School library funding boost

A Wee County school is to get almost £9,000 towards its library for a project that will build empathy through books and create new‘empathy champions’.

Lornshill Academy, in Tullibody, will receive the funding as part of the School Library Improvement Fund grants.

The bid was lodged by the Alloa and Lornshill Academy/empathy Lab and has been awarded £8,942.

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.”

Pamela Tulloch, Chief Executive of the Scottish Library and Information Council, 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.”

The fund, administered by the Scottish Library and Information Council (SLIC), was launched by the Scottish Government in 2017.