Call to Action – Show your support for school librarians in North Lanarkshire
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Call to Action – Show your support for school librarians who are set to see their jobs removed
We are CILIPS, the professional body for librarians in Scotland, and we are asking for your help to support school librarians in North Lanarkshire, who are in the process of having their posts removed by the Council.
This decision was taken in 2020 but at that point it was not clear this meant that all 23 posts would be permanently removed. We believe this will be extremely damaging to the education of pupils, resulting in a significantly poorer educational experience than many other authorities in Scotland, because:
- School librarians are trained and skilled members of staff, and what they provide can not be adequately replaced by using teachers or pupils to support library services.
- This decision will directly affect the quality of education offered to pupils as well as undermine efforts nationally to improve literacy rates and attainment.
- An extensive, growing body of evidence highlights the contribution of school librarians to improved exam scores and achievement, and their role in creating a safe, supportive and inclusive learning environment where all pupils have equal and equitable access to curriculum related learning resources.
- School librarians in North Lanarkshire have been instrumental in creating acclaimed projects such as Read to Succeed and none of this would be possible without dedicated and skilled school librarians in place.
- One of North Lanarkshire’s librarians was nominated for Scotland’s prestigious Librarian of the Year Award in recognition of their irreplaceable impact.
We believe that parents should be extremely concerned by this decision and should let the Council know about their concerns before it is too late. There has been widespread support from all over Scotland for North Lanarkshire’s school librarians, including from award winning authors Damian Barr, Kerry Hudson and Theresa Breslin O.B.E., as well as from Scottish Book Trust, The Daily Record and Scotland on Sunday.
A petition has now reached nearly 40,000 signatures.
But we need your help to do more.
If you agree with us that this decision is damaging to the education of children in North Lanarkshire, then we are asking you to consider the following actions:
- Email or write to your local councillor or MSP and raise your concerns. You can see a sample letter here that you are welcome to cut and paste and then edit.
- Write to the headteacher at your local school and raise your concerns with them.
- Share this information with friends/family/fellow parents.
- Share our poster in support of North Lanarkshire’s school librarians everywhere you can.
- Sign the petition.
- Consider whether a local campaign could be set up like this successful one in Glasgow for public libraries, where read in protests and posters were used to raise awareness.
We believe this is a hugely damaging decision but it is not too late to change the Council’s mind and we need your help to do that. Please get in touch with sean.mcnamara@cilips.org.uk if you would like to discuss further.