Last Monday, 5 March, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian launched the Premier’s Reading Challenge for 2018.

The challenge is open to all students from Kindergarten to year 9 and is a challenge to ‘read, read more, and read more widely’. The Premier’s Reading Challenge has been running for many years Australia wide and in 2018 runs from 5 March until 31 August.  Each of our participating students must read a minimum of 20 books: a minimum of 15 from the PRC list and a maximum of 5 personal choice books. St Patrick’s College library has a long and successful history with the Premier’s Reading Challenge, with many girls achieving Gold and Platinum certificates, as well as the Premier’s Medal.

The library currently has a Premier’s Reading Challenge display and the list of eligible books can be found both in the library and on the Library’s Destiny Discover page.

To encourage the students to take part in the challenge, the library will be offering incentives throughout their reading journey.

On Wednesday 7 March, St Patrick’s College celebrated International Women’s Day. In recognition of the importance of celebrating women and their achievements and aspirations, the library celebrated with a display of their own.  

We also added to our collection the story of Stephanie Woollard, who, at the age of 22, encountered seven disabled women subsisting in a tin shed in Kathmandu. Shocked to learn that disabled people are stigmatised in Nepal, Stephanie started helping the women help themselves. From this encounter, the aid organisation Seven Women was born, the effects of which are now World Wide. In 2016, Stephanie was honoured at the United Nations with a Rotary Responsible Business Award.  We thank Sue Power, Grandmother of Emilie (Year 7), for her kind donation of this author signed book for our collection.

The library subscribes to a variety of journals and magazines; some digital and some in a physical form. The latest addition to the library is ‘Total Girl’, a magazine that covers fashion, travel, animals, cooking and craft. As we forsee these to be extremely popular, magazines will not be available for borrowing. They will only be available for use within the library.

The library is usually a hive of creativity and collaboration with lots of noise but for the remainder of this term, due to the impending exams, the library is now in quiet zone mode.

Michelle Feely, Librarian and Sue Harradine, Library Technician