Students reimagining school libraries as spaces of learning and wellbeing

Abstract

School libraries contribute to student wellbeing as one of the few spaces at the school where students from different year levels can interact and engage in informal learning. Drawing on the case study findings, this chapter presents the perspectives of 44 students on their new or refurbished school library at 7 schools in Queensland, Australia. Students participated in interviews about their lived experience of their existing library, and drew their imagined ideal library spaces. In the existing libraries, they valued spaciousness, technology, social connectedness and choices and control; while in their ideal libraries, they imagined peacefulness, comfort, connectedness to the outside world through natural and technological links, and adventure. The findings support a framework for fostering student wellbeing through the school library that builds upon an apparent three-way synergy between the goals of the Melbourne Declaration, students' ideal library features and preferred spatial qualities.