At a time when Australia is focused on literacy, AI and misinformation, who would have thought one of the noisiest debates in education would concern places traditionally devoted to keeping quiet?
Many Australian primary school libraries were built or refurbished from 2009 under the Australian Federal Government’s ‘Building the Education Revolution’. Yet investment in buildings has not guaranteed equal access to well-resourced, professionally staffed libraries.
Of Australia’s 9,673 schools, about two-thirds are primary schools and most have a library of some description. What students find inside, however, varies considerably, raising concerns about inequity and a growing “postcode lottery”.
So, what’s the latest controversy?
According to a letter circulated to schools this week, staff restructures planned for 2027 may see 58 teacher-librarians redeployed to other curriculum areas, with libraries potentially managed by library assistants or student support officers.
The Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA), along with the Australian School Library Association (ASLA) and the Australian Coalition for School Libraries (ACSL), expressed concerns about the proposed reductions.
The libraries may remain, but is a library without a qualified teacher librarian providing the same educational service?
What does a teacher-librarian actually do?
The title can be misleading. Australian teacher librarians hold a recognised teaching qualification and tertiary qualification in library and information science.
They collaborate with teachers to develop literacy and digital information literacy across the curriculum, explicitly teach students, and promote reading and literature. They may be the reason you met Matilda, discovered Hogwarts, or learned that “I don’t like reading” sometimes means “I haven’t found the right book yet.”
Library assistants make an enormously valuable contribution, managing borrowing, resources, displays, cataloguing and practical operations. But replacing a teacher-librarian with a library assistant is analogous to replacing a classroom teacher with a teaching assistant. Both are important; they simply do different jobs.
What do schools lose when the teacher disappears from the library?
School library staffing is already vulnerable. The 2023 Australian School Library Survey found 26 per cent of respondents reported staffing reductions and 23 per cent budget cuts; the following year, 24 per cent again reported reduced staffing.
This can leave staff taking on responsibilities beyond their qualifications and pay grade.
The Maitland-Newcastle proposal has not appeared in isolation. Current doctoral research at the University of Notre Dame Australia examining Australian primary school libraries also points to declining staffing levels.
Early findings from its 2026 nationwide survey showed 15.7 per ceny of non-library staff respondents had no paid library staff member. Some also reported extremely limited or non-existent budgets for new children’s literature, raising questions of equity.
This matters for literacy
Australia is investing enormous effort in improving children’s literacy. The Grattan Institute found one in three Australian students failed to reach expected reading proficiency, with an estimated lifetime cost of approximately $40 billion.
Libraries cannot replace high-quality classroom reading instruction. Young children need systematic instruction in phonics alongside phonemic awareness, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension. But learning to decode is only part of becoming a reader.
Students also need rich language, literature, background knowledge and increasingly complex texts. Yet 7 per cent of Australian Year 4 students attend schools where they aren’t allowed to borrow books to take home.
Research shows students’ reading, writing, spelling and grammar outcomes are associated with the qualification level of the person managing the library, with students in schools with qualified teacher-librarians demonstrating up to two months’ additional literacy learning.
Despite this, libraries are not mandated and not all Australian schools have a designated library space.
And then there’s AI
Perhaps the strongest argument for reconsidering the school library comes not from the past, but the future.
Students now navigate an unprecedented volume of digital information. The challenge is no longer simply finding information, but determining whether it is accurate, credible and appropriately attributed.
As AI advances, the teacher-librarian’s role in information literacy and responsible digital citizenship becomes increasingly important.
Martha Itzcovitz, President of the Australian School Library Association, argues: “At a time when students are navigating artificial intelligence, misinformation, rapidly changing digital environments and unprecedented volumes of information, removing qualified teacher librarians from schools is a step in the wrong direction”.
The contradiction is striking: as students face greater difficulty deciding what to trust, some schools may reduce access to professionals trained to help them navigate it.
So, what is a school library for?
If a school library is simply a place to store and borrow books, perhaps it does not require a qualified teacher-librarian. But contemporary libraries are teaching and learning environments where students read, research, collaborate and create, while developing literacy and digital citizenship.
Staffing decisions are therefore not simply about library management. They are about teaching and learning.
The role should not remain unchanged. School libraries must evolve alongside curriculum, technology and the information environment. The teacher librarian of 2030 should not simply reproduce the teacher librarian of 1990.
But evolution and elimination are very different things.
The Maitland-Newcastle changes provide an opportunity to ask a broader question before more positions disappear. What do we want our school libraries to do, and who has the professional expertise to make that happen?
