Issue 134

What is your role in your school library and what do you do on a day-to-day basis?

I’m often introduced as the ‘holistic librarian’. That’s actually how our school nurse once described me to a visiting health professional, which felt like quite a privilege coming from someone in the health space. But I think it really sums up my role well.

Gemma Helleur dressed as a pirate in her library.

It is a very holistic role. I do a real mixture of library work and pastoral care, and I’m deeply involved in events across the school. I help build the library as both a learning space and a social space. It is incredibly diverse, and I have to be really flexible in my approach.

I come from a traditional library background, but I also have a qualification in rehabilitation studies, which brings in more of a social work and youth-focused aspect to the role, particularly in how I support students’ wellbeing.

My approach is shaped by my own experience of having dyslexia. I have had to develop a broader understanding of what literacy is and how it can take many forms.

Day to day, I open the library in the morning and run our breakfast club. I work in a predominantly Māori community where cultural identity is very strong. The Kīngitanga movement [a unifying movement for Māori tribes in New Zealand, particularly in the central North Island] is based here, so the Māori Queen resides nearby. That cultural context shapes the lives of our students and the way I deliver library services.

After breakfast club, we launch into a full day. The library is used constantly for learning. There is a scheduled class in here every period, and it is particularly busy before school and at lunchtime. My day really does not stop.

What are the most rewarding aspects of working in a school library?

The most rewarding part of working in a school library is seeing the students succeed and being there to support them through their failures too, especially during those fundamental years. That sense of being a steady presence for them is incredibly meaningful.

On a more personal note, I also really enjoy buying books. That part of my job involves researching new titles, thinking carefully about my collection, and being resourceful because my budget is quite limited. I find the collection management side really rewarding, tailoring it to suit my community and my students.

It is a privilege to be able to build a collection that opens up imaginations and gives students opportunities to explore. Being part of that journey, helping shape the stories and ideas they engage with, is something very special.

How do you promote reading and literacy at your school? Are there any challenges in doing so?

There are definitely challenges, especially in the teenage years. I work in an Indigenous community where many of my students experience intergenerational poverty and a range of social issues, which can impact their engagement with reading and literacy. Teenagers already have a natural drift away from books, and today there is so much competing for their attention: gaming, social media, all kinds of entertainment. Picking up a book has to compete with all of that.

Another challenge is low literacy. My students are great browsers and they are always looking at the books, but many are still quite reluctant to take them home. There is a strong sense of books being special or treasured objects, but borrowing rates are low. So one of my biggest challenges is getting books into homes, because we know that matters. If a young person has not had that exposure and scaffolding in their early years, it is hard to make up for it later on.

A book display and a morning tea at Te Kura Tuarua o Ngāruawāhia.

I also take a broad approach to literacy. I think of it as life literacy. Yes, I want to foster a love of books and reading, but I am also focused on essential life skills like applied literacy. For example, if a student can read and follow a recipe, that is life literacy. My approach is shaped by my own experience of having dyslexia. I have had to develop a broader understanding of what literacy is and how it can take many forms.

My students know I have dyslexia, and I talk openly about it. Reading and writing do not come naturally to everyone. Some people are slow readers, or face other challenges when it comes to grasping literacy. Part of my role is breaking down those barriers and bringing in different approaches to help students engage with stories, books and language in ways that are meaningful to them.

Working in an Indigenous community also influences that perspective. There is a strong culture of oral storytelling, and I see that as an important part of literacy too, sharing and capturing stories, not just reading and writing them.

You’ve been involved in developing a new information literacy resource with the Services to Schools team at the National Library. Could you tell us a bit more about what that resource is, and what the National Library has identified as exemplary about your school’s approach to information literacy?

Information literacy is one of my passions. I see it as part of life literacy, giving young people the tools to navigate a world that is saturated with information and to question what they are presented with.

I believe I was the first school librarian to adopt a Māori-informed information evaluation framework that was originally developed for tertiary students. It came from an academic setting for universities, and as far as I know, it is the only framework of its kind. When I first read about it, it made complete sense to me. I could see how it connected culturally to my students and how it could offer a more appropriate way of teaching information literacy.

I got in touch with the academics who developed the framework and have been giving them feedback for a number of years now on how I have simplified it to introduce the concepts to my students. I begin introducing the ideas in the junior years of high school, and by the time students reach the senior years and begin research and inquiry, we work through a simplified version of the full framework.

Working in that Māori kaupapa [Māori principles and values] space has been both challenging and rewarding. I am New Zealand European, not Māori, so it has pushed me to think beyond the traditional approaches I learned in library school. But being in the community I serve, and using culturally informed frameworks, has helped me grow professionally.

The National Library approached me to contribute to their new information literacy resource, and my role has been to share how I use a school-wide framework to support information literacy, not just for students but for teachers as well. Teachers can often feel just as lost when it comes to navigating information, so everyone needs to be on board and understand the importance of it.

Librarians are the ones with the tools to help people navigate this information landscape. My students often feel overwhelmed by how much is out there, so I try to break it down and give them some basic tools, whether they are processing a story from a family member or health advice from a doctor. It always comes back to that broader idea of life literacy.