Is your school library “an active, dynamic ‘learning central’ core of the school”? Judith Anne Sykes believes that it should be and that the way to achieve it is for the library to become more “brain friendly”. The book has four sections; the first is an overview of the research and the following sections focus on what Sykes sees as the three key roles for the teacher‐librarian:
staff developer;
information literacy “agent”;
cultural emissary (literature and the arts).
The first chapter of Part I What neuroscience tells us about learning introduces the subject and shows how it relates to existing practice. The constructivist principles of John Dewey, student centred learning and cross‐curricular working are specifically mentioned and the development of higher order thinking skills implied. It also includes a literature review which provides the interested reader with more matter for thought and further reading and the subsequent chapters in the section look more closely at the work of three brain researchers: Ellen Langer, Bob Sylwester and Pat Wolfe. The section concludes with suggestions for creating a brain friendly library plan which could be used to inform the development planning process.
Part II: Goal 1: enriched environments – teacher as staff developer looks at the library as a physical space and considers how it can promote more effective learning; considers resource collection principles and selection criteria; and looks at ways of ensuring library projects use all the different memory types. It also includes suggestions for a workshop to persuade other staff of the importance of this way of working. As the title implies Part III: Goal 2: intellectual environments – teacher‐librarian as information literacy agent looks at 21st century skills for learning. There is some consideration of the theory but most of the section is given over to examples of specific projects, enquiries and research through which pupils could develop these skills. Part IV: Goal 3: emotional environments – teacher‐librarian as cultural emissary considers using the arts as a way of exploring books and reading, though many of the activities suppose a very high adult/pupil ratio and might be difficult to replicate in less fortunate environments.
The stated purpose of the book is to “present ways to link brain research to innovative, proven educational methods and principles”. Despite its claim to be innovative there is little that is new in, for example, the collection development section or in the description of a good library environment. The information is presented in a clear and user‐friendly manner however, with several useful checklists and many useful phrases. Which of us would not have as a goal that our “users do not collect and disseminate data but become information literate evaluators, analysers and creators”. Although Sykes promotes these strategies as brain friendly, many of them are examples of good practice with which librarians are already familiar – although the explicit linking may help practitioners see why they work and so develop the strategies further.
