What home educators can borrow
Read why it's great to borrow books from the National Library and what our school lending service can offer home educators.
Why borrow from us?
The National Library's main school lending collection contains more than 500,000 fiction and non-fiction books, carefully selected by our librarians with knowledge of the National Curriculum (The New Zealand Curriculum and Te Marautanga o Aotearoa) and the best literature to engage children and young adults.
Home educators who use our lending service can:
offer more for their students than their home or local library alone could provide
access fresh selections of books at a fraction of what they would cost to buy.
Read more about why you should borrow from us.
Who can borrow
Home educators can borrow books and resources from us if:
the only child you're homeschooling is 5 years old, or
you have a current Certificate of Exemption From Enrolment at a Registered School from the Ministry of Education for students 6–16 years old, or are homeschooling a student aged 17–18 years old.
Ministry of Education information about home education
What you can borrow
Our lending collections have a wide range of books to support every level and learning area of the curriculum and to foster a love of reading. They include high-interest, engaging books that will appeal to learners of all ages and abilities.
The main lending collection, the Schools Lending Collection, is located in our Auckland and Christchurch centres. The collection is constantly updated with fresh, high-quality books that reflect changes in the curriculum and literacy needs.
Home educators can also borrow from our Wellington lending collections — the Wellington, Overseas Non-fiction Collection and the Wellington, New Zealand Pacific Collection. Note that borrowing conditions for these collections are different to the main Schools Lending Collection and include fees.
Read more about the lending collections and their borrowing conditions
You can also borrow fiction and non-fiction audiobooks and eBooks from our Print Disabilities Collection if your student has difficulty using our print resources. The collection is available for borrowing through National Library's Print Disabilities Service.
Audiobooks and eBooks for students with dyslexia or other print disability
Borrowing options
You can borrow up to 21 books per family each term.
There are 2 options for requesting books:
Topics selection requests for inquiry and/or reading engagement. Ask our expert librarians to select the best books for your students based on what you tell us about your topic or inquiry and your students' needs.
Specific title requests — choose and request specific books yourself from our lending collections.
Loan request periods open before each term starts so that you can request books early. You can request specific titles anytime.
Dates to request or return books
Topics selection requests
Each term, home educators can use our online lending form to request books to inspire and inform your students’ inquiry topics and develop their love of reading. You can request 4 topics with 4 books per topic each term.
In each request, you tell us information such as:
what you need books for — the learning area (or reading engagement), the curriculum topic
your students' reading ages and year levels.
Our librarians then use this information to select books for your loan. They aim to give you a rich variety of formats and genres that:
will engage your students
make the most of your 16-book allocation.
Specific title requests
Use this borrowing option when you'd like specific books to support individual students. You can request up to 5 specific titles per term.
Borrow our books
See How to borrow books from us.
Explore our free, online teaching and learning resources too
Our Topic Explorer tool and other teaching and learning resources can also help inspire student inquiry and help develop a love of reading.
Any questions, need help?
Phone 0800 LIB LINE 0800 542 5463 Monday to Friday, 8am to 5pm.