- School libraries
- Services to Schools
School libraries
Visit page- Understanding school libraries
- Leading and managing
- Services to Schools
- School libraries
Leading and managing
Visit page- Leading your school library
- Managing your school library
- Services to Schools
- School libraries
- Leading and managing
Managing your school library
Visit page- School library budget
- Annual report
- Evidence-based school library practice
- Services to Schools
- School libraries
- Leading and managing
- Managing your school library
Evidence-based school library practice
Visit page- Evidence-based practice and why it matters
- Planning successful user-centred change
- Gathering evidence from existing research and knowledge
- Gathering your own evidence
- Turning evidence into action
- Journey mapping for school library design
- Managing your school library staff
- School Library Development Framework
- Collections and resources
- Library systems and operations
- Services to Schools
- School libraries
Library systems and operations
Visit page- Your library catalogue
- Record Manager: Cataloguing service for schools
- Library operations
- Services to Schools
- School libraries
- Library systems and operations
Library operations
Visit page- Getting started in your school library — an operations checklist
- School library suppliers list
- Stocktaking guide
- Earthquake, fire, or flood: Impact on school libraries
- Radio-frequency identification (RFID)
- Tips for moving your library
- School library mergers
- Place and environment
- Library services for teaching and learning
- Videos
- Stories
- Services to Schools
- School libraries
Stories
Visit page- Whare Ahuru Mowai — a future-focused library space
- Student Library Review Group — giving students a voice
- Positive rewards from creating a school-wide reading culture
- The Poppy Blanket
- Encouraging reading through generous lending policies
- Genrefication — one primary school librarian's experience
- Inquiry into inquiry: The Marlborough Inquiry Project
- Supporting inquiry learning in kura kaupapa Māori
- She'll be OK: Growing confident team members
- From information overload to streamlined searching
- Professional development through online learning
- Services to Schools
- School libraries
- Stories
Professional development through online learning
Visit page- Learning about raising readers at Sylvia Park School
- Learning to develop a responsive secondary school library collection
- Learning about raising readers at Oropi School
- Learning to develop a responsive primary school collection
- Experiencing the benefits of facilitated online learning
- Online PD — an 'anchor' during a pandemic
- Projects to improve student learning
- School loans case studies
- Summer reading stories
- Research
- Reading engagement
- Services to Schools
Reading engagement
Visit page- Understanding reading engagement
- Services to Schools
- Reading engagement
Understanding reading engagement
Visit page- Why reading engagement matters
- Reading for pleasure — a door to success
- Reading for wellbeing (hauora)
- Reading promotion
- A school-wide reading culture
- Organisations, events, and awards celebrating reading
- My reading superhero
- Services to Schools
- Reading engagement
- Understanding reading engagement
My reading superhero
Visit page- Di-Kun — Mrs Dawson, reading superhero
- Eban — my Mum, reading superhero
- Eva — my Mum, reading superhero
- Morgan — my Mum, reading superhero
- Nicole — my Grandpa, reading superhero
- Rochester — Miss Webster, reading superhero
- Sam — my Mum, reading superhero
- Sarah — Miss Pritchard, reading superhero
- Libraries supporting readers
- Children's and youth literature
- Family, whānau, and community connections
- Teachers as readers
- Strategies to engage students as readers
- Summer reading
- Services to Schools
- Reading engagement
Summer reading
Visit page- Take a community approach to summer reading
- Research on the summer slide and summer reading
- Schools — how to support students' summer reading
- Services to Schools
- Reading engagement
- Summer reading
Schools — how to support students' summer reading
Visit page- Plan a summer reading initiative
- Principals — lead summer reading
- Teachers — prepare your students for summer reading
- School libraries — encourage summer reading
- Measuring the impact of summer reading
- Families — keeping your child or teen reading over summer
- Public libraries — encourage summer reading
- Videos
- Research
- Digital literacy
- Lending service
- Services to Schools
Lending service
Visit page- Borrowing from us
- What you can borrow
- Books in our lending collections for schools
- Dates to request or return books
- School loan coordinators — how to use our lending service
- Services to Schools
- Lending service
School loan coordinators — how to use our lending service
Visit page- School loan coordinator role
- Quick guide
- Work with teachers to plan your requests for books
- Request books
- Receive and manage your books
- Return your books to us
- Renew books, overdue books, lost or damaged books
- Help with registering, changing coordinator, signing in
- Home educators — how to borrow our books
- Lending news
- Teaching and learning resources
- Services to Schools
Teaching and learning resources
Visit page- Resources for learning
- Services to Schools
- Teaching and learning resources
Resources for learning
Visit page- Resources for teaching NZ history topics
- Services to Schools
- Teaching and learning resources
- Resources for learning
Resources for teaching NZ history topics
Visit page- Arrival and settlement of Māori in Aotearoa NZ
- First encounters and early colonial history of Aotearoa NZ
- Te Tiriti o Waitangi / Treaty of Waitangi and its history
- Colonisation/immigration to Aotearoa and the NZ Wars
- Aotearoa NZ's national identity in late 19th/early 20th centuries
- Aotearoa NZ and our national identity in late 20th century
- Aotearoa New Zealand's role in the Pacific
- Storybook app: Turikatuku — Te wahine taki wairua
- Te Kupenga: Stories of Aotearoa New Zealand
- Services to Schools
- Teaching and learning resources
Te Kupenga: Stories of Aotearoa New Zealand
Visit page- About Te Kupenga online
- Waka sail
- Drawn to te ao Māori
- Letter from Eruera
- Meeting Hongi Hika
- Another view of Waitangi
- Whaling in the bay
- Moko of Kawepō
- Hākari
- Eight-hour-day champion
- Signing the Treaty
- He wahine toa
- He hononga tāngaengae
- Selling a farming dream
- ‘I shall not die’
- Actions at Parihaka
- A taxing imposition
- Digging for livelihoods
- Champion of women in medicine
- ‘It’s just hell here’
- Safe sex pioneer
- Sāmoa mō Sāmoa!
- A Japanese songbook
- Custom meets colonisation
- ‘Educate to Liberate’
- The dawn raids
- ‘Not one more acre’
- Toitū te whenua
- Cambodian journeys
- Halt the racist tour
- For generations to come
- The New Zealand Wars
- Audiobooks and eBooks for students with dyslexia or other print disability
- Teaching tools and resource guides
- Services to Schools
- Teaching and learning resources
Teaching tools and resource guides
Visit page- Curiosity cards for inquiry
- Services to Schools
- Teaching and learning resources
- Teaching tools and resource guides
Curiosity cards for inquiry
Visit page- Set 1: He Tohu and Tuia — Encounters 250
- Services to Schools
- Teaching and learning resources
- Teaching tools and resource guides
- Curiosity cards for inquiry
Set 1: He Tohu and Tuia — Encounters 250
Visit page- Māori bartering with Joseph Banks (CC0001)
- Te Horeta's nail (CC0002)
- The 'Crook Cook' statue (CC0003)
- Burning the forest (CC0004)
- A New Zealand 1951 fifty pound note (CC0005)
- Tuki te Terenui Whare Pirau's map (CC0006)
- 2017 Women’s March (CC0007)
- Te Rangitopeora (CC0008)
- The bicycle and women's suffrage (CC0009)
- Meri Te Tai Mangakāhia (CC0010)
- Mere Ruiha Hakaraia/Mary Bevan’s signature on the 1893 Suffrage Petition (CC0011)
- Girls can do anything (CC0012)
- 1893 anti-suffrage cartoon (CC0013)
- Frances Parker’s Women’s Social and Political Union Medal for Valour (CC0014)
- Mt Cook School in Wellington (CC0015)
- Set 2: Tuia Mātauranga
- Services to Schools
- Teaching and learning resources
- Teaching tools and resource guides
- Curiosity cards for inquiry
Set 2: Tuia Mātauranga
Visit page- Navigation (TMCC1)
- Waka hourua (TMCC2)
- Māori bartering with Joseph Banks (TMCC3)
- Te Horeta's nail (TMCC4)
- Matau rino (TMCC5)
- Whakapapa (TMCC6)
- 'Crook Cook' statue (TMCC7)
- Silver fern (TMCC8)
- Huia (TMCC9)
- Hāngi (TMCC10)
- Mt Cook School in Wellington (TMCC11)
- Kahu kiwi (TMCC12)
- Hikoi (TMCC13)
- Whales (TMCC14)
- Dawn raids (TMCC15)
- Cross-cultural identity (TMCC16)
- Multiculturalism (TMCC17)
- Kauri dieback disease (TMCC18)
- Blank curiosity card template
- Fertile questions
- Primary sources — how to use them
- Inquiry exemplars and templates
- Guides for exploring children's and YA literature
- Explore He Tohu with your students
- World War 1 (WW1) resources
- Topic Explorer guide
- EPIC guide
- AnyQuestions guide
- DigitalNZ guide
- Papers Past guide
- Index New Zealand (INNZ) guide
- Videos
- Topic Explorer
- Our work
- Services to Schools
Our work
Visit page- Our vision
- Contact Services to Schools
- Latest news and updates
- Newsletters
- Videos
- Services to Schools
- Our work
Videos
Visit page- Leading a learning community
- Modern library learning environments in Christchurch schools
- School libraries: Excellence in practice — Amesbury School
- Riccarton book club
- Developing digitally literate learners
- Creating a school-wide reading culture
- Te whakahiratanga a nga whare pukapuka
- The importance of libraries
- Te wahi
- Te wahi — Place
- Ngā rauemi
- Ngā rauemi — Resources
- Ngā whakaritenga
- Ngā whakaritenga — Access
- Ngā kamahi
- Creating a reading culture — Windley School
- School libraries: Excellence in practice — Ormiston Senior College
- School libraries: The heart of a reading culture at Hurupaki School
- Creating a school reading community
- Creating a reading culture — Matarau School
- Reading Together at Ohaeawai School
- School libraries: Excellence in practice Raroa Intermediate
- School libraries: Excellence in practice — Viscount Primary School
- Fertile questions explained
- The power of visual material
- Ideas for exploring Te Horeta's nail
- Using the '2017 Women's March' curiosity card
- Localising the curiosity cards templates
- Using the 'Crook Cook' curiosity card
- 'How is it activism to ride a bicycle?' Exploring the 'women cyclists' curiosity card
- Ideas for research activities to explore fertile questions
- Primary sources: The National Library of New Zealand collects, preserves and makes them available
- Primary sources that the National Library of New Zealand collects
- The National Library of New Zealand collects the real stuff of history
- Researchers use primary sources to create new works
- Research
- Professional learning and support
- Tuia Mātauranga
- Services to Schools
Tuia Mātauranga
Visit page- Voyaging through Aotearoa New Zealand histories
- Services to Schools
- Tuia Mātauranga
Voyaging through Aotearoa New Zealand histories
Visit page- Pacific Ocean
- Pacific navigation
- Pacific voyagers
- Waka hourua
- Early Polynesian arrivals
- Māori settlement and society
- Non-Māori explorers
- First encounters
- European settlement
- Treaty of Waitangi
- Post-Treaty of Waitangi
- Explore more: Resources, activities, AR app
- Resources and activities
- He Meka! He Meka!
- About Tuia Mātauranga
Why digital literacy matters

All rights reserved
Digital literacy matters as it helps student learning and citizenship by teaching students how to find, evaluate, use, and create digital content in meaningful ways.
What is digital literacy?
Digital literacy requires a variety of strategies and skills, including:
- critical thinking — questioning how authentic, valid and useful digital information is
- communicating and collaborating with others in the digital space
- using digital tools to design and create compelling original content
- using digital tools to access, use and share information.
Digital literacy benefits learning
Digitally literate students are confident using digital content and tools in their learning. Digital literacy skills enable them to:
- find and access digital content that is fit for purpose
- analyse and combine information to develop their own understandings
- create and share digital content in purposeful ways.
One-off lessons are not enough to build digital literacy. Effective pedagogy for developing digital literacy requires:
- repeated instruction, guidance, and scaffolded practice, including building digital literacy skills in teaching programmes across all learning areas and topics
- teachers, library staff, and students modeling digital literacy skills.
Digital literacy benefits citizenship
Informed, responsive, and responsible citizens need digital literacy skills to engage in society.
Digital citizenship relies on digital literacy. It includes these values and behaviours:
- honest, responsible, and ethical approaches to accessing and using digital content
- social understanding to act in ways that respect others and protect individual well-being.
School libraries and digital literacy
The school library plays a central and important role in building student’s digital literacy skills. School library collections, staff, services, and spaces all help develop these skills.
Digital literacy matters together with reading engagement and school libraries
We view our 3 priorities, reading engagement, school libraries and digital literacy as interdependent and equally important in supporting student learning and literacy.
The school library and staff play a critical role in helping to create a school culture that supports and encourages reading for pleasure, and digitally literate students. Digital literacy, in turn, needs proficient and engaged readers.
Digital literacy

- Understanding digital literacy
- Your library's role in supporting digital literacy
- Connections to digital citizenship
- Strategies for developing digital literacy
- Videos
- Stories
- Whare Ahuru Mowai — a future-focused library space
- Student Library Review Group — giving students a voice
- Positive rewards from creating a school-wide reading culture
- The Poppy Blanket
- Encouraging reading through generous lending policies
- Genrefication — one primary school librarian's experience
- Inquiry into inquiry: The Marlborough Inquiry Project
- Supporting inquiry learning in kura kaupapa Māori
- She'll be OK: Growing confident team members
- From information overload to streamlined searching
- Professional development through online learning
- Learning about raising readers at Sylvia Park School
- Learning to develop a responsive secondary school library collection
- Learning about raising readers at Oropi School
- Learning to develop a responsive primary school collection
- Experiencing the benefits of facilitated online learning
- Online PD — an 'anchor' during a pandemic
- Projects to improve student learning
- School loans case studies
- Summer reading stories
- Research