Scotch College

Library Web Page Wins International Award

To Suzette Boyd, Head of Library and Information Services, Scotch College Senior Library:

'Congratulations! Your Scotch College Senior Library Web site has been selected as the winner of the IASL/Concord School Library Web Page of the Year Award for 2002.

As you know, this award is administered by the International Association of School Librarianship (IASL) and sponsored by Concord Australia. All sites that received an IASL/Concord School Library Web Page of the Month Award in the 2001/2002 year were automatically considered for the annual award. As you know, the overall quality was high, and several Selection Committee members commented on the difficulty of making a choice among sites that were all 'well above the average'. Nevertheless, your site was a clear winner.

Once again, congratulations, and thanks for creating a very effective Internet resource that is a model for other school librarians.'

Dr Laurel Anne Clyde
for the Selection Committee

This e-mail was recently received with much celebration in the Library and to general amazement throughout the College. Students were heard exclaiming, 'You mean OUR library has the best web site in THE WORLD'.

Yes, indeed! After being awarded 'Web page of the Month' in December, 2001, we were considered for the 'Web Page of the Year', along with the other monthly finalists - six from the United States - California, Texas (2), Illinois, Washington, New York and three others from Australia.

This is the first time since the inception of the award that a school outside the United States has won the annual award.

The Selection Committee includes members from Australia, Canada, Iceland, New Zealand, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The Award was established to promote the involvement of school Librarians in the development of the Web and to encourage excellence in school library Web sites.

A plaque and a cash grant will be presented to Scotch at the IASL conference in Kuala Lumpur in August.

As I will be presenting a paper and a workshop at this conference, the award will be personally accepted on behalf of the library staff, including Mr Rob Cleary and Mrs Durga Kamte (our web developers) and on behalf of the College.

Congratulations Scotch!

Ms Suzette Boyd
Librarian