Volume 36 Nº 2 - July 2000

The changing face of school libraries in Western Australia

Margaret Phillips

In this issue of Orana, Margaret Monnelly has reflected on her 1990 experience as an exchange teacher-librarian in a Western Australian metropolitan school and has given an overview of trends in Canada in the last decade. I have been asked to respond to this with a look at the last decade in Western Australia. This commentary is necessarily from the Western Australian point of view but for those wanting an Australia-wide unofficial overview see Phillips (1998)...

Margaret Phillips has been a teacher-librarian in government schools in Western Australia since 1969 and at present is at Wanneroo Senior High School north of Perth. Her active involvement in professional associations includes a number of years as president of the School Libraries Section (WA) of ALIA. She is currently a committee member of WASLA. Margaret has been a judge in the CBC Australian Book Awards and is at present a judge for the Eve Pownall Award for Information Books. In 1987 she gained a Master of Education with a dissertation on teacher use of a school library.