The School Library Association is a small charity, set up in 1937 to support school libraries and librarians in schools UK wide. It has national branches in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Eire and members come from the UK and abroad. Many schools cannot afford professionally trained librarians, and unlike CILIP (the professional body) the SLA supports unqualified library staff.

Two of the main roles of the SLA are to write guidelines to help school librarians and run training courses – both of which our College Librarian has contributed to significantly over the years. For the past two years she has also chaired the School Librarian of the Year Award Panel, which visits nominated librarians all over the country looking for the one person who demonstrates best practice.

For the past four years, under the leadership of Mrs Doyle, Cheltenham College has also hosted Polish students who are winners of a scholarship set up by a past President of the SLA, Professor Frank Hogg. These students are usually at the end of their degrees, or studying for Masters in information Science. They work for one to two weeks in College and then go on to work at the National Library of Wales for a further period.

Mrs Doyle commented: “The weekend of 24th to 26th June was the annual SLA weekend course, at which a couple of hundred school librarians assembled at the East Midlands Conference Centre in Nottingham. The course takes the format of keynote speakers, workshops and seminars and many authors who write for teenagers and children The course also hosts the AGM, at which I was elected Chair of the School Library Association. I was introduced to many authors throughout the weekend, a highlight being Henry Winkler, aka The Fonz, who talked about his difficulties as a child with undiagnosed dyslexia. He only discovered his own learning problems at the age of 31 when his own son was discovered to have problems. Another highlight was meeting and talking to Anthony Browne, our current Children’s Laureate, who took us through several of his books, showing us how surrealism and symbolism creeps in to his work. Other inspiring speakers were Professor Stephen Heppell, Bali Rai, Craig Simpson, Pete Johnson, Saci Lloyd, Geraldine McCaughrean, David Benedictus and Hilary McKay.”