Wantirna College: Oliver v5 Case Study | Softlink Education

“The Softlink team were fantastic during the transition, offering help and advice where needed and following up with initial staff training. Since then, questions have been answered swiftly. The technical support team are terrific, with special thanks to Mel and Candice, who enjoy solving problems and are always willing and able to help.”
Joanne Montgomery, Library Manager, Wantirna College

At a Glance
Chosen Solution	Oliver v5 Hosted
Core Benefits	Weekly automated overdues to students and teachers boost returns. Compass SSO gives instant access to loans, reservations and reviews. Easier discovery via genrefied Collections, Similar Items and Reading Lists. Time-saving workflows and custom reports.
Library Staff	2 part-time Library Staff (1.3 FTE)

About Wantirna College Library

Wantirna College is a public secondary school in metropolitan Melbourne with 1,350 students (Years 7–12) and over 100 staff. The College has an excellent reputation for Music, Performing Arts, and Sport. The library is staffed by Andrea Daniels and Joanne Montgomery, who both work part-time (1.3 FTE). The team supports the Year 7–8 Reading Program, manages Media and IT equipment loans, and runs a vibrant student Library Leaders programme. With almost 11,000 loans to the end of Term 3, keeping track of resources is a high priority.

Why We Changed

We needed a search experience that students would find engaging, intuitive, and would return accurate search results. Integration with Compass and SCIS was essential, and we wanted a helpful, knowledgeable, and friendly support service. Our previous FS catalogue no longer delivered the value students needed. We had remained largely because of TV4Education, but once the Victorian Government made ClickView free for schools, we took the opportunity to move to another platform. Access via Compass single sign-on (SSO) was also important in reducing barriers for students.

Why We Chose Oliver v5

We reviewed several systems and Oliver v5 stood out for its student experience. Collections on the Home page feel familiar to students used to streaming services and help them browse with confidence. We value Reading Lists and how easily students can reserve items and submit book reviews. LearnPath was also a major drawcard, giving us a simple way to curate research support and guided learning.

Implementation Experience

Releasing our catalogue data from the previous system took longer than expected. Once resolved, Softlink moved quickly, guiding us through a smooth transition from data migration to training. The experience set the tone: helpful people, clear advice, and prompt follow-up.

Favourite Features of Oliver

Where do I start!

Automatic overdue notices: We can create groups of students and send automatic weekly overdue notices to the teachers of that group. Because our Years 9–12 English classes are not taught in home groups, we previously spent hours once a term compiling overdues for each class. Now teachers receive a weekly reminder and overdues have decreased.
Reservations: Reservations are easy to make, and we love the pop-up notice and automatic email to students when a reserved book is returned.
Similar items: The ‘similar items’ list on the landing page is very informative when giving book suggestions.

How Oliver Supports Students and Teachers

Oliver v5 has made a huge difference for both students and staff:

Students can log in to get access to their borrowing details and make their own reservations and book reviews. If they are already logged into Compass, access to Oliver is automatic, this makes it a breeze for them.
The OPAC interface makes finding resources easy for students and they independently locate resources they want.
Reading lists for specific departments and classes can be made, allowing staff to quickly see the available resources for a topic.
Integration with Novelist assisted with reader advisory.
The easy integration with Wheelers eBook platform has made eBooks and audiobooks more accessible.
From 2026, the Music Department will use Oliver to track instrument loans and sheet music, streamlining processes beyond the library.

Integrations and Access

Thumbnail ID photos imported from Compass, makes the system more secure. In a busy library it can be difficult to hear students say their ID code or name, so the photo is a useful secondary check.
Smart cataloguing, which imports SCIS records is quick, streamlined and accurate, so we rarely have to catalogue from scratch.
We are currently exploring integrating the Clickview records into our catalogue which will create a one-stop information shop and provide easy links to video files.

Softlink Support

The Softlink team were fantastic during the transition, offering help and advice where needed, and following up with the initial staff training. Since then, any questions are swiftly responded to. The technical support team are terrific, shout out to Mel and Candice who seem to revel in solving problems and are always willing and able to help.

Time Savings and Improvements

Following up with overdue books used to be a whole day activity, only done towards the end of each term. With Oliver, we have automated this process to occur weekly, notify students, and classroom teachers, this is helping to keep the number of overdue items to a manageable level. Because popular books are coming back, and are available for others to loan, it has improved student engagement and our circulation statistics.

Wantirna College has a very generous student laptop and charger loan program. Every day we need to chase down day-loan laptops and chargers that students have forgotten to return. This used to involve a tedious process of transcribing details from Oliver onto an overdue slip that is sent to classes every morning. There had to be a better way! We made a call to the Oliver support team and together we created a custom report that does all this for us; no more handwriting; customised title & text and it prints with cutting guidelines! This has streamlined our day-loan equipment overdues, saves us about 20 minutes each morning and it looks more professional.

Another custom report that has saved us hours of work is the ‘Long-term Loan Laptop Check’ at the end of each term, students with a long-term laptop loan had to have a recall notice filled out by hand, with over sixty to follow-up it is a big task. Being able to customise the header and footer of these reports meant we were able to give the students very clear instructions and we have seen improved compliance as a result.

We are investigating new ways to present student loan data (things like loan duration, genre, repeat loans), to support our hunches about borrowing habits and trends. This will assist us and teachers to broaden and deepen students’ reading experiences.

Advice for Other Schools considering the move to Oliver v5?

Students are attracted to the Oliver Home page and find it easy to navigate. Being able to access the search and their own loan record anywhere-anytime if they are logged into Compass (SSO) is a great advantage as there are no extra login requirements, so no added hurdles to access. These features have increased students’ engagement with the Library collections.

The Oliver v5 Community portal, accessible from the Management screen, is an amazing resource, with many questions already addressed by others in the community.

The Management section has a lot of options, with ready-made reports and statistics available.

Wantirna College