News Archive

The Learning Online Hub is the newest hub of the Learning Portal, developed by College Libraries Ontario (CLO) to help students navigate technology, stay motivated and study smart amid virtual learning. The hub features useful tips, how-to videos and learning strategies so that students can quickly find the resources they need to improve their learning aptitude for online learning. It also houses links to specific resources unique to each college.

The digital world has become increasingly complex and challenging.

College students are often unprepared for post-secondary work in digital environments.

Thankfully, The Learning Portal offers a toolkit to help students navigate their digital experience.

The Ontario Council of University Libraries has posted a statement about access to digital collections during the COVID-19 pandemic, which can be found on the OCUL website. For other news releases from OCUL, please see OCUL's news page.

For questions about services which OCLS provides in partnership with Scholars Portal and OCUL, please contact Holly Sarvari (for CLEAR) or Rebecca LaFrance (ACE).

Group work doesn’t have to be a painful experience.

The Learning Portal understands that group work can sometimes be challenging, especially given the current circumstances.

That’s why we’ve created resources to help students manage group meetings, agree on group expectations, and deal with group problems as they arise.

Balancing classes, work, friends and family can be stressful and difficult.

The Harris Learning Library at Canadore College & Nipissing University was recently featured in the North Bay Local in a piece about how libraries are providing services to students, faculty, and staff during the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting campus closures.

Studies show that college students often feel sleep deprived. 

The effects of sleep deprivation can be damaging, zapping your ability to study, weakening your immune system, and putting your mental and physical health at risk.

The Learning Portal is here to help students get better sleep and improve their post-secondary performance.

Visit the Sleep Hub today to learn more about the benefits of a good night’s sleep!

We will be performing necessary system upgrades to the OCLS website next week and therefore the OCLS website will be down for a short period on Wednesday, May 20th, from 4:00 to 8:00 p.m.

During this scheduled downtime, the OCLS website, including ERMA, will be unavailable. OCLS’s Single Sign-On (SSO) will also be unavailable, which means that library staff members will be unable to log in to RT ticket tracker, LEAP, and Atrium.

During this period, library staff can continue to communicate with OCLS staff via email and with OCLS’s IT team through RT by emailing rt@ocls.ca. You can also reach OCLS's Director of IT, Alexander Eykelhof, at aeykelhof@ocls.ca.

Thank you for your patience.

OCLS is pleased to welcome Jana Purmalis as Manager of Services, effective March 10, 2020. Some of you may have had the opportunity to meet Jana at the OCLS breakfast or over Zoom in the past two months, but we’d like to take a moment to officially introduce her. 

Before joining OCLS, Jana managed a small team at BGC Engineering, where she was a Librarian and Information Services Manager since 2016. Jana brings a wealth of diverse experience to her role as Manager of Services at OCLS, with 18 years’ experience working in the fields of libraries, education, and research. Jana holds a Masters of Information from the University of Toronto, where she received both an Ontario Graduate Scholarship and a U of T Fellowship, as well as an undergraduate degree in Geography from Ryerson.

The Ontario college libraries and CLO (College Libraries Ontario) have gone above and beyond to support their students, faculty, and staff during the COVID-19 pandemic, transitioning quickly into a fully online environment. Click the image below for more details about the work of the individual colleges and CLO.