The Library, Literacy and our Wonderful Teachers 

Although these are extraordinary and unsettling times, here in the Monivae College Library we have used this time of remote learning to work hard and carry out projects that we would otherwise never have the time to do!  We believe there are always “positives” in any given situation, and as much as we missed the student body being on campus, their absence proved to be a wonderful opportunity for us. 

Over the past months we have “deselected” books from our collection due to age and irrelevance, we have painted, we have removed shelving.   We have rearranged our spaces so that both upstairs and downstairs are more open and inviting.  We have added colour, new ottomans, study carrels for private study (coming soon), plants, and of course many new books

.

Mrs. Claffey, Miss Stanhope and myself now find ourselves working in a more cohesive, bright and open space which has made us very happy.  We hope the students will feel the same.

Added to this our Library Management system, OLIVER, is now accessible to all students online.

Our enthusiastic English teachers are gradually bringing their classes to the Library for a session so as we staff may show them learn how to use our catalogue independently to search for resources.

Students may now make reservations online and renew their loans.  They can browse the collection as the catalogue displays book covers, they may even leave book reviews!  All of this we encourage with much gusto.

Helping our students gain further skills in Information Literacy is an important task from which we  receive great satisfaction.  Learning to be discerning and aware whilst navigating the infinitesimal amount of online information is crucial for us all.

For the Library staff the task of helping our students also become lifelong lovers of literature and reading is also high on our list of priorities.

We have recently added to our EBook collection, Wheelers ePlatform, with a very comprehensive “Wellness” collection.  This specially curated collection for Secondary schools contains over 300 titles of up to date and relevant books, including fiction.  There are also Audio books available and early in Term 3 we shall begin a one month trial of the Audio facility. If there is enough usage of Audio books we shall certainly look at this becoming a permanent resource.

The Wellness Collection covers a myriad of topics and here for you is a selection of titles…..

The Social Media Workbook for Teens, Daring Greatly, The Little book of Hygge, Start Something that Matters, Man’s Search for Meaning, The Art of being normal, The Next Eco Warriors, Flourish, and Blame my brain.

I would encourage everyone including students, parents, and siblings to browse this fabulous collection to perhaps find a title that you can enjoy, learn from and be inspired by.

Ms. Maryanne Gustus

Head of Library.