To celebrate International School Library Day we invited Felicity Sly, Teacher Librarian at Don College in Devonport to share her library journey with ALIA Island.
AI: Can you tell us about your career path and what led you to the role you’re in today?
FS: My pathway to school librarianship was quite mercenary, I’m sad to say. I knew I wanted to be a librarian. I love books, organising things and finding information. My father alerted me to the Education Department Studentship program available to teachers and teacher librarians. I checked out the options and realised the teacher librarian pathway had distinct advantages: I would be paid whilst I studied, be guaranteed a job on completion of my degree, be paid well as a graduate teacher librarian, would have good work hours (LoL) and would be able to do the full range of library roles during the course of a work day/week. My first posting was to Queenstown Primary School for 2 years, then a move to the north west coast where I worked in six primary schools until moving to Don College over a decade ago. I miss the daily opportunity to share literature with students, but enjoy the bonus of complex research queries and referencing support.
AI: What are some of the day-to-day challenges and rewards you experience in a school library?
FS: The daily challenge is to provide a library service that meets the needs of all students. A place where students can come and study in their non-scheduled periods, but where other students can come and relax/feel safe, but don’t have a need to study, so want to chat with friends. So lots of time spent moderating student behaviour. The next largest challenge is to encourage students to use authentic sources of information…not just what they can find on Google.
The rewards are relationships with students and staff: Helping a student access resources that provide the information they need, and their subsequent relief after frustration; Supporting students to develop good research and referencing habits; Accessing that elusive text, article, programme that a teacher heard mentioned, watched last night or heard on the radio…but the detail is scant.
AI: What should everyone know about school libraries?
Every library is important in every school. They all may look different, be staffed in a variety of ways, have different resources and budgets, but they all provide a safe space for students and access to ideas that can inform their world view. A school library is curated for a wide range of interests and audiences…something that home libraries, class libraries and Google and Facebook algorithms don’t/can’t do.
AI: How are school libraries ‘Growing Global Citizens’?
An interesting question. Libraries are just one of the many ways in which Global Citizens are formed. I’m currently working in a library space that is advocating awareness of maintaining mental health (for Mental Health Week). We have a display of the UTas Object Design (Textiles) outfits based around the theme of Repair. Our library has a permanent display of flags from all corners of the world. Our new books display includes books on world religions, platypus, Art, sexuality conversion practices, what Australia can learn from Nordic policy adoption and their ‘can do’ approach to issues, and a range of genres of fiction. It’s an osmotic approach to growing global citizens.
AI: If you had to recommend one fiction and one non-fiction book to explore/celebrate the theme of global citizenship, what would they be?
FS: I’d recommend Dark Emu by Bruce Pascoe as the non-fiction read. How can we really be global citizens when we know so little about the lives of the original residents of Australia? Understanding our history, warts and all, can help us better understand the world in which we live and perhaps help us to look beyond the veneer and witness to the humanity of each civilization.
The Road by Cormac McCarthy presents a world that is the antithesis of global citizenship…if we could achieve the opposite of all that world is, then the future would be good. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon helps create understanding of a neurotypical world view…I know that’s two, but I had to recommend an alternative to The Road.
ALIA Island would like to thank Felicity for this great interview. If you’d like to share a story of you life in libraries please send us a message, aliaislandtas@gmail.com we’d love to hear from you.
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