it's struck a chord because it's written in a way that's accessible. It's chatty, and it touches on a number of pain points. For parents asking how they can support their child in their reading development, there's not a lot of books out there that are written by people in the actual field of cultivating young readers. The fact that it’s written by a teacher librarian and is accessible is what I think made it a success.

You run a prolific website and podcast for parents and educators, which serves as a wonderful resource on children’s literature. Can you tell us a bit about what’s driven the development of these resources?

It’s sort of developed organically to meet the way people consume multimedia these days. I think my website is there as a static resource for people who want to find reviews and teachers notes and lists of books. The podcast is an audio version of a lot of what happens on my website, but it's also more of a conversation. It's an exchange of ideas between myself and Allison Tait.

We talk about things, we debate things, and so it's more you are invited into our space and we're having a conversation with our listeners. The podcast has gone really well because people have really resonated with hearing us just talking.

I guess my social media is sort of similar. It's like it's a conversation and it’s a window into my life and how I run it and all of the chaos and business of my life. People seem to enjoy that sense of personal connection as a way of getting information.

The idea of literacy seems to be broadening to include all types of digital media, as well as information fluency. How do you think this might affect the way teacher librarians need to teach going forward?

Qualified teacher librarians and really good school library staff have always taught information fluency and information literacy.

I feel like we haven't explained as clearly as we could how we go about achieving that and why it's so important. Information fluency is all about a young person's ability to engage with information across various platforms and then to really think critically and make effective use of that information. That is essentially what teacher librarians have always taught.

I know there's an information fluency framework for libraries in NSW. Having an Australia-wide information fluency framework would certainly help teacher librarians to better articulate how they can work alongside teachers and the Australian Curriculum to support information fluency and students of all ages.

How do you see the role of the school library changing over the next decade?

So long as we can remain loud and articulate what we do, and so long as policy change happens, then I think it will be a case of teacher librarians continuing to share their positive and curious attitude towards lifelong learning with young people.

I think what teacher librarians have done – and will do in the future – is be collectors of knowledge and hubs of school communities and sharers of resources. They're that place in a school that can be part of the wellbeing and also part of the academic side.

To me they are the very heart of a positive and thriving school community, and will continue to be in the future so long as our role is recognised and valued, and money continues to be put aside for the role of the school library.

What advice can you offer library staff around the country who are struggling with stagnating or diminishing resources with which to run their libraries? How can they work to ensure the library remains an integral part of their school?

I think that we have to market ourselves to our school community and our wider community. We need to stand up and tell our school communities what we are doing through newsletters, through actively being a part of school social media, through getting out there and being involved in school.

I've seen great results when you get parents on side. When you go to your parents’ association at your school and say, ‘we would really like to be able to buy 2,000 decodable readers because I want to achieve these outcomes’, there are very few parents who will argue.

I had a very good friend who worked with the school’s parents’ association and ended up getting a full-time teacher librarian in a school that didn’t previously have one. Parents have a lot more of a voice these days in schools. When you involve the parent voice in the debates and when a parent can see the value and the worth of a school library, I think that you can start to see some really significant monetary changes happen.

It's also about dealing with your school management and not just being angry. I could be angry about the fact that I've been justifying my job for 20 years, but I choose not to be. I choose to look at it as though I've had to advocate for my job for my entire career. But what a privilege it is to be able to advocate for such an amazing job. And I feel very passionately that it's worth it. It's about being a loud and proud advocate for what you do in your school library.