Save Trove

Trove is the National Library's online data base. It gives us the

past, stretching back from yesterday. It gives us the future, too.

70,000 people access it each day, of which I am often one,

but repeated budget cuts may mean it can no longer be maintained.

Pol Pot killed the intellectuals, the teachers, the writers. Dictators

feel safest destroying those who may think, and those who give us the

tools to think.

Australia's tragedy is that we have no dictators, and yet we are

slowly, steadily, losing the thinking jobs, and the ones that teach

others to think, too.

Trove may be lost for the same reason teacher librarian positions are

lost in our schools, or kids who cannot read are passed over as 'too

hard', as Minsters for Education fail to take the tough decisions to

ensure only evidence literacy programmes are taught in schools, and

EVERY child in school is taught to read, or funding ceases.

One in four Australian children do not reach international reading

benchmarks. About one in ten may never be fluent readers. Despite

money and resources, our literacy rates are failing, not because we do

not care, or spend the money, but because we will not face the problem

and then stand up and say 'Enough!'

Save our libraries, save our librarians, save our scientists…and save Australian's children, too.