On Tuesday, I attended an online webinar on Advocacy and was presented with nine influencing tactics. It was food for me, as I need to think about how I can better influence others in my day-to-day duties and life.
I was reading through the current edition of ACCESS by the Australian School Library Association (ASLA) and read a feature prepared by Gold Coast school student Annie Rogers, who presented a student perspective on the role of school libraries.
It was well written and should be read by all library staff because it even has strategies that can improve our engagement with students. Many of us already incorporate them on a daily basis, including being approachable and welcoming, walking around the library to encourage students to approach you, providing clubs and activities, greeting students as they enter and mentioning that you are there to help. It also aids with building a rapport, and the students appreciate it when you either greet or farewell them.
Also, Rogers, mentions that the library has impacted on her as a learner but in her life as well. Such testimonies are great to share, and our challenge is to identify examples in our schools and day-to-day work where the library has made a good impact on our students. It can become an advocacy tool.
I have been doing book orders for school and was amazed by the real discounts that BooksDirect offered. Even if Booktopia offers an additional 5% discount to school libraries, BooksDirect still undercuts them. Many of their titles are offered at a standard 20% off retail prices with free shipping if the order exceeds $300.
Not every book on sale on BooksDirect will undercut Booktopia, but it could be as many as half the books being offered below the prices listed on Booktopia.
Like any online bookstore, some titles may not be available on either site, but it has made a difference, and allowed to stretch the pennies a little further.
Have you used BooksDirect? What do you think of them?
Last term, I provided some thoughts on the decline of newsagents focusing on their closures and how is a source of information is being taken away from us, especially access to newspapers and magazines.
But what does it mean for school libraries?
Firstly the closure of newsagents has taken away a source for where schools can acquire newspapers and periodicals. In Sydney, it was possible for schools to arrange for delivery of newspapers directly through the newsagent and could control when it could be delivered, e.g. weekdays. This is no longer possible as newspaper delivery is arranged through the publisher. For the newsagent, it has meant the loss of commissions and revenue through delivery fees (One paid extra on top of the cover price to have it delivered). If a newspaper is not delivered on a particular day, you miss out, and there is no option to have a copy delivered. You get an additional delivery tacked onto the existing subscription. With newsagents, one could call or attend in person if a newspaper was not delivered and it resolved on that day.
Schools could arrange standing orders through newsagents, even if it came at the sacrifice of saving money on a subscription, but it gave the school library control of when they could purchase a magazine. Newsagents could once rely on the standing orders customers made. Not anymore.
Magazine publishers largely control subscriptions and can also be purchased through online distributors such as isubscribe.com.au or Booktopia. While this may bring the cost of purchasing the magazines lower (good for schools), one has to question the reliability at times, especially if it is lost in the post or overseas in transit. The downside is that control of subscriptions for the customer drops. What if a credit card is lost or log in details for the account are lost? Does it mean subscribing forever? Note that subscriptions cover a time period, and you may not be entitled to a pro-rata refund. You have to let the subscription time period end. Some subscriptions auto-renew. If you don't terminate before the end of the current subscription, you may be stuck forever.
Even in this age of technology and access to apps like PressReader and RBDigital, which open us up to countless magazines from around the world, I still will become aware of titles by simply browsing at a newsagency and seeing what they offer. The ones in the Sydney CBD have introduced me to international titles, along with larger or reputable newsagencies in the suburbs. Without newsagents, how will I become aware of good magazines that students can read?
In recent times, I have purchased a copy of titles merely to see their relevance to the students, and this was through a newsagent. If they close, I lose that option. Reading magazines online is not the same.
Newspapers and magazines can be used to enhance literacy skills but also provide students with information that they can apply in any subject. Reading newspapers while I was at school helped me to relate what I was learning in the classroom to current events and vice versa, and I believe that this helped me do well academically in the classroom.
Sadly a major source of newspapers and magazines - the newsagent has fallen to store closures. The pace of closures has accelerated further in recent years.
Newsagents now compete with supermarkets, convenience stores and petrol stations for the sale of newspapers and magazines and big-box retailers such as Officeworks, BigW, Target and Kmart for stationery.
Even lottery sales cannot escape competition. In NSW, it is possible to purchase lottery tickets online or in person at a convenience store or petrol station, despite the "rivers of gold" that lottery sales bring to the agent.
Newspaper publishers have taken over the home delivery of newspapers, which in decades past provided income for newsagents. You could either have home delivery organised through the publisher (paid the newsagent commission per newspaper delivered) or you could arrange directly with the newsagent for home delivery with the delivery fee added to the cover price of the newspaper.
Closures mean that a source of information is being taken away from us and along with a source of reading material, but also the control how of how we acquire and maintain a newspaper and magazine collection within a school.
The decline of newsagencies, along with my interest in reading newspapers and magazines, has motivated me to explore this.
After the holidays, I am going to reflect on their decline and what it means for us in terms of promoting reading.