Halloween and Horror Books!

The Library has been promoting all things Horror and the books have been flying off the display shelves on broomsticks.  Before we promoted these books we had already loaned out 154 copies since the beginning of the year – which is not bad for a collection in which there are only 140 books!  This collection was refurbished with new and classically acclaimed books at the end of 2022 and in the beginning of this year.

Halloween display with upside down books after a poltergeist infestation.

We have also been advertising the ‘horse books’ from our Animals fiction collection in homage to the Melbourne Cup and we will see if this helps to increase the turnover rate for that genre. You can see the turnover rates for each of our main lending collections in the table below.

What is especially exciting is that if we just look at our fiction collections – the total turnover rate increases to 94%.  In other words, nearly the entire fiction collection was borrowed during the first three terms of this year!

This kind of result comes from a number of good policies and practices.  We encourage students’ suggestions for books and we also keep a close eye upon current trends and reviews… and yes, we also deselect (weed) underused books so that the collection remains fresh.

Of equal, if not more importance, is the Reading Program for Years 7 to 9 run by Ms Langford, which provides a great place to ‘sell’ the idea of books and of reading for enjoyment to students, and for students to share their enthusiasm for the books they are reading with each other.

I would like to take this opportunity to also give thanks to the support of the College’s Leadership Team for all of our endeavours in the Library.  Our students are the beneficiaries and we love working here!

Angus Pearson
Library Coordinator