Neelika Kottachchi, Manger of Library and Information Services at Mentone Girl's Secondary College, VIC, shares the strategies the library has used to the support the school community during COVID-19 restrictions.

Here's what I do during this trying time of COVID-19 at my school Library

At Mentone Girls' Secondary College we had not been subscribing to eBooks. No eBook platform was installed of any sort.

Before the school closed for students; a week before the last day of term; The Library offered 8 fiction and 8 non-fiction for each of the students to take home. The usual number of loans allowed was 4 of each.

At the beginning of the second term some English teachers asked how to support the reading programme for the students.

So, I spoke to SLAV and also another Librarian (an ex-colleague) about getting eBooks for free for our students.

With that help I found open Library eBook service and David Walliams Audio books for free.

Open Library
https://openlibrary.org/

I created an instructional diagram for joining and also to borrow ebooks
https://openlibrary.org/account/create

David Walliams Audio books - Step by step guide to join and access eBooks
https://soundcloud.com/harpercollinspublishers/sets/david-walliams-1

I also did the same for our local public Library.  I wrote instructions on how to join the public library remotely and how to install Borrow Box in order to read eBooks for free.

There are other free eBook sites such as International Children's Digital Libraries
http://en.childrenslibrary.org/index.shtml

I informed our teachers about virtual workshops organised by the Creative Net who usually organises author talks for schools all over Australia

I have also learned new techniques and new strategies to serve my user community through this new experience.

If you would like to let us know what your school library is doing during COVID-19, you can let us know here.