Documenting a Profession: an Exploration of the Published History of School Libraries and Teacher Librarians in Australia

Purpose
This paper reviews the corpus contained in the Knowledge Bank of Australian and New Zealand School Libraries (KBANZSL) to explore the under-researched history of Australian school libraries and teacher librarianship. Through the analysis of publications in the knowledge bank, new insights into the history of school libraries and teacher librarians in Australia are gained and the intersecting relationship between school libraries and wider library and educational agendas are explored.

Design/methodology/approach
This paper uses a critical, and historical, bibliometric approach to provide new insights into the history of Australian school libraries. It examines the records of the Knowledge Bank of Australian and New Zealand School Libraries (KBANZSL) for trends and insights these records may provide.

Findings
The publications and collective memory captured within the Knowledge Bank of Australian and New Zealand School Libraries (KBANZSL) provide new insights into the rich history of the evolution of school libraries and teacher librarianship and, more particularly, the close links between formal and informal education, schools and libraries in Australia.

Research limitations/implications
The research was limited to Australia and did not include New Zealand.

Social implications
This research highlights the social value invested by the community in free access to knowledge through libraries over time and how this has impacted the provision of such access to children.

Originality/value
This paper takes an original approach to the exploration of school libraries in Australia through the use of historical bibliometrics. It uses this approach to analyse the published record and reflects on what this record can tell us about the inter-relationship between formal and informal education and library development in Australia. The findings provide new and valuable insights into the place of libraries in wider educational agendas and how political and community engagement with libraries influences the provision of library services to Australian children.