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As the year winds down and we head towards the festive break, it feels like the right moment to pause, reflect, and say thank you.
What made 2025 special for us at Softlink Education? As always, it was the passion, creativity, and dedication of school library staff around the world.
From major advocacy milestones and new research to product developments and powerful stories from your libraries, 2025 has been a year of listening, learning, and building together.
2025 was a year of exciting growth, with 793 new schools joining the Softlink community. Every new partnership is another opportunity to champion the essential role of school libraries in teaching and learning.
We’re continually inspired by the passion and creativity of the librarians we work with, and it’s a privilege to see Oliver supporting more schools as they nurture a love of reading and discovery in their students.
In 2025, Oliver v5 continued to grow alongside the school libraries that use it every day. We introduced 206 new features, each shaped by the real-world needs and feedback of our library community.
These enhancements are designed to streamline workflows, improve accessibility, and support more inclusive library experiences. Our goal is to make library management smoother, so you can spend more time connecting students with the stories and resources that inspire them.
Curious about what’s new in Oliver? Take a look at our short feature videos to see how these updates are helping libraries thrive.
We also know that advocacy is easier when you’re not starting from scratch every time you support a class or plan a research task.
Throughout 2025, our in-house teacher librarian, Kerianne, continued to grow the collection of downloadable LearnPath guides – all aligned to the Australian Curriculum and designed to support everything from core subjects to study skills and wellbeing. There are now well over 300 guides available for LearnPath users, with more added regularly through the LearnPath Hub.
To make it easier to see what’s available, we also created a downloadable LearnPath Index Guide – a simple way to browse example topics, year levels, and themes before deciding what to import into your own LearnPath.
For busy teacher librarians, these guides help to:
If there’s one theme that runs through 2025, it’s advocacy in action.
Across Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand, school library staff once again put their hands up to share what’s happening in their libraries through the annual School Library Survey. The 2025 survey builds on more than a decade of data, giving you a way to show leaders, colleagues, and decision-makers exactly why your library matters.
Alongside the survey, we continued to turn your insights into practical advocacy tools. This year’s feature reports and whitepapers explored topics such as:
All of these resources have one goal: to help you tell a stronger library story in your own context – backed by real voices from real school libraries.
In 2025, we were reminded that advocacy is not only about speaking up for libraries, but also about sharing resources and expertise where they are needed most. One highlight was our partnership with Bethany Christian School in supporting Hope Village, where Softlink donated a library system to help staff build and manage their collection.
As Principal Wendy shared:
“[Bethany Christian School] were able to help set up a library system with donated software from Softlink, the company we use in Australia. We really appreciate the generosity of Softlink supplying this at no cost. Our partnership with Hope Village is a wonderful reminder that we are blessed to be a blessing to others, and I love that our value of generosity can be demonstrated in a very practical way.”
Stories like this reflect what matters most to us. When libraries are supported, whole communities benefit.
This year we celebrated a major partnership milestone with the Education Authority in Northern Ireland: the rollout of ELMS, powered by Oliver v5. Together, Softlink and the Education Authority are working to deliver a centralised, modern library management solution for schools across the region.
By bringing school libraries onto a shared ELMS platform, this partnership is:
It has been inspiring to see how ELMS is supporting equity of access and strengthening the role of school libraries across an entire jurisdiction.
2025 also saw a strong focus on inclusion, student voice and cultural recognition in our content and collaborations.
Advocacy remained a key theme in 2025. Our practical guide “6 Steps to Advocate for Your School Library” offered librarians a structured approach to sharing their impact with school leaders and communities.
We were also thrilled to feature “Library Advocacy in Action – Q&A with Marianne Grasso” after Marianne was recognised as ASLA’s Library Advocate for 2025.
In her interview, Marianne shared:
Together, these resources have helped keep the conversation about the value of school libraries front and centre.
Another constant this year has been the strength of local and regional networks.
From user groups and school-hosted PD days to online workshops, we’ve seen library staff share ideas generously – whether it’s how they use Oliver reports for advocacy, how they’re rolling out new digital resources, or how they’re introducing students to research skills in a more guided way.
Our team has loved being part of these conversations, whether that’s:
Behind every session is the same aim: helping you feel confident in your tools so you can focus on your students
As we look to 2026, our focus remains the same:
To everyone who completed a survey, shared a story, hosted a user group, agreed to a case study, or simply took the time to send us feedback this year – thank you.
Your commitment to students, reading, and equitable access to information is at the heart of everything we do.
Here’s to another year of championing school libraries together in 2026.
Oliver Library Software
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