The FSI School Library Toolkit is a free, five-part resource for Australian school librarians and principals — a research report, an interactive benchmarking tool, a curated reading list, a principal conversation guide, and 30 ready-to-use ideas for this term. It is built on two years of original Australian research conducted by FSI through Project Lighthouse, in partnership with Culture Counts, Raeco, and ALS Library Services. And it is completely free to download.

When Australian school libraries get the investment and support they need, students notice. Borrowing rises. Reading confidence improves. Teachers start walking down the corridor with requests. The library becomes the hub of the school — and the data shows it plainly. Eighty-three percent of South Australian school staff report that their library contributes effectively to student learning (ACER, 2024). Higher borrowing directly correlates with higher reading scores (National Literacy Trust, 2024). The relationship between a well-resourced library and better student outcomes is one of the most consistent findings in Australian education research.

FSI built this toolkit because school librarians deserve the tools to make that case — clearly, confidently, and with evidence behind them.

What Is Inside the Toolkit

The FSI School Library Toolkit is five resources in a single free download. Each one came out of Project Lighthouse — FSI's 2024–25 research initiative involving in-depth interviews and community sessions with school librarians from state high schools, Catholic colleges, primary schools, and P–12 campuses across metropolitan and regional Australia.

1. The Library Loop Report 2026

FSI's original research report on the state of Australian school libraries. It draws on Project Lighthouse community research alongside data from ALIA, Dymocks Children's Charities, ACER, and the National Literacy Trust. Beyond the data, the report is full of real ideas and real results — strategies shared by Australian librarians through the Lighthouse sessions that are already working in schools right now. A stamp card that lifted borrowing 15%. A scavenger hunt that had teachers discovering resources they didn't know existed. A Movie Club entry system that turned reluctant readers into regulars. The research is grounded in what is actually possible.

2. Library Health Check

An interactive Excel workbook that benchmarks your school library against national research standards. Enter your enrolment, collection size, estimated collection age, and weekly opening hours — and the workbook calculates where your library sits relative to the Australian benchmark of approximately $30 per student per year (ALIA guidance). Everything runs locally on your device. No school name required. Nothing submitted externally.

3. What's Hot Right Now

A curated reading list for 2026 — titles selected to refresh high-demand sections of your collection and give you something ready to display, recommend, and borrow against immediately. A practical starting point for acquisition conversations and for building the kind of face-out displays that actually drive students to the shelves.

4. Ask For More: Principal Conversation Guide

A structured guide for walking into a budget conversation prepared. It includes a framework for reframing requests as outcome conversations, the three numbers every principal responds to, guidance on capital versus operational expenditure, and a post-meeting follow-up checklist. It incorporates insights from Culture Counts and Raeco, contributed directly through Project Lighthouse.

"The way you communicate outcomes can make a big difference to how it stacks up against other things being budgeted for."

— Georgia Moore, Managing Director, Culture Counts — FSI Project Lighthouse, 2025

5. 30 Quick Wins for Your Library

Low and no-budget actions, tested and shared by Australian school librarians through the Project Lighthouse community. Organised into student engagement, spaces and visibility, and teacher relationship categories — these are things you can start this week. Pick two from each category. Tick them off. The ideas are drawn from real librarians who tried them and saw them work.

The Three Numbers That Open Budget Conversations

The Library Health Check in the toolkit is built around three figures that school leaders respond to directly:

  • Budget gap — your spend per student versus the ~$30 ALIA benchmark
  • Collection freshness — the average age of your collection in years
  • Engagement rate — weekly library visits divided by student enrolment, benchmarked against 1.0

Fill in your numbers before your next conversation with leadership. Use the Health Check to calculate them. The Principal Conversation Guide will show you exactly how to present them.

If your school uses SmartSuite, these figures come straight out of your catalogue reports — collection age, borrowing statistics, and gap analysis already formatted for the Health Check. Read more about what SmartSuite can do for your school library.

The Context Behind the Toolkit

Project Lighthouse started with a question: what is really happening in Australian school libraries? What FSI found — across hundreds of conversations with librarians — was a pattern they called the Library Loop. Budgets get trimmed. Collections age. Engagement quietly drops. And that drop becomes the evidence used to justify the next cut.

But the same research showed just as clearly that the loop can be broken. Schools where librarians made their data visible, built relationships with teachers, and walked into budget meetings prepared saw real shifts. Investment followed. Students came back.

The toolkit is everything FSI learned from those conversations, packaged into five resources you can use immediately — at no cost.

For more on building the evidence case for your library, read our article on how to justify your library budget to your principal.