I am a trainer and advisor specialising in school libraries. I have worked in Libraries since I was 16 with a brief interlude to hotel work just before I started my family. I have four children two of whom are teachers, one nurse and one has just started his journey to becoming a lawyer but as he is still in his first year at University we will still have to watch that journey unfold. I am a proud grandma to Benedict!
I qualified as a librarian in 2003 after studying a distance learning degree and went back to work as an SLS librarian for Schools’ Library Service and have been there ever since, becoming Head of Service in 2014 and I got my masters, also distance learning, in 2016. I met Darryl in 2013 when one of the schools I was supporting decided to start offering the IB. They did not have a qualified librarian in post and I agreed to go on the IB course for Librarians run by Darryl. The support I ended up giving the school was nothing more than my time to talk to the IB assessors and what I thought would be an opportunity to work more with teachers and students came to nothing. However, meeting Darryl confirmed my understanding of the need for school librarians to be involved with information literacy and have been on that journey ever since.
I came runner up in the LILAC Information Literacy award in 2016 and have since been presenting at conferences to teachers and librarians both nationally and internationally. I believe that alongside trying to encourage school librarians to get out of the library and into the classroom that teachers need to understand more the role of the school librarian.
I write for the CILIP Information Professional and have my own blog and website where I run an online book club to encourage those who work in school libraries to read for professional development.
I am currently on the working party for #GreatSchoolLibraries campaign and on the committee for CILIP SLG as I believe that you have to be in it to win it. We cannot just sit back and watch the continued demise of our school libraries. We as librarians have a role in teaching and learning, we are information professionals and our children deserve the right to great school libraries.
You can also find me on twitter @Elizabethutch
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