The promotion of library resources and services is essential to ensure that:
- The library is used to its full potential.
- Staff and students are aware of services and resources that can meet their needs.
- The library is viewed as a central and integral part of the teaching and learning process within the school.
Promoting the library should be ongoing and take many forms. Everything library staff do can promote library services and resources in some way.
Presenting
- Offer staff and student orientation sessions at the start of the school year and when required for new staff and student teachers.
- Collaborate with teachers about ways to incorporate library resources into their plans.
- Run new fiction and good reads sessions with classes.
- Give brief presentations at teacher information, professional learning or training sessions, staff meetings, curriculum meetings, informal morning teas (teachers love food!).
- Create a library display or give a brief presentation at parent meetings.
Reporting
- Write an annual library report for your principal. Base it on reports and statistics obtained from your library management system. Include a summary of activities. Prove how valuable the library is.
- Contribute to the school newsletter and promote new and useful resources.
- Email staff to let them know about new resources.
- Create brochures and pamphlets that explain library services.
- Create resource guides that link resources to specific curriculum areas.
Displays
- Have a regularly changing display on a topic that showcases library resources and popular topics eg AFL finals, ANZAC Day
- Display new resources prominently.
- Arrange shelving so that many book covers are visible.
- Incorporate the work of students.
Celebrations
- Book Week: Go all out and make it a huge celebration of children’s literature in your school. Immerse the students in the short list. Create displays and organise parades, voting and other activities.
- National Simultaneous Storytime: Join people all over Australia in reading and celebrating the same book at the same time on the same day.
- Library Lovers Day: Use Valentine’s Day as an excuse to celebrate a love of libraries.
- Indigenous Literacy Day: A national celebration of Indigenous culture, stories, language and literacy.
- Make your own reason: Choose a special and plan a celebration. Calendars can be found online, for example from Harmony Week or UNESCO.
Online
- Organise a shortcut to the library catalogue to be displayed on every desktop in the school.
- Use the school intranet to promote useful websites and new resources.
- Create a dynamic library website/blog/Facebook page. Update it regularly with news, links, new items, useful resources and library services and promote it so people use it. This can be a lot of work so don’t attempt it if you don’t have time to manage it. Perhaps consider outsourcing it to a group of tech-savvy and responsible students under the guidance of library staff.
- Take a look at Your school library’s online presence.
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Page updated 15/10/2021
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