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What if the most important room in a school isn’t a classroom, but the one that unlocks every other door to learning?

In schools with well-funded and professionally staffed libraries, student achievement and wellbeing rises – yet thousands of young people still attend schools without one.

School librarianship is a timely and important topic for ½¿É«µ¼º½ readers because it intersects with several pressing educational priorities: literacy development (including reading, information literacy, digital and AI literacy), equity of access to information, inclusive provision, wellbeing, reading for pleasure, and the evolving role of libraries and library and education professionals in a digital age.

This ½¿É«µ¼º½ Blog Special Issue coincides with recent policy initiatives to improve school library access and to encourage reading for pleasure. In September 2025, the government announced a in all primary schools in England, but no such plan exists for Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. 

In response to the steep decline in reading among children, young people and adults, 2026 has been designated as the in a UK-wide campaign. 

The contributions to this issue explore: 

• perspectives from headteachers in schools where the library has become ‘the heart of school culture’
• the  annual awards that recognise excellence in school librarianship
• engaging young people in reading through creative practices including games and graphic novels
• the challenges around school library access in disadvantaged areas across the island of Ireland
• the transformative power of storytelling in the lives of young people
• the importance of volitional reading and how school libraries and librarians can help to facilitate this
• recommendations to empower school libraries, school library staff and teachers to meet the needs of their whole school community.