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Library Spotlight: St Pius X College, NSW, Australia
by Matt | Sep 13, 2018 | Categories : Library Success Stories Tips and Tricks
ePlatform School Spotlight of the Week - St Pius X College, Chatswood, NSW, Australia
St Pius X College is an Independent Catholic Boys school for Years 5 -12 in the Edmund Rice tradition, situated in Chatswood, Sydney. Senior Library manager, Karen Keighery shares her experience of ePlatform.
The shared library ePlatform is an excellent product offering a wide range of eBooks and Audiobooks. Its eBook reader and Audiobook app have a number of brilliant features and are easy to use. Its growing popularity is shown in our loan statistics with average monthly loans rising 500% from 2017 to 2018.
Importantly, it is a resource which supports differentiated learning. Our statistics show that 30% of boys in Years 8 & 9 who are not borrowing from the print collection are borrowing Audiobooks and eBooks. Further, with estimates that one in five students in Australia[i] have dyslexia, the value of ear reading and providing resources to support this deserves consideration in every library budget.
In my experience as the sole teacher librarian, I have found that the shared library requires little time management and support from Wheelers’ has been brilliant.
Promoting ePlatform is essential with successful promotion involving:
Strategies to build awareness
- School newsletter stories on new titles or rising borrowing statistics
- Displays such as ‘top ten eBooks’ or ‘eBooks to movies’
- Promotion at Orientations and Open days as parents want these opportunities for their child.
- Using Audiobooks as ‘read alouds’ in wide reading classes
- Targeted promotion to dyslexic students and reluctant readers
- Suggesting eBooks and Audiobooks titles for holiday reading and long car trips
- Integrating titles into the library catalogue
Enlisting staff supporters: timing is critical
Promoting to staff just before school holidays proved highly successful.
Staff were impressed and many took up the offer, including our Principal. This contributes to building our culture of reading and the potential for teachers to talk about their reading or model reading to our students. Research shows these are important factors in promoting reading and increasing literacy.
After the promotion to staff, our Learning and Enrichment teacher promoted Audiobooks in our school newsletter and to students.
Infographics for effective communications
My audience doesn’t like to be slowed down by reading text and with the brain processing visual materials at a much faster rate combining information and graphics works with busy, online people. An infographic style “how-to” presentation for staff morphed into a take-home flyer and is now embedded on our library website. You can view it here: http://libguides.spx.nsw.edu.au/reading/ePlatform
Being an eReading advocate
In getting to know the media, I now prefer eBooks. Being an eReading teacher enables me to authentically share my reading experiences:
- I love night reading; with white text on black there is no need to have any lights on
- I like the percentage read-out. For me, this adds to the immersive experience as I’m less aware of the physical limits of pages
- I love the portability, I never imagined reading paragraph by paragraph on my phone on the bus. But, if you’re hooked on a book, it’s magic!
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[i] Asome, S. (2018). Dyslexia: Can we read with our ears? Retrieved from https://www.scisdata.com/connections/issue-106/dyslexia-can-we-read-with-our-ears/.
- Karen Keighery
Senior Library Manager
Thank you, Karen, you're doing great with ePlatform!
If you'd like your school or library to be featured, contact Renee on reneej@wheelers.co.nz