For members who may have missed the earlier advocacy efforts, the following provides additional information to make your voice heard.

Grassroots advocacy is a powerful force for change, and every voice matters.

Every voice adds pressure and advocacy is most powerful when we sing as a choir.

Every kid in Australia deserves a school library and a teacher-librarian.

It’s time for our governments to mandate libraries and teacher-librarians. In fact, It’s well overdue. 

Fifty-eight teacher-librarians have just lost their jobs (or been redeployed to classroom positions) in the Maitland-Newcastle Catholic diocese schools in NSW.

These losses are just the latest in what has been a steady and devastating cutting of teacher-librarian positions all around the country. Many schools do not have a teacher-librarian and some do not even have a library.

Many people and organisations are campaigning for teacher-librarians and school libraries to be mandated. For instance, the recent petition  started by author Kate Temple, and the work being done by this organisation ASLA (Australian School Libraries Association), SNSL (Students Need School Libraries) and ALIA (Australian Library and Information Association) and Australia Reads, among others. 

Please join us and ask your state and federal MPs to support the mandating of teacher-librarians and a library in every Australian school.

Use the information in this template to make your voice heard.

Template

 Thank you for making your voice heard!

Martha Itzcovitz 
President