School library design bibliography

Here’s a list of some resources you may like to look at for further reading about school library design. Some of these articles have their own bibliographies, which will lead you down a wonderful rabbit hole of reading about classroom design and learning outcomes and wellbeing and the connections between them all!

ALIA. (2024). Design gallery.
A little bit of library and architectural wonderfulness for your library inspo Pinterest board.

AOA Christopher Peck: Architects Melbourne.
Visit this website to view more contemporary library designs.

Davison, S. (2025, June 17). The modern library: more than a book storeroom. Retrieved from School News Australia.
Thinking of new library furniture? Here are some things to bear in mind.

Hider, P. (2025). Planning and using library codesign: towards a toolkit for public libraries. Journal of the Australian Library and Information Association.
This article is more about processes and is part of work towards creating a ‘toolkit’ for the library codesign process with adults that public libraries can integrate into their library development project. I still think this is interesting and has some relevant ideas that could be applied to school libraries.

Jamali, Hamid R. (2025). Using codesign for the development of children and young adults’ spaces in public libraries. Public Library Quarterly.
More about the possible processes of co-designing library spaces, with children.

Stewart, P. (2018). School library design, facilities and resources for sustainable cognitive and social development for students: an evaluative case study. School Libraries Worldwide, 30–45.
Happy spaces, happy faces … turns out kids like calm, flexible and well-resourced libraries! Who knew?

Research

Marrone, R. (2024). The relationship between well-being and academic achievement: a comprehensive cross-sectional analysis of system wide data from 2016–2019. Journal of Learning Analytics, Vol 11 No 3, 123–141.
Is your school focusing on wellbeing and engagement at the moment? This is an interesting — and maybe surprising — read.

University of Melbourne. (2025). Designing learning spaces for diversity, inclusion and participation ARC linkage project.
New and ongoing research emerging from University of Melbourne to keep an eye on.

Zhang, M. (2024). The relationship between teaching space design and learning outcomes. Journal of Literature and Art Studies, October 2024, Vol. 14, No. 10, 944–947.
An easy read that summarises the main issues and current thoughts.