What’s a girl like you doing in a place like this?

Or, why a Dubai based school librarian found herself in the heart of Westminster.

It is a fair question.

Why am I co-chairing the Great School Libraries campaign when I work in Dubai and our school library system is, if not burgeoning, then at least vibrant?

There are a number of answers to this. Firstly, no matter where you are in the world, and no matter what curriculum you are working in, the challenges facing school librarians are universal. We are all subject, at some stage, to funding and budget cuts, disinterested and unsupportive leadership, increasingly reluctant readers and a lack of pedagogical understanding of the role of the school librarian.