This was my second year as Head of Library Services and so time to really start making my mark. I introduced a number of groups last year: ChocLit (our book group), PotterHeads (for all the HP nutters like me) and this year added a Lego Builders which has had a small but very dedicated group of boys building some amazing kits with great enthusiasm. I also added Tech-free Thursday to the Tech-free Tuesday I initiated last year with new table-top games on offer. but with a trade-off of Minecraft Monday *grin*. Our two biggest events were the Harry Potter Night – which was a combined Year 4-Year 8 after school couple of hours of intense madness and thoroughly enjoyed by all and then our Hunger Games literary lunch to finish off the year for the newly formed VIP Readers Group.

To backtrack a little, while we have a majority of really good kids, we have a minority of those who choose to vandalise and just destroy for the sake of it, and I was getting pretty fed up with their disrespect. We had a big re-arrangement of our collections and shelving after massive weeding and switched our fiction collection to downstairs, and pushed our non-fiction upstairs. This left us a rather ‘dead’ space in a back corner and I had the thought to make this a casual seating area but of course was not willing to risk beautiful new furniture being trashed by our less than socially adapted students.

So I created the VIPs and invited specific students to join – some of these crossed over with my other groups, but some are just quiet well-behaved kids who always do the right thing. They didn’t have to join the group but if they did, there are ‘perks’. Use of the new lounge area, added loan limits and borrowing periods, special offers, first crack at new books and special events including literary lunches are my plans.

Here are some photos from our year of activities. I’m pretty chuffed that I can see some shift in the perception of the library from a greater number of students. All in all I think we are moving in the right direction. (By the way, I also introduced actual teaching into the secondary library but that’s another story!)

It’s just a little of the great year we’ve had – you could check out more on our college FB page – Redeemer Lutheran College, Rochedale 🙂 – just search for ‘library’