Kasey Garrison, Kay oddone and mary carroll
KBANZSL, the Knowledge Bank of Australian and New Zealand School Libraries, started off as the brainchild of project leader Mary Carroll. Almost a decade after the 2011 Australian Senate Inquiry into School Libraries and resulting report School libraries and teacher librarians in 21st century Australia (House of Representatives Standing Committee on Education and Employment, 2011), she reflected that it would be great to have a “one stop shop” for all things school library and teacher librarianship in Australia, and why not include our closest neighbours across the Tasman too? She wanted to preserve the collective memory of school libraries and how they have developed and grown across the 20th and 21st Centuries. KBANZSL was born!
The resource began as a static pdf document with links, originally housed on our Libraries Research Group website and has now evolved into a dynamic website. The KBANZSL Team, including Associate Professor Mary Carroll, Dr Kasey Garrison, Dr Judy O’Connell, Dr Kay Oddone, Dr Simon Wakeling, Dr Sue Reynolds, and technologist Jo Kay, is pleased to announce the launch of KBANZSL.org!
Inspired from the VET Knowledge Bank developed by the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER), this new format offers KBANZSL users a wealth of search options so they can find and engage with the resources in KBANZSL more effectively. In addition to bibliographical information like publication date, author, and format, resources are tagged with one or more of six thematical nodes according to their topic including advocacy and funding, governance, historical perspectives, landmark documents, professional practice, and research. Three types of jurisdictions are included to differentiate school level (e.g. primary, secondary), school sector (e.g. private schools, government schools), and location (e.g. New Zealand, Tasmania, international). The location tags are enhanced with thumbnail icons of each area. These extra tags provide for narrower searches so users can find the exact resource they need.
Another useful addition to KBANZSL is the image archive which includes historical images 50+ years-old of youth in Australian libraries. Our team has worked to ensure most of these images fall into accepted use for this project with most available under the guidelines of the Australian Libraries and Archives Copyright Coalition meaning they were made by the state, under the direction of the state, and published in Australia by the state. Users will find these interesting and informative in considering how school libraries have evolved through the years.
The original KBANZSL pdf is still live and available to download for offline use. We have also added an option on the About page for users to contact us with feedback and ideas for additions, including anything relevant published since our last big search in August 2022.
To kick off your exploration of KBANZSL, see if you can find the answers to the following questions. Happy hunting! Answers can be found by scrolling down…
- How many books about school library management were published in Tasmania?
- How long was the school library on Cockatoo Island opened each day (hint: check the image archive)
- In what decade does Victoria have the most publications in KBANZSL?
- Amy Hermon created Fighting for School Libraries about what jurisdiction?
- What year is the earliest publication listed in KBANZSL?
References
House of Representatives Standing Committee on Education and Employment. (2011). School libraries and teacher librarians in 21st century Australia. Commonwealth of Australia. https://www.aph.gov.au/parliamentary_business/committees/house_of_representatives_committees?url=ee/schoollibraries/report.htm
Answers: 2, 20 minutes, 1970-1979, New Zealand, 1912
