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Responses to the 2024 surveys will be used to develop a report containing valuable benchmark information on school library staffing, budgets, resources, changing roles and technologies, and other important issues.
In this blog post we discuss
The surveys look at important statistical information, such as staffing and budgets, as well as school library practices, services, resourcing, and trends.
We also ask open questions that provide an opportunity for you to share your ideas and provide insight into the day-to-day of your school library, which we collate and present in sharable features (see below). All comments remain anonymous.
Released shortly after the survey, an initial snapshot of results is emailed to all participants in the survey. Broken down into 6 school size ranges, the summaries provide an overview of budgets and staffing, and other key items of interest such as services, trends and practices. You can access the 2023 Participant Summaries here.
The full reports are published on our website early the following year and gives a complete breakdown of findings. You can access the 2023 School Library Survey Reports here.
Open-ended questions at the end of the survey give insight into school libraries as participants share their thoughts and ideas. As themes emerge, we collate these comments and share the voice of school library staff in feature documents.
Since 2015, we have produced over 20 feature documents including our latest feature, How can school libraries improve students’ emotional health or wellbeing?
Other themes include: What is the impact of AI on school libraries? What are the challenges facing school libraries? What are the current trending topics in school libraries? How do you promote the school library? What are some ideas for collaboration or other innovative ideas you have implemented in your school library?
For more information read our blog Softlink’s School Library Survey Feature Documents
Comments provided in the school library survey are used to inform articles written for external publications such as
Sharing the voice of school library staff and their innovative ideas and thoughts is important to us. We also include comments in blog posts that we think will be of interest or useful to you. You can access a sample of these by clicking on the images below.
Statistics and comments help us to provide snapshots around themes in infographics. To view examples, click on the images below.
The Softlink School Library Survey was initiated in 2010 to form a response to the Australian Government’s Inquiry into school libraries and teacher librarians in Australian schools.
The inquiry received 387 submissions that lead to 11 recommendations around funding, online databases, digital literacy, the role of school library staff, promoting reading, professional development, further study and research, and government partnerships with school libraries and teacher librarians.
Other points of interest shared in the Overview were that:
The full report is available here.
Since then, to highlight the issues and opportunities school libraries experience, Softlink has continued to survey Australian schools annually, extending this to include New Zealand in 2015.
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