Dear Karen,

I’ve been thinking a lot about your remarkable keynote speech at the ASLA Conference this year and wanted to acknowledge the extraordinary difference it made. In it, you opened a conversation for creating a new future for school libraries, impacting both on the librarians in attendance and remarkably, in how I have begun to rethink the future of my business, The Booklegger.

I founded The Booklegger 35 years ago with an aim of creating libraries that will facilitate inquiry-based learning, inspiring students to become intelligent & active consumers of information. With years of research into curriculum, I have frequently also worked as a consultant to school & TAFE libraries in curriculum-based collection development.

Although we have recently expanded our expertise into provision of e-books alongside our traditional print sales, The Booklegger has been dramatically impacted by a reduction in the number of teacher librarians in Australian schools and a substantial cut to available funds for collection development in print or electronic media.

Karen, your speech impacted on me in the first minute: When you suggested in response to the gentleman who introduced you:  “If you consider yourself an endangered species, as a teacher librarian – it’s time you had a good look at your practices!” My first thought was “It’s about time someone said it.” – then found myself & my business reflected in the same mirror. I realized that it was up to me to transform my practices if I want to survive in the industry.

I also found your comment that as a “helping profession”, librarians try to work with all the teachers in their schools, but that realistically if they managed to work powerfully with 30-40% they were doing very well (and that 30% would probably never work with them – and that the same  30% probably wouldn’t work well with others either). Again, I found that I could easily map this onto my own business – and although I am very aware of the 80-20 rule in business – it was only through your speech that I could see how much time I’ve been wasting trying to work with that 30-40% who are just not able or willing to work effectively with us.

I also found your 5-finger methodology both powerful & instructive. In addition, your suggestion that librarians need to be proactive in finding an integral role for themselves & their libraries in documentation such as the National Curriculum statements, highly relevant to The Booklegger as well.

Frankly Karen, aside from adapting many of your ideas in the form of an editorial that I have now sent to every High School library in Australia (see attached) – I have been totally inspired & reinvigorated by your ideas. I can authentically tell you that in 35 years of working in education & libraries, your speech has had by far the largest impact on me and my staff and the future of The Booklegger – plus it has given me a new context for empowering librarians to promote & market themselves & their libraries more effectively.

Thank you for everything you make available,

Rick Susman
Managing Director
The Booklegger
sales@booklegger.com.au