This report presents the findings of a research project carried out for the School Library Association of New Zealand Aotearoa Te Puna Whare Matauranga a Kura (SLANZA) and the National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa (the National Library) in 2024. School libraries are not mandatory in Aotearoa New Zealand schools.…

School library services (SLSs) provide curriculum resources and expertise to schools. Changes in educational policy have affected the resourcing and security of these services. This article reports on a United Kingdom Literacy Association (UKLA)-funded case study of one SLS co-designed with two librarians from the service. The aims were to…

The School Libraries in South Australia: 2024 Census offers a snapshot of the current state, challenges, and evolving roles of school libraries and their staffing in South Australia. Conducted by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) at the behest of the School Library Association of South Australia (SLASA), this census builds…

In spring 2024, the Multicounty Multitype Library Systems, supported by State Library Services, conducted a census of K-12 public and charter schools in Minnesota to learn about the status of school libraries. A total of 1,528 out of 1,777 eligible schools completed the census. The findings can help legislators, school staff, librarians, and…

Meaningful learning resources for earthquake safety and survival have become an increasingly important topic among geoscientists, especially educators and researchers. Various members of the public, especially K-12 (ages 5-18) learners, continue to depend on scientific trade books available at their local public and school libraries for…

In an era where information is both abundant and increasingly complex, school library media centers (LMCs) serve as hubs for learning, creativity, and critical thought. Yet, little to no data exist describing the state of school LMCs in Minnesota. During the 2023 Minnesota legislative session, Minnesota's Multicounty Multitype Library Systems…

Purpose: This paper reviews the corpus contained in the Knowledge Bank of Australian and New Zealand School Libraries (KBANZSL) to explore the under-researched history of Australian school libraries and teacher librarianship. Through the analysis of publications in the knowledge bank, new insights into the history of school libraries and teacher…

In a first of its kind report, library leaders from eleven urban school districts across the U.S. relate the challenges faced and the strategies implemented to add school librarians. Conducted as part of a federal grant, Debra Kachel, Core Team member of the Philadelphia Alliance to Restore School Librarians (PARSL), interviewed school library…

In today's educational landscape, where censorship is increasingly being used to control and homogenize ideologies, it's crucial to examine how censorship policies are being framed and subsequently negotiated. This paper uses frame analysis to analyze two instances of book censorship in Catholic schools, exploring how insiders (e.g.,…

This qualitative exploratory study sought to investigate and uncover how Virginia K-12 school librarians define leadership and discover how they balance their roles and responsibilities of librarianship without the support of a district library supervisor during periods of complex challenges and organizational change. The American Association for…

This study explores the lived experiences of Black female school librarians. Studies on school librarians of color are limited to historical research, and more exploratory and empirical studies on Black female school librarians are needed. The study explores the question: What can we learn from the lived experiences of current Black female school…

There is limited research available that investigates current information literacy (IL) needs of Australian secondary school students and teachers from the perspective of teacher librarians. This phenomenological research responds to this problem by exploring the perspectives of Australian secondary teacher librarians regarding the changing…

Exemplary public school library programs need to have measures in place to determine overall effectiveness. The quality of the school library program is dependent on the effectiveness of the school librarian. Given the uncertainty of the role of school librarians and the inadequacy of evaluations for them, we present a practical solution for these…

In 2022, National Literacy Trust discovered that 1 in 7 state primary schools in the UK lacked a dedicated library or reading space. This figure rises to 1 in 4 schools in the most disadvantaged communities (PSLA, 2022). Yet, it is known that school libraries are vitally important: they not only provide children with access to books at a time when…

Reading engagement influences students' literacy attainment. School library professionals provide resources, environments and guidance to promote reading for pleasure, but little is known about how this role is currently supported or challenged. Drawing on mixed methods survey responses from 971 school library professionals from 63 countries,…