NEWS
RAPID DEVELOPMENT OF SENIOR SCHOOL LIBRARY ’ S HOME PAGES
Closure of the Library during lockdowns had a silver lining
To many people who enjoy the peace and calm of a library environment , and enjoy browsing a book collection arranged in meticulous order , the back room work of maintaining or indeed developing these collections might be a mystery .
Librarians go about their business without much noise or fanfare , and can give the impression that this work is seamless and almost invisible . This is , of course , far from the truth , as library work is as strategic as it is painstaking , particularly in times of great change .
The COVID-19 lockdowns in Melbourne , as indeed around the globe , forced students and teachers to learn online . At Scotch , too , we shut down all our library spaces .
Closing reading rooms , the circulation desks , lounges and the book collections to our community was a difficult experience .
There was , however , a silver lining . For two decades at least , libraries have been active in the online space . Whether libraries are academic , public or school , they all now have an online presence . They offer audiobooks , e-books , online newspapers and journals , dictionaries and video collections . And like all other libraries , the Scotch Senior School Library has straddled the virtual and the physical world for some time . Time , of course , is of the essence , as developing an online library takes as much time as developing a physical one .
With the Melbourne lockdowns we took stock and planned further and faster development of our home pages . Our new library home pages had been under development since 2018 , but progress had been slow . We had invested in the Libguides system and templates , which are used by key educational providers such as university
44 Great Scot Issue 161 – December 2020