Schools across the country are celebrating Aotearoa NZ School Library Week this week, embracing all the ways that school libraries enrich our students’ lives through bringing books to life, providing safe spaces, and allowing the freedom to choose books that are crucial to their literacy and learning success. Coincidentally,  it is also a week that sadly marks the passing of Janet Lilly - our Darfield High School librarian for 29 years.   Many past students, teachers, parents and grandparents in our school whānau will remember Janet. Some of us, who were lucky enough to work with her, will remember Janet as a passionate promoter of books and reading - she read just about every book that came through our library. Her biggest joy was finding stories that she could match to particular students and seeing their obvious enjoyment and excitement. 

Janet was librarian here from 1979 to 2008. She retired when she was 72 and donated the Lilly Cup for Services to the Darfield High School Library which has been awarded annually since. When she eventually moved from the Darfield community into a retirement home, I heard the first thing she did was reorganise their library.

Jorge Luis Borges ( an Argentine writer 1899-1986) once said...

"I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of Library."  I would not be surprised if this was true for Janet.