School loan coordinator role

An important role supported by Services to Schools

Being a school loan coordinator is an opportunity to take a leadership role in resourcing teaching across your school. They'll also learn more about the books and resources that support student inquiry and reading engagement.

To use National Library's lending service, your school needs to nominate up to 2 loan coordinators.

The role is supported by our Services to Schools team.

Who can be a school loan coordinator?

These staff may have good skills and knowledge to do the role:

• school librarian

• teacher with responsibility for the library, or

• teacher with responsibility for literacy.

School loan coordinators need to have good lines of communication with all teaching staff. It's also helpful to understand the process a school might use to manage National Library resources.

What a school loan coordinator does

The loan coordinator is your school's contact for requesting and managing books from the National Library. The person in this role:

• collaborates with teaching staff to plan and coordinate requests for books to support teaching and learning and reading engagement each term

• uses our online lending form to request books from the National Library on behalf of your school

• liaises with Services to Schools staff to answer any enquiries about your requests

• oversees the distribution and tracking of our borrowed books throughout the school

• collects and returns books to the National Library

• is not personally liable for the loss of any books — their role is solely coordination.

What you can borrow

Amount of time the role will take

This will vary depending on the approach the loan coordinator takes and also the size of your school. Great communication and coordination with your school staff is a key part of the role.

• In a small school, all staff may meet to plan the inquiry topics they're studying. In this case, the whole staff can decide together what books they need to support students.

• In a larger school, the planning and decision making may happen in teaching teams, syndicates, or department groups. In this case, you could have someone from each group feed their resourcing decisions back to the loan coordinator to include in your school's requests.

As a guide, busy times for loan coordinators are when:

• they're gathering information from teachers and requesting books for the coming term

• books arrive at the school — receiving them and making them available

• it's time to return books to the National Library, usually at the end of each term.

We're here to support your coordinator

Along with help and examples on the online form and dashboard, we have a step-by-step quick guide for loan coordinators on how to use our lending service.

Quick guide for school loan coordinators

They can also phone or email us for help.

I want to be a school loan coordinator

School principals will usually be involved in choosing who'll fill this role, so contact your principal if you're interested.

School loan coordinators — how to use our lending service — has more about what a coordinator does.

Register as a school loan coordinator

School loan case studies — has stories from coordinators working in the role.

Any questions or need help?

• Phone 0800 LIB LINE 0800 542 5463 Monday to Friday, 8am to 5pm.

• Email schoollibraryadvice@dia.govt.nz.