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SCHOOL AND PUBLIC LIBRARIES WORK TOGETHER

Adie Johansen explores the value of public and school library collaboration in this article originally published in Australian Connections, Issue 116, Term 1, 2021.

Since 2015, we’ve been modernising our library service for the Manawatū District Libraries community and embracing change. Our vision is simple: to be ‘the best little library in New Zealand.’

A library is more than just an avenue for books. Libraries are community hubs where you can learn, create, feel safe and engage with others. To achieve our vision, we set these goals:

Leading the way. Relevant to everyone.

Act as a catalyst for learning, discovery and creation.

Revolutionise our digital environment.

Work with others to add value to our community.

One area we wanted to focus on to achieve these goals was our connection with young people in our region. And what better way to do that than with our school connections and a strong focus on digital literacy.

This resulted in three focus areas: makerspace programs in schools, our Digital Lending Program, and a school link to our e-resources.

MAKERSPACE PROGRAMMES IN SCHOOLS

With schools finding it increasingly hard to make it to the library in Feilding, we started taking our programmes out to the schools instead. We realised it was far easier to send a library team member out to schools with a program kit than to try and bus 30 children into town.

Don’t get me wrong, we love it when schools visit us, especially with the author tours. But by going out to them, we now see children engaging in programmes far more often.

Our library team members head out to schools and run programmes that are mostly based around STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics), especially focusing on the new digital curriculum. These sessions range from structured classtime programs to school library activities at lunchtime. Sasha Eastwood from Manchester Street School says that her school has been involved in the STEAM program for two years:

These STEAM sessions have become popular additions to our school library lunchtime calendar, often with the same eager students regularly returning to take part. Feilding Library generously supplies the equipment and resources that allow the activities to be selfsustaining and therefore are not restricted by our school library budget. Students not only have fun – they go away with a sense of achievement (and sometimes a creation of their own making) and they have also developed an understanding and skills related to science and technology. These sessions establish quality interactions between our students and the Feilding Library staff which help to build positive relationships and connections with Feilding Library and within our community. We see great value in continuing with, and to look forward to future, collaborations with the team at Feilding Library.

DIGITAL LENDING PROGRAMME

Teachers started noticing the programme kits we were using, and some asked if we loaned them so they could continue with programmes after we leave. This sparked the Digital Lending Programme.

Our content collection houses items that aid in digital literacy, and rather than keeping these items for library use only, we now lend them to our region’s schools.

We started with three target schools, two town and one rural. The teachers who were already savvy with the equipment could borrow as much as they liked.

We then ran some intro training sessions for other teachers who hadn’t used some of the kits, before the kits were loaned – a ‘teach the teachers’ kind of relationship. Our kits include robots for all ages, such as Sammy robots for new entrants, Edison robots for middle years, and Mbot robots for intermediate/high school.

SCHOOL LINK TO OUR E-RESOURCES

Our further connection to schools came through partnering with Feilding High School. Due to school library funding, they chose to discontinue their own ebook service. As public library e-resource charges are population based, we were already including all the high school students in our membership. So to make it easy for them, we converted their student IDS into active library memberships and gave them instant access to our digital content. There was no risk of potential items going missing as the digital membership has no ability to issue physical items. But there’s nothing stopping the kids from signing up for a full membership card.

ACHIEVING OUR GOALS

We’re proud of the way we are ticking the boxes to achieve the goals we set in 2015. is the Community Services Manager at Manawatū District Council. She was previously the Library Services Manager at Manawatū District Libraries.

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2023-04-01T07:00:00.0000000Z

2023-04-01T07:00:00.0000000Z

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