Teacher-librarians and associates in the Penrith, Mount Druitt, Blacktown, Windsor and Parramatta areas attended today’s stimulating conference at the Rooty Hill RSL Club’s function centre. Guest speaker was Kevin Hennah, who presented fascinating sessions on Library Design and Space Management, and Transforming Your Library on a Shoestring Budget.

What was most exciting to me was that Kevin took care to relate the visual improvements to the physical library space to improved outcomes for student learning. He encouraged us to consider how renewed and improved design and furniture layout could increase the appeal of the library’s holdings, and hence borrowering stats can provide measurable proof that the design changes work.

And since a lot of public school libraries are lucky to get he budget they want/need to keep the library running, we were all grateful to the section of Kevin’s presentation dedicated to “Transforming Your Library on a Shoestring Budget”.

I certainly can’t wait to get back into the library on Monday, to start ripping down all those ugly, useless bits of multi-coloured paper that are affixed with sticky tape and Blu-tac to the furniture, walls and windows… (How did Kevin know they were there?)