School librarians feeling “undervalued and stressed” say Unison Scotland

Category: News

Unison Scotland have carried our research that finds that school librarians and other support staff in Scotland’s schools are feeling exhausted, undervalued and stressed due to ‘stealth cuts’ including the cutting of school library hours and staff.

The research reveals that 1,841 jobs supporting teachers in schools have disappeared since 2010 whilst pupil numbers have increased by 6,707.

Library cuts have included:

• East Renfrewshire reducing their school library service by 50%;
• Argyll and Bute removing all school librarians from their posts;
• Falkirk Council stopping their Central school library service​.

Other previous reductions to services include sharing librarians between schools in Glasgow, and replacing librarians in North Ayrshire, South Ayrshire and Fife with library assistants. Some schools, such as Dumfries Academy, have handed responsibility for libraries over to English teachers, and several councils have reduced librarians’ duties to term-time only.

​The situation is continually changing and has created a highly-varied level of provision. At the most recent count only 11 out of 32 local authorities had a full time qualified librarian in every secondary school, every day. CILIPS maintain “that the availability of access to full time professional school librarian expertise contributes to successful delivery of curriculum outcomes, promotion of literacy and reading, and should be retained.”

We are due to meet with the Deputy First Minister and Education Secretary John Swinney at the end of January to discuss the situation in Scotland’s school libraries and we will also be running a campaign called ‘Libraries Matter‘ in the run up to the local government election highlighting the value of both school and public libraries and librarians.