Oliver v5 video case study – “Functionality & Student Engagement” - Coburg High School

Join Dianna as she answers the following questions:

• What do you see as your (or the library’s) most important role in / or service to the school? (0:17)
• How does Oliver v5 support the school / students? (0:45)
• How have you found Oliver v5 for cataloguing and library management? (1:42)
• What do the students think of Oliver v5? (2:40)

Learn more about Oliver v5 with these resources

• Designed with students, for students! In this brief video (1:18min), see why Oliver v5’s user interface increases student engagement and makes resources more readily accessible.
• Learn how to increase student engagement with Oliver v5’s enhanced Resource Reviews in this blog post.
• Join Ramsay and Robbie, from Coburg High School’s IT department, as they discuss their experiences with Oliver v5 implementation, integration, and support.

Read the transcript

What do you see as your (or the library’s) most important role in / or service to the school? (0:17)

I want to be able to provide the most incredible range of physical collection, plus online collection, for the kids so they can get enjoyment through the books they have here. They can get all the information they need as well.

I want this to be a centre point of information.

How does Oliver v5 support the school / students? (0:45)

It’s made everything really easy as far as functionality goes.

The borrowing system is really simple. The kids can use their own laptops, they can look at the site, they can reserve a book. Once it’s reserved, I grab the book, easy, they come to me, they borrow it.

The kids are able to search through the entire site, through different genres they like, you know, scroll down, scroll across. I think they love the fact that the interface is very much like streaming sites, which is pretty much the way kids look at anything these days.

The ease of function is the main thing that I actually really love about this, and it’s colourful.

How have you found Oliver v5 for cataloguing and library management? (1:42)

Cataloguing of books is the most simple process. It’s quite simply scan a code, all the information comes up through SCIS.

If you wanted to use the National Library of Australia, Library of Congress, anything like that, all the information automatically comes up. You scan your own school code, everything is there, it’s done.

So it’s pretty much two scans, a couple of clicks, and the cataloguing is done. And you get every piece of information about that particular title, whether it’s a book, equipment - we’ve catalogued equipment, we’ve catalogued games, you can catalogue anything you want into Oliver, and I just tend to find that that makes things work a whole lot easier.

What do the students think of Oliver v5? (2:40)

Oh, their faces light up when they first get online.

I’ve done inductions for each of the year groups in small classes and as soon as they’ve got on, you see their eyes bug out, because they’re seeing what they think is a streaming site.

And they’re seeing all these books, and I think especially for the junior school who are yet to lose the passion for reading due to senior studies, they’re so excited. And the amount of borrowing I’m getting due to that, it’s just fantastic.

And the amount of reservations that I get. I think sometimes the kids get a bit too excited with it and reserve way too many books than they can ever read. But you know, hey, I’m not to talk about that. I’m just as bad. So it’s been fantastic in that way.