ASLA Conference

The Australian School Library Association invited us to speak at their biennial conference ‘School Libraries: Navigating the Future’ which was held in Coolangatta during the April school break. Thanks to funding from the Department of Internal Affairs, which was matched by SLANZA, four SLANZA National Executive members were given the opportunity to present and attend. This also provided us the opportunity to meet with the ASLA board to further SLANZA’s aims. This allowed us to compare and discuss our organisations and sector with an international lens providing insight and wider understanding that we hope will enhance and strengthen both our organisational capabilities.

Julia Smith wowed the room full of our Australian colleagues with her ‘Building Culturally Responsive School Libraries’ presentation, sharing her insights into how school libraries can and should be leading this space in the education sector. Clare Forrest and Sasha Eastwood educated and informed a curious audience about how the school library sector works in Aotearoa and the ‘why, how, highs and lows’ of running our School Libraries Transform campaign.

We were delighted to share this experience with a small but proud group of school librarians from Aotearoa who also attended. School librarians love to connect. We were lucky enough to establish some wonderful collegial friendships with school librarians over the ditch and to build relationships with prospective business partners for future sector sponsorship and conferences.

We would like to share some insights into some of the sessions we were fortunate enough to attend.