Libby is a Life Member of the Friends of Storylines, Ngā  Pou o te Whare Waituhi Tamariki o Aotearoa and has been involved in literacy education for over 30 years. Libby was a primary school teacher and completed a MA (hons) and PhD in the field of deaf and literacy education. She was a Principal Lecturer in the Faculty of Education, University of Auckland for 20 years and Head of the School of Arts, Languages and Literacy for ten years and co-developed the Post-Graduate Diploma of Literacy, the required academic qualification for the New Zealand Resource Teachers of Literacy.

Libby’s research and publications are in the field of language and literacy education and how literature contributes to literacy learning, and she has been a consultant to several education publishers.

She was the inaugural Chair of the Storylines Children’s Literature Charitable Trust of New Zealand for 13 years.  In 2015 she received a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM) for services to education and literacy; in 2022 the Storylines Betty Gilderdale and in 2023 was made a Life Member of the New Zealand Literacy Association. One of the most exciting and rewarding periods of Libby’s professional life was co-directing the 35^th IBBY Congress in Auckland with Rosemary Tisdall in 2016.