The Library Team at Heathdale Christian College (Werribee and Melton) have been busy during both Victoria's first and second COVID outbreaks.

What has been the focus for your school library/role during the COVID-19 Crisis?
Library teacher turning 1st round of remote learning did take library classes, using teams and libguides to deliver the library curriculum. Library Manager supported teachers with access to digital resources, navigating copyright issues, contacting publishers for content permissions. Borrowing limits were increased to allow students to take more books home. 2nd time around - Melbourne Lock down, Library staff are no longer taking classes but supporting classroom teachers and onsite teaching. Library staff are continuing to complete cataloguing, collection management, online support of digital resources.
 
What major tasks have you achieved?
One major achievement was the amount of digital resources sourced and uploaded to Libguides by our Library Teachers. Communication with teaching staff, library staff, the IT department and publishers to access more digital resources for lower primary students. It has been a very big learning curve taking place over a very short time frame.
 
What has been the result for staff?
Teaching staff are very grateful and the support, elevating stress and freeing up time to be teaching.
 
What reactions did you get from students/teachers/school leaders/parents to what the library staff were doing?
I could see that the move into remote learning, particularly in the primary area was a big shock to statt and their stress levels rose and panic set in. Our online
systems did not suit the primary school way of delivering curriculum (The secondary school have been using a LMS for well over a year and the teachers were very confident in is space).
The Libguide system provided a quick and easy method of linking to all the digital databases, portals and online sites without the use of student logins and passwords (something our lower primary students did not have) - all though our library WebOPAC. The library teachers and Library Manager played a large roll (many months before) to have this available.
 
The library is a very quiet space without the children onsite. Having to be locked down makes it impossible to get books in childrens hands. Our school has a very large catchment area, so we can not even deliver books home. I am writing a proposal at the moment to seek permission to allow students & parent
to book a time to visit the library to return and borrow weekly. I would like to use the system they use for Parent teacher night, this would keep a record of name, time and date of onsite visits for tracing purposes.
 

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