Our work

Teachers looking at Topic Explorer — one of the many tools offered by Services to Schools — on a laptop
Services to Schools supports educators by providing professional learning, advice, and quality resources to inspire and inform student learning, foster their love of reading, and develop their knowledge of culture and heritage.

Well-established, education-focused service

The National Library's Services to Schools has been supporting school libraries and supplementing classroom resources in New Zealand since 1942. The service has continued to evolve to meet schools' needs within an ever-changing education landscape and the fast-moving world of information and knowledge creation.

Today, the focus of our services is on the priority areas of school library development, reading engagement, and digital literacy.

How we support schools

We support schools by:

  • helping them strengthen their libraries and create innovative library services by providing schools with online resources, and professional development and support
  • providing access to quality reading resources and supporting education communities to engage their students with reading
  • providing access to a wide range of resources, both print and digital, to support inquiry and strengthen the capability of educators to create digitally literate learners
  • fostering national collaboration between wider education, literacy and library stakeholders to strengthen impact in the areas of reading engagement, digital literacy, and school libraries.

Our services both model and support the development of highly effective library practice in schools. They have been shaped to provide multiple access points across a range of channels to ensure equity for all.

Contents

3 overlapping icons representing reading engagement, school libraries, and digital literacy

Our vision

The vision of the National Library's Services to Schools​​ is that young people have access to effective and connected libraries and learning environments that support their development as readers and digitally literate learners.
Telephone.

Contact Services to Schools

Contact us if you need help with borrowing our resources or professional advice about developing and managing your school library.
Person wearing purple nail polish typing on a purple keyboard

Newsletters

Read past Services to Schools' newsletters or sign up to receive one.
Increasingly Digital graphic with words like 'The resource ecosystem, 'support teachers, students, communities','multi-agency resources', 'how do we adapt, respond','knowledge, taonga, resources.

Increasingly Digital project

Increasingly Digital was a multi-agency project that explored the access and use of Aotearoa New Zealand teaching and learning resources.
Videos.

Videos

Watch videos about successful strategies and approaches for school libraries, reading engagement, digital literacy, and for using teaching and learning resources.

Stories

These stories showcase innovative and successful initiatives that New Zealand school librarians and teachers have implemented to inspire and engage students with reading and learning.