Once upon a time, there was a senior geography teacher and she had a year 11 class filled with 10, bright and diligent students. One day, the teacher gave the students their marked assessments back. To her surprise, despite the generally high quality and marks awarded, the students seemed unhappy. The teacher, who had spent many years developing relationships with…
Category: Thoughts
Book review: See you on Venus
I visited my old workplace recently and I got to talking with my lovely library ladies about new books that had come in over the past year. I didn’t realise how much I missed buying for a school library collection! So, I have decided to help them out a little by reading some of the…
Brief thoughts on IASL Conference, 2023
The International Association of School Librarianship (IASL) Conference was held in Rome, Italy from July 17th to 21st, 2023. I attended, along with a number of my Charles Sturt University colleagues. It was my first time attending the IASL Conference and it was so much fun. I admit that I was totally unprepared when I…
Working on campus for two weeks
In the last two weeks in February, I worked on campus and it was a lot of fun. This is my third work visit to Wagga Wagga (fourth overall so I’m starting to get the lay of the land) so I thought I’d do a bit of a run down of what’s been like to…
Reviewing and rating books: A deeply personal act
The following Tweet popped up in my Twitter feed the other day and it got me thinking… There are a couple of issues within this tweet, including the concept of authors trying to influence reviews/ratings of their books, but the one I want to focus on is the act of rating and reviewing books, and…
Opinion: Softlink 2022 Report
The 2022 Softlink report has been released! Each year, Softlink invites school libraries and Teacher Librarians (TLs) around Australia and New Zealand to respond to their annual survey. Each year, Softlink produces a report with their findings. I’ve had a good look at the 2022 report and thought it might be fun to draw out…
Opinion: Teen Reading in the Digital Era Report Update
The Teen Reading in the Digital Era project is a fabulous project that is run by a team of researchers from Deakin University and is all about understanding teen reading habits. Findings of this research provide valuable insights into the reading lives of teens. They have recently released a report with an update on their…
One year of being an academic
Today marks my 1 year anniversary in my not-so-new job. I cannot tell you how much I have enjoyed this year. So, instead, I’m going to list a five big things that I’m proud of. 1. I am a PhD candidate Most of you would already know that I passed my Confirmation of Candidature process…
2022 Intentions
My long-time readers will know that I’ve developed a bit of a habit in reflecting on the year that’s been and writing my intentions for the year ahead down. I’m a little late to the party this year as it’s the last day of January and I’m only just getting around to this… Oops! Better…
Wrapping up my teaching career
It’s usually about this time of year when I start to write my “Year in Review” posts. This year’s is a little different though as I’m moving on to different things. On the 13th of December, I will be started at Charles Sturt University as a Lecturer in Teacher Librarianship. This is a massive change…
Adventures of the Lifting Librarian 