Margaret Merga is Senior Lecturer at Edith Cowan University, Australia. Her research interests include social influences on literacy acquisition across the life span and the position of reading and books in the contemporary world.

Repositions librarians as crucial to encouraging children's literacy and literature learning

Chapter 1. School librarians are educators too.- Chapter 2. Do teacher librarians feel that their profession is valued?.- Chapter 3. Do schools with libraries use them?.- Chapter 4. 40 practices and strategies: What teacher librarians do to support children's literature and literacy learning.- Chapter 5. Competing demands and barriers.- Chapter 6. Collaboration with teachers.- Chapter 7. Supporting the nation's literary voice: Teacher librarians as advocates of national literature in schools.- Chapter 8. The future of teacher librarians and school libraries: some closing comments.

This book explores the role that librarians play within schools as literacy leaders. While librarians working in schools are generally perceived as peripheral to the educational experience, they can in fact provide significant support in encouraging children's literacy and literature learning. As the need for strong functional literacy becomes ever more important, librarians who support literacy are often invaluable in achieving various academic, vocational and social goals. However, this contribution often seems to be overlooked, with funding cuts disproportionately affecting librarians. Building on recent research from Australia, the USA and the UK, the author examines the role that librarians may play as literacy educators in schools in order to make visible their contributions to the school community. In doing so, this book urges for greater recognition and support to school libraries and their staff as valuable members of the school community.