In East Lothian Anne Johnston, School Librarian / Field Officer at Dunbar Grammar School has been working with the Senior Librarian Young People’s Services, Agnes Guyon, from the public library service to look at information literacy for young people in East Lothian. They are hoping to

establish a consistent approach across all libraries – public branch libraries, primary school libraries and secondary school libraries.

To this end Anne is currently using the national information literacy framework to map skills for levels / ages and linking these to literacy outcomes and experiences. Their next step is to find out what is actually being delivered where. They realise they

can provide materials, training etc for primary and secondary schools and then it is up to individual schools.

In secondaries there are professional librarians who are already doing a lot of good work, as you know, who will be very happy to have a clear set of activities, curriculum links etc. We will be working together organising / providing materials, activities, suggestions. As Field Officer, I will be co-ordinating the secondary part. We are intending to include our links to QMU in this section.

We are using existing provision as the starting point for primary aged children too. The Young People’ s Services section of the library service is responsible for providing services to primary schools. They provide term loans of topic boxes to support investigations / projects and fiction boxes to each primary. They also help schools to maintain appropriate stock in their own school libraries and provide advice and professional support when requested. Agnes has also already met our NQTs this year. She and Susan Boylan, the Librarian Young People’s Services, gave a presentation to new teachers. Additionally, all branch libraries in East Lothian actively encourage classes from local primaries to take part in class visits on a regular basis. Activities during these visits are designed to develop information literacy skills as well as encourage children to visit their local libraries in their leisure time. We have already mapped these activites against CfE outcomes and experiences.

I’m sure that I will not be the only one who will be eager to see the outcomes of this work and will be catching up with Anne hopefully sometime in the near future. Anne’s contact details are ajohnston@dunbargrammar.elcschool.org.uk