Retirements and transitions in our School Community Libraries

I'd like to use this post to pay tribute to all who have worked in our School Community part of our public library network & are looking to retire or move on to other roles over the Christmas break.  Of course in mentioning a few people I know I run the risk of leaving out others.  So can I start by saying that our communities across the State are very fortunate to have many people who are working in libraries for whom work is a passion & a vocation more than a job.  For all staff who "go the extra mile" to provide customers with what they need - this post is a "thanks" to, and recognition to you all.

We have some people retiring who have been members of our network from the very inception of School Community Libraries and have served their communities so well for in some cases up to 40 years!! We also have staff who have come into the library profession for a very short period of time, but who have made an impact in their local libraries and communities in that time.  To all who are leaving us - all the best.

I'd also like to pay tribute to staff who have retired during the year, after years of service.  So in no particular order I'd like to recognise the long term contributors to our School Community Library network who I am aware are leaving or who have left the network: To Toni Sheridan (40 years at Lock!), Tessa Martin at Minlaton, Glenys Aird currently at Leigh Creek, Helen Bowering of Coomandook, Janice McInnis of Hawker, and Bob Muster currently at Lameroo thanks for all you have done for our network over the years.  And to others who I'm unaware of, please accept this post as recognition of your service to your local communities over so many years. 

I've been sent a lovely picture of the sequence of Teacher Librarians who have run the Minlaton SCL since its inception. They are standing in order of their service at the library.  See below.

L to R Denise Rutherford, 1st Minlaton TL, Jan Forrest,
Tessa Martin (who retired this year) and next year's TL Rick Cook

PLS delivers 400%+ increase in Network performance

PLS staff have spent quite a few months this year negotiating changes to our State-wide telecommunications network, and then supervising the rollout of new equipment in libraries across the State. This rollout was completed in late November.

The changes have included upgrading our main connection to the Internet from 50Mb to 200Mb - which has had a significant impact on downloads.  The graph below indicates the amount of data downloaded by the network on a monthly basis.  August was the previous normal pattern, before changes were made. The major increase in September was caused by the main connection upgrade.  This was followed by further increases in downloads as the new routers were installed in libraries across the state.

Increasing download totals from 3.2Tbyte to 14.4Tbyte is an increase of more than 400% in network performance.

Other changes have also been made to the network, such as prioritising certain types of network traffic to ensure that it is not being "choked" by other traffic.  This prioritised traffic includes all LMS related traffic and access to State-wide databases.

PLS is also looking at the current bandwidth issues related to some of our larger libraries.  A recent visit to Onkaparinga has identified that we need to make some changes to their bandwidth allocation, as they're trying to serve 10% of the State's population on the same amount of bandwidth as some quite small libraries.  Over coming months PLS staff will attempt to address the needs  of some of our bigger network members.