Library Prepares for Campus Return

Overlake's library staff is taking advantage of this distance learning period to prepare students for a great and safe experience when they eventually return to campus.

While many of the changes are subtle, library staff recognized that some minor changes like study areas and circulation desks should be addressed. "We are lucky that our library is so well used by students, and that during many times of the day the room is so full that all the chairs are in use! That being said, we had to remove many of the chairs in order to accommodate social distancing," explains Library Director Kelly Vikstrom-Hoyt. "We will also have to re-think how we use our study rooms. Instead of being used for group work, they will now only be available for individual work."

One major advantage of our library was the wealth of resources already available online. "Since we already had a website for the library using LibGuides as a platform, many of our resources were already available online to our students 24 hours a day, from both school and home. Once school closed in the spring, we just highlighted some of the online resources on the home page, and added a few more electronic resources, but we were up and running as an online library before school closed," says Vikstrom-Hoyt.

This week Middle School Librarian Rebecca Moore created a fun video that was meant for our newest students. With her flare for silliness, she gave Fifth Grade students a tour of the library. 

Click here to see some of the changes to our library highlighted in her video.