Library

Head of Department: Mrs Sally Perry. Email: librarydesk@epsomcollege.org.uk

The College Library, housed in the converted gymnasium, offers a welcoming environment for individual study, class activities and leisure reading. It contains over 25,000 resources, including both traditional and IT-based materials, which are indexed on a web-based catalogue with links to appropriate internet sites. The library is open six days a week during term time.

Some Library facts...

History

The Library used to be housed in what is now the staff Common Room. It was moved to the gym in 1996 and the conversion won a Design and Conservation award in 1998.

The statistics

Over 26,000 items on the catalogue including:

24,000 books.

Over 700 DVDs.

Over 200 boxes of cuttings files.

Current and back issues of 6 daily papers.

Subscriptions to 40 journals and magazines.

Staff

Librarian (chartered) and 3 library assistants. The library is always staffed by someone with an information and library service qualification.

Library treasures

Copies of The Epsomian going back to 1870.

A collection of John Piper prints.

A photo of the library in 1926 (when it was still the gym) with a gentleman and vaulting horse where the catalogue computers now stand.

50" screen with wireless headphones.

Giant chess set.

OPAC

Since September the library catalogue display (available from the intranet homepage) can be used to check library opening hours, read book and website reviews, consult an online reference shelf with direct links to subscription services and recommended sites... and search the library catalogue.

Services

Reservations and renewals like a public library.

Recommendation system - recommender gets first use.

Reviews - displayed newspaper articles, readers' reviews file, Waterstones style reader-to-reader labels on shelves.

Use

The library is available for individual study during open hours and is used by the upper school for research, employing printed materials and online sources, for example for the Extended Project research, English and History.

In the lower school class use includes projects such as the M4 History project on World War I where our resources are arranged to be easily used for the topics covered by the project. M4s also hone their library skills on a PSHE project based on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and come with English classes to choose fiction for leisure reading.

Favourite events

Christmas quizzes.

World Book Day Drop Everything and Read event.

Blind date with a book for Valentine's Day.

Prep school events - last year Mission Dewey Decimal hunted down a horde of spies up to no good in the library.

Author talks - Joe Craig, Marcus Sedgwick, Alison Weir, Mary Lawson.

For further information please email: librarydesk@epsomcollege.org.uk