Australia's Professional Excellence Policy: Empowering School Libraries

All sectors of Australian education are currently seeking to define and promote quality teaching and are developing policies on teacher quality and educational leadership. The national Framework for Professional Standards for Teaching sets out agreed foundational elements and dimensions of effective teaching and provides an architecture in which generic, specialist, and subject-area-specific professional standards can be developed. In 2005, the Australian School Library Association (ASLA) and the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) released the joint publication Standards of Professional Excellence for Teacher Librarians, a document that helps teacher librarians find their place in the professional teaching standards agenda. This article outlines the policy framework underpinning the ALIA-ASLA document and shows how the project seeks to empower school libraries by helping teacher librarians evaluate their professional practice.