Advisory & Support

In addition to loan boxes we offer the following services:

Peripatetic Librarians

We can supply an IELS librarian to manage and run sessions in your school library. We have librarians in Primary and Secondary schools who organize and catalogue books, run story telling sessions and help children become confident library users.

School Library Advice and Makeovers

IELS can visit your school to help with book purchasing, cataloguing and using a child-friendly classification system. We can even help with refitting or redesigning your library.

Finding the best Library Managment System for your school

A Library Management System needs to be able to issue and return books to individual children and teachers, allow for cataloguing and searching for books as well as running basic reports e.g. items on loan or overdue. IELS can advise and recommend a range of Library Management Systems on the market and help you identify the best for your needs and budget.  We also support our schools by updating/importing student information each year (normally in early September).

Supporting your School Librarian

We hold termly meetings for librarians in subscribing schools The meetings take place here or in schools (currently via Zoom). Separate groups for Primary and gives Secondary school librarians the opportunity to share ideas and best practice.

Staff training

IELS run regular NQT training sessions and staff meetings at our library. This is helpful for new schools/new teachers to introduce them to our huge collections of resources, answer questions and suggest ways of using artefacts and costumes. We can also deliver training sessions in your school (currently available via Zoom).

Please contact us if you want to discuss buying in to any of these services.

The IELS "Librarian Alix" YouTube Channel

While schools have been closed our librarian Alix McAlister has been reading aloud some of her favourite stories. You will find playlists for Early Years, Reception, KS1 and KS2.

View the YouTube videos here.

Teacher Training and Inset Sessions

We run NQT sessions which introduce teachers to our books, artefacts and costumes. The history hot seat dressing up is always popular!