Truganina P-9 College

About Truganina College

Truganina College is a P-9 state school in a culturally diverse, rapidly growing area of Melbourne’s western suburbs. Since they first opened their doors in 2015, they have grown to a student population of over 2000.  

The College motto is “Inspiring Excellence in Learning to Believe, Achieve and Succeed” - they expect, and achieve, great outcomes for our students, staff and community.

The Truganina College library 

Since opening in 2021, the Truganina College library has been busy developing their collection, which currently holds over 6000 resources.  

Their collection includes picture story, early chapter books, junior and middle grade novels, teen fiction, graphic novels, non-fiction, eBooks, and a range of magazines. A small number of teacher resources are also included.

According to Jane Burrows, Library Manager, the main focus of the library is to promote reading for pleasure which, in turn, helps to support the College’s literacy outcomes. Jane shares:

“The best thing we do is provide a dedicated space for the joy of stories.  

Supporting literacy by promoting reading as an activity for pleasure and interest is the primary goal of the library.  

All our work is focused on this goal, from selection, through the way the collection is organised, to our customer service approach.”

This approach to reading has helped to engage students with the library, from the younger students excited about their next read, through to the older students who find the support and environment in the library invaluable.

The College library also supports teachers by providing access to a broad and up-to-date collection, and expert knowledge of quality texts that they can use in the classroom. Staff respond daily to requests for suggestions for good read alouds, mentor texts, and independent reads for individual students.  

Jane shares that what she loves most about her role is being able to share a love of reading with students.

“There are many elements I enjoy about working in a school library, but the thing that gets me out of bed in the morning is the opportunity to talk to students about books. No matter what pressures of professional and adult life I might be feeling on the day, a shift on the desk always improves my mood.”

Benefits of Oliver v5

Jane shares that she is happy that the College chose Oliver v5 as their library management system.

Jane shares that they were able to genrify their fiction titles through Collections in Oliver.

“It has been straightforward to set up, edit and assess the collection this way – I actually don’t know how else we might have done it.”

She has also found the tag system incredibly useful.  

“I use tags to create Reading Lists in the Search module, which any staff can access, and also to be able to call up lists of titles when I’m asked for recommendations.”

Jane shares that Global Change and Exchange have the library provide a better service to the school community.

“Global Change and Exchange have been wonderful tools for our new library. Inevitably we have changed some cataloguing decisions as we’ve been able to see how students and staff have responded to the collection.  

These functions take some of the pain out of the process so we aren’t discouraged from making changes that might benefit our customers.”

Softlink support and training

Jane has been very happy with the support she has received, from the Support Team through to the training and online videos.

If would like to speak to an Educational Consultant about how Oliver can support your school library email communications@softlinkint.com

Read more case studies

• Marianne Van Niekerk, Head of Library Services at The Knox School, talks about their recent move to Oliver v5.
• Lou Webb, Library Manager at Rutherglen High School, shares how Oliver has saved her time and engaged students.
• Susan Grieve, College Librarian at Tarneit P-9 College, discusses Oliver v5's flexibility, easy-to-use interface, and support and training.