School Librarian
- Print off the bookmarks and ask the students to give them to their parents
- Print off the bookmarks and leave one in every staff pigeonhole
- Gather sentences and statements and put them on the frames from the website and put them around the school
- Inform your Principal and BOT of the campaign
- Do the School Libraries Transform course
- Read the information on the website so you are informed
- Print off the A4 School Libraries Transform poster and display it, put it on your online spaces, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, websites, school newsletters
- Add one of the campaign logos in Templates to your email signature and link it to the website or petition link
- Offer to visit another library and see what you can do to support them
- Have an open day for parents to visit your library
- Invite the staff for afternoon tea and have a quick chat about the campaign and get them on board
- Share the Facebook page with your friends
- Host an event with an author, an illustrator, or someone you know is passionate about libraries. Invite everyone. Get your local newspaper in
- Create a new display about your school library and all that it offers your staff and students. Make noise about your space!
- Join SLANZA
- Make sure your staff KNOW about what your library does for them!
- Ask for help, get a list of volunteers to support what you do! Make sure your volunteers know the issues you face
- Contact your MP and candidates about your library, if you can’t do that, have a coffee with them
- SHARE YOUR LIBRARY STORY FAR AND WIDE, GOOD OR BAD
Parents and Supporters
- Like our online social media pages, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and message in support
- Send your school librarian a message of thanks and support
- If your school library runs an event - please attend this
- Print off the poster and bookmarks and share them around
- Write to your Principal and Board about either the huge asset your school library is, or your disappointment about its underfunding, and under resourcing
- Read the facts, learn about the power of reading and its link to academic success
- Visit your school library and encourage those that do the mahi!
- Talk to you children about books and the library, find out from them what they love and what they want from the library
- Volunteer to help in your school library
- If your school has no library, or no paid librarian, or the school library is stuck in a cupboard, then please write to your Member of Parliament, ask your election candidates what they think of school libraries, tell them what you see. Write to the Minister of Education. Lobby with us and for us.
Authors, Illustrators and Publishers
- Like our online social media pages. Re tweet. Facebook post for us and link us into your circles of influence
- Send us information you have gleaned that could support our campaign
- Write a statement of support for our web page and send it to campaign@slanza.org.nz
- Become an Ambassador for the campaign
- Visit your local school libraries and support them, encourage the mahi they are trying to do
- Write to us about the power of a school library, either as a child for you or what you have seen and heard as you have promoted books in Aotearoa
- If you are an illustrator- we would love you to gift the campaign a sketch, a comic strip, some art that will speak louder than many words
- If you are a poet, please send us some work that will enhance our campaign with words of impact
School boards and Principals
- Ensure your school has a dedicated library space that can house a class visit
- If you are a smaller school, please work collaboratively with other schools to create that space together
- Please fund that space, so the library has a specialised librarian, free to work on providing students and staff with books, resources, online materials and enable them to create a space of care and hauora . We know so many school librarians have a multitude of tasks leaving them unable to provide what a flourishing library needs
- FIGHT to keep your libraries, do not let them be the first place that gets taken for other areas
- Inform yourself of the link between student’s achievements and the provision of a school library
- Write to the Ministry to support our campaign request for ring fenced funding for school libraries and for librarians wages to be paid from Government funds not the Operations Grant so that never again will school libraries be tempting for you to de establish
- Enable school librarians and teachers in charge of libraries to attend professional development, fund that for them. Pay for the subscription to SLANZA so they can access free online training and support
- Give your teachers in charge of the library time to be IN the library and promote it to the staff