Issue 13

Dear Heather,

I am the Senior Library Co-Ordinator at Swan Hill Secondary College, a dual-campus country secondary school with an enrolment of approximately 1150 students.

Since my appointment to the Co-Ordinators position, I have seen my role as T /L in charge of a large well-resourced library change quite markedly. No longer do students need only access print and non-print resources within their own school. Now, with the changing curriculum and the new direction brought about by the information superhighway, students and staff are looking for resources farther afield via online access.

For the past twelve months, the Senior Library has had online access to the State Library of Victoria and also via Nexus to many and varied databases within Australia. Now our focus is changing again with Internet the word on everybody's lips. I have read a great deal about the Internet and purchased the Oz-Email Ednet package, as well as undertaking a short inservice about it.

Wishing to develop this area I am not entirely certain of the direction to take. Many schools I know are well advanced on this path and have policies in place re Internet use etc. The purpose of this letter is to request you run an article in "Connections" on school libraries and the Internet with a view to compiling a list of schools in various stages of 'Internet implementation'. Hopefully, a Victorian inservice/ conference could be organised in the near future to allow novices and beginners the opportunity to learn from the experiences of schools already on the way.

Judith A. Wilkes
Swan Hill Secondary College.

Dear Judith,

There is a conference scheduled in Melbourne for July on the Internet and its application to education -but I don't have a contact. Perhaps an e-mail message around some Melbourne schools would produce the details. I'm sure many T /L's share your dilemma, and Connections would be pleased to collate directions already in place and publish them next issue. Any school wishing to share such information could e-mail me at [email protected]

Editor