Edinburgh’s school libraries have been awarded funding for a progressive anti-racism project, as part of the 2022/23 School Library Improvement Fund (SLIF).
Administered by the Scottish Library and Information Council (SLIC), on behalf of the Scottish Government, the Fund supports creative and innovative projects within the school library sector in Scotland.
Available to all state-run nurseries, primary schools and secondary schools with a library, this year’s funding priority was given to applications which focused on supporting anti-racism and racial equality.
The £200,000 2022/23 SLIF has been allocated to a total of 18 initiatives across Scotland, including the ‘The Library is Anti-Racist’ project in Edinburgh.
The funding will support the creation of an anti-racism toolkit and collection of travelling resources for Edinburgh’s school libraries to ensure the service is diverse, inclusive and reflective of the school and its wider community.
This brings the total investment from the Scottish Government to £1.5m over the lifetime of SLIF, playing an important role in helping school library services achieve the key aims of ‘Vibrant Libraries, Thriving Schools: A National Strategy for School Libraries in Scotland 2018-2023’ – the strategic document for the development of school libraries in Scotland.
Congratulating the successful applicants, Education Secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville said: “School libraries play a key role for young people by providing access to educational resources, supporting learning and helping to close the poverty-related attainment gap.
“The School Library Improvement Fund continues to support creative and innovative projects in school libraries.
“The anti-racism focus of the projects will allow school libraries to engage with pupils on the importance of belonging, inclusion and social justice.”
Schools can apply via individual or collaborative applications with SLIC accepting up to two individual approaches per local authority and an unlimited number of collaborative applications to ensure equal opportunities across Scotland.
Pamela Tulloch, Chief Executive of SLIC, said: “School libraries play a valuable role in education and learning, and ensuring every young person has the chance to fulfil their full potential.
“Projects funded through programmes like SLIF help to improve and expand the services school libraries can provide, so it’s great to see such strong applications coming in from schools eager to further develop these resources.
“We’re particularly proud to award support to those advocating for anti-racism and anti-discrimination through this year’s Fund and we can’t wait to see these initiatives come to fruition.”
For more information on The School Library Improvement Fund, visit:
https://scottishlibraries.org/funding/the-school-library-improvement-fund/