Sydney Catholic Education Office schools’ students are expanding their reading Orbit

The new interface, ‘Orbit’, was designed specifically for junior and middle school students and is proving to be an inspiring tool for young readers.

Orbit enables students to personalise their own library home page, using different backgrounds, avatars and colour schemes.

Sydney Catholic Education Office, Library Information Services Manager, John O’Brien, said that feedback from SCEO schools using Orbit has been great.

‘The students love being able to customise their own library home page, it makes the whole library experience more engaging,’ John said.

Softlink Managing Director, Nathan Godfrey said Orbit is easy for junior and middle school students to navigate but offers advanced features and functionality to help them get the most out of their school book collection and knowledge resources.

Orbit offers the latest generation technology and has been developed from the ground up for tablets and iPads, making it genuinely easy for students to access Orbit, anywhere, anytime.

‘Students can search their library catalogue from home and even borrow and download eBooks from within the Orbit interface,’ Nathan said.

With Orbit, schools have the ability to include an automated carousel of recommended books or resources.  

John O’Brien said that when Sydney Catholic Education Office deployed Orbit, they set up a book carousel that featured Grades 1 – 6 Premier’s Reading List titles, but individual schools can create or edit their own carousels.

‘It’s great to be able to feature these books and encourage reading for enjoyment from a young age.’

Students can also create and post book reviews and read reviews posted by their peers.

‘It provides a more interactive library experience for students, teachers and library staff,’ John said.

Orbit is one of a number of exciting new developments released for Oliver v5 in the past twelve months.

‘With Oliver v5 and Orbit we are providing leading technology for learning, both now and into the future,’ John said.

Orbit has been deployed to all 149 schools in the Sydney Catholic Education Office Archdiocese.  

To find out more visit www.softlinkint.com.

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About Sydney Catholic Education Office:  The Catholic Education Office (CEO) Sydney is responsible for the leadership, efficient operation and management of the systemic schools which educate over 69,000 students in 149 parish primary and regional secondary schools in the Archdiocese of Sydney.The CEO, through its Central and three Regional Offices, provides to schools a wide range of services and resources, which have been developed in consultation with Principals and teachers. It works with schools in implementing the current Strategic Improvement Plan ‘Building on Strength’. The CEO’s main focus is providing support for schools and helping to ensure that every student receives a high-quality Catholic education.

About Softlink:  Softlink is a world-leading developer of knowledge, content, library management solutions, supporting more than 10,000 education, government and public organisations and libraries across 108 countries.  Softlink’s leading education solution, Oliver v5, is an integration and functionally rich, fully customisable platform for digital and physical learning asset management, discovery and delivery.  Softlink is based in Australia, the United Kingdom, America and New Zealand.  Softlink has supported the Australian education industry for 30 years.