The following webinars were presented by Barbara Band for the National Year of Reading. They will remain available on the CILIP SLG website until the end of the year.
You’re Already Doing It- Making Sense of the National Year of Reading
This webinar is designed to reassure you. The NYR is not asking school librarians to reinvent their role or launch a raft of new initiatives. Instead, it recognises the reading-for-pleasure work you have been doing for years — and helps you frame it more clearly and strategically.
This practical session starts with what you already do and shows how it fits logically within the NYR. It explores how existing practice can be rebadged, made visible and extended in small, manageable ways, without increasing workload. You’ll see how NYR provides language, structure and permission to talk confidently about reading for pleasure, strengthen relationships across the school and evidence impact without complex data or extra administration.
Moving from everyday library practice to a whole-school reading culture, the webinar supports delegates to decide what is realistic in their own context. You’ll leave with clarity, confidence and a small number of achievable next steps — not a to-do list.
How Inclusive Libraries Drive Reading For Pleasure
A welcoming and inclusive school library is a powerful first step in increasing students’ reading for pleasure. If students don’t feel drawn to the library, they won’t discover the books, spaces and experiences that foster a livelong love of reading. Focusing on inclusivity and purposeful practices, Barbara Band will examine practical ways to make the library a place where all students feel they belong