Taking stock

2008 will bring with it some big changes for Kingsley College as we go into partnership with Tabor Victoria, with Kingsley becoming Tabor's northern campus, based in Hadfield. What does this mean for the library? The libraries of both institutions will also be amalgamating, and this new combined library will eventually become one of the largest of any comparable institution in Melbourne.

The present Kingsley library will remain open as the branch library of Tabor's northern campus, which will be staffed by me two days per week, with the remainder of my time spent working as part of the team at the Leo Harris Resource Centre which is located at Tabor's main campus in Ringwood. Students will now have access to a wider range of print resources, and will be able to borrow from any Tabor campus library. Another plus is that the library catalogue will be web enabled, allowing patrons to browse the library holdings of any Tabor campus online from home if desired.

Students should also be impressed with Tabor's range of online databases, allowing the library user to access and download an extensive range of full text journal articles and abstracts in a range of subjects. Using Concord's Masterfile software, which I'm looking forward to getting to grips with, there will also be further work done in e-learning and Web 2.0 applications, so watch this space for developments in these areas.

The partnership between Kingsley and Tabor will give our students a stronger library, which I'm glad to see happen, and I'm also looking forward to the challenges and opportunities of broadening my skills in knowledge management, and after 5 years of working alone, which hasn't always been easy, going back to working as part of a team.