Caulfield Grammar School

About Caulfield Grammar

Caulfield Grammar School is a multi-campus co-educational independent school in the Anglican tradition. Their mission is to enable quality learning every day in every experience for every learner for life. This is supported by an educational environment which encourages creativity and innovation, excellence and achievement, thriving and belonging and cultivating a passion in and for life.

Caulfield Grammar School has three city campuses in Melbourne, one rural campus in Yarra Junction, and an international campus in Nanjing used for year 9s who go for 5 week blocks throughout the year.

School enrolments across the 5 campuses equal almost 3,500 students.

Lydia Woodgate is Head of Library for the Caulfield 7 – 12 campus, which provides services to over 1,300 students and 160 teaching and support staff.

Flexible access for a multi-campus school

Lydia said providing flexible access to the library and its many resources is vital.

“Students really enjoy the physical library space where they can come and use the resources or meet with teachers and other students, but they have the flexibility to access library resources from anywhere in the school or externally."

The faculty and staff at Caulfield Grammar School also benefit from the numerous resources and extra services the library provides, such as booklists, pathfinders and speaking to classes about research.

The Caulfield campus library has around 10,000 physical records, and an entire database of over 50,000 resources.

Oliver v5 and digital resources

The library team has worked hard to weed their print collection while expanding their digital collection to make it more in line with the needs of their modern users.

“We subscribe to a number of databases including Infobase, EBSCO, Britannica Image Quest, ECHO, ClickView and World Book."

Databases are shared across all campuses, as are the schools’ over 1,200 Bolinda eBook and audiobook titles.

Forty Zinio digital magazine titles, fifty print magazine titles and a small DVD collection of approximately 400 titles complete the collection.

Caulfield Grammar School uses Oliver v5 to manage and provide access to this extensive collection.

“24/7 access and search and display integration is important. A large proportion of our collection is eResources, we want students and staff to make the most of them."

Caulfield Grammar School has recently implemented Federated Search, which will give students and staff a single point of access to their subscription databases.

“The interface is clear and easy to understand, students find it easy to search for the resources they need to complete their research and assignments."

Lydia says she likes being able to provide a safe, comfortable facility for the students and staff to use.

Being able to share databases across campuses and set accessibility restrictions has allowed Caulfield Grammar School to expand their range of age appropriate resources to all of the students and staff at the school.

Hosting and support

Caulfield Grammar School enjoys having their Oliver v5 system hosted by Softlink and the additional support that this brings.

“The seamless upgrades are working well and it requires much less support from our School IT. Softlink support have been very quick to respond."

Oliver v5 – saving library staff time

Oliver v5 has also helped to streamline library administration and save library staff time.

Functionality like automatic borrower uploads from Synergetic means that Caulfield Grammar School’s library team have more time to focus on library services that enhance the student experience and educational outcomes.

“We get the greatest reward from working with the students and staff and being a vital part of the School, its curriculum and co-curricular priorities."

To learn more about Federated Search, visit the resources below

• Case study – St Michael’s College
• Case Study – Immanuel College
• Whitepaper – True Federated Search