SCIS forges into a new frontier
The Schools Catalogue Information Service (SCIS) is working with several major school library management system vendors in Australia and New Zealand to revolutionise how library catalogue records are distributed to schools.
For anyone who may follow us on social media, or has chatted to the team recently, you may be aware that SCIS keeps talking about our ‘big infrastructure upgrade’. This is the result of three years of quantitative and qualitative market research – thank you once again to everyone who has provided feedback along the way.
So here’s a little more detail about what a SCIS infrastructure upgrade means, and why we’re so excited.
Since early 2014, SCIS has been working through its RDA implementation plan. For those who are not familiar with RDA, it stands for Resource Description and Access, the cataloguing standard introduced to replace Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules (AARC2).
SCIS is very pleased to announce the next major step in that plan. From April 2017, SCIS will cease use of the GMD (General Material Designation), a set of deprecated terms used to describe the ‘Type’ of resource.
SCIS will now use the RDA cataloguing standard of ‘Content, media and carrier type’ to describe the resource. This comes after consultation with, and preparation by, the library management systems who distribute SCIS metadata. While use of RDA for type was adopted as a SCIS cataloguing standard in 2013, GMD was maintained in order to support older systems, a move which is no longer necessary.
There has been some discussion at SCIS about how schools treat picture books that rhyme. It has been SCIS practice to classify stories in rhyme picture books as poetry, with each book allocated a Dewey Decimal number. However, feedback in workshops and surveys indicate that this did not reflect the preferred classification in schools.
The Information Services Standards Committee (ISSC) meets regularly to discuss and make revisions to the SCIS Standards for Cataloguing and Data Entry, and this issue was recently discussed during a teleconference with the committee. The decision was made on behalf of the ISSC to classify stories in rhyme picture books as fiction, intending to make browsing easier for students and staff in schools. This will also save you the time spent changing the classifications manually.
If you have any questions about this update, please contact scisinfo@esa.edu.au.
We want to make sure our catalogue records continue to meet the needs of our subscribers. Can you spare ten minutes to complete this survey so we can understand how resources are being managed in school libraries?
All survey respondents will go in the draw to win a $250 book card.
Recent SCIS workshops and presentations have focused on the challenges facing school libraries in their management of digital content. As a key service provider and partner with Australian and New Zealand school libraries SCIS is committed to helping schools deal with collection management issues, and provides catalogue records for e-books, websites, apps, audio books, learning objects and digital video.
SCIS, along with the library world globally, is implementing the new Resource Description and Access (RDA) cataloguing standards – the first major change to take place since the Anglo-American Cataloging Rules, second edition (AACR2) were released in 1978.
SCIS Standards for Cataloguing and Data Entry 2013 edition
The standards that govern SCIS cataloguing have been rewritten and the new 2013 edition has now been published. This extensive document available as a PDF download from the SCIS Help page, is written for SCIS cataloguing staff and runs to 209 pages. The sections most affected by RDA include:
Section 2: Descriptive cataloguing
Section 5: Standards for specific formats, and
Section 6: MARC coding: Bibliographic records
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SCIS cataloguers will commence using these standards on 1 July 2013.
SCIS major decisions
SCIS has consulted with library system providers in Australian and New Zealand school libraries and has decided to move slowly towards full RDA implementation. From 1 July 2013 – 1 July 2014 SCIS will produce hybrid RDA records which continue to use the GMD from AACR2, and which will also retain the 260 Publication field rather than the new 264 field: Production, Publication, Distribution, Manufacture, and Copyright Notice, used by most systems using RDA.
RDA test records
The following records have been added to SCIS so library system providers and SCIS subscribers can test any impact of the change in standards on their systems.
Please note that ISBNs have been removed from these records so they are not accidentally retrieved through SCISWeb or Z39.50. Normal SCIS records will continue to include the ISBN where available.
| Title | Type of resource | Hybrid RDA test |
Pure RDA test |
| Chasing the light : a novel of Antarctica | book, fiction | 1614792 | 1614815 |
| Saint Paul’s letters to the Corinthians in the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate | book, nonfiction | 1614767 | 1585707 |
| Eraserhead | video recording, DVD | 1614751 | 1588961 |
| Desire | musical sound recording, CD | 1614750 | 1588970 |
| The call of the wild | audiobook, online | 1614737 | 1607780 |
| 100 healthy desserts | e-book, online | 1614769 | 1581096 |
| Home of the Australian Women Writers Challenge | website | 1614785 | 1614812 |
Background on RDA
For a review of what RDA is, and why it is being implemented revisit this compilation of previous Connections articles and blog posts.
In Connections 83 (October 2012) we published an article by Renate Beilharz from Box Hill Institute entitled: Why new rules, and what’s it got to do with me?
Issue 84 explained How SCIS will implement RDA, and Issue 85 provided more detail on how RDA deals with media types.
As part of the SCIS consultation on 4 December 2012 Renate also provided an introduction to RDA and its benefits for education libraries.
More information about RDA is available on the website of the Australian Committee on Cataloging.
Have you checked out the new SCIS Catalogue launched last week?
As well as a fresh look, there are a number of features that will be appreciated by SCIS users.
Search filters
The search limits available in previous versions of SCIS OPAC are still available (year, place, type, format and language), but search limits have been supplemented in this version of the Catalogue by the ability to filter the results following your initial search. These filters are found in the right hand column of the search results page.
Log in to the SCIS Catalogue and try the filters on a search for World Cup.
If you have requests for other filters you would like to see included as default, please let us know.
Timeout warning
A new timeout countdown feature alerts you if your search session has been idle for some time and is about to be reset.
Extension to the timeout period is also being trialled following a server upgrade.
Accessibility
The Voyager 7.0 WebVoyáge user interface was developed to comply with international industry accessibility standards.
Mobile devices
The new SCIS Catalogue is designed to display well and resize for use on various mobile devices.
Technical infrastructure
The SCIS Catalogue is now on a separate server at address: http://opac.scis.curriculum.edu.au which means it can function independently in the event of downtime on other SCIS services such as SCISWeb. If your network settings or firewall need to be changed as a result, please contact SCIS for the IP address of this server.
From 3 October 2011 the SCIS catalogue will undergo a major upgrade.
This involves implementation of
We will endeavour to keep disruptions to a minimum during this time.
You will be able to follow the progress of the upgrade via:
The SCIS Information Services Standards Committee met by teleconference on 25 May 2011. The major outcome of the teleconference is a revision of the SCIS subject heading hierarchy covering types of computers and device names.
The New South Wales SCIS agency prepared the original paper which was raised for discussion in February 2011. As the paper was complex and included many aspects of the subject area of computers and related devices, further discussion and consultation, particularly with the WA SCIS agency was required before the proposal was approved.
New headings for the following categories of devices are now available:
Digital media players
E-book readers
Interactive whiteboards
Laptop computers
Pocket computers
Portable computers
Smartphones
Tablet computers
Most of these headings allow for the construction of further headings for specific devices, such as iPad (Tablet computer) and Kindle (E-book reader).
Further details of the changes will be announced in the term 3 2011 issue of Connections (issue 78).
Below is an important message about a change to the SCIS Cataloguing Standards which was sent to school library management system vendors on 31 March 2011.
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The MARC 440 field (Series statement/Added entry – Title) was made obsolete in the international standard in 2008.
In 2009 SCIS announced its intention to stop using 440 and use both the 490 and 830 tags as prescribed in the standard. Tag 490 is part of the description of the resource, and contains the series statement as it appears on the item; tag 830 is the series access point or added entry. In some cases the data in the two fields may be identical. SCIS does not use fields 800, 810 and 811 as it prefers to provide series access by title rather than name/title.
For new records, SCIS is now using 490 and 830 as required. Records created prior to the changeover retain the series added entry in the 440 field. Your local system should provide for searching and displaying both 440 and 830 as series titles. Both 490 and 830 are repeatable, ie there may be more than one 490 or 830 in a single record.
You can find some examples of 490 and 830 fields in the updated MARC coding section of the SCIS standards.
For full details see the MARC 21 Format for Bibliographic Data.
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Library system vendors have indicated that they either already support this standard, or are planning to implement it and that school libraries should experience minimal change as a result of this update. Please contact your support person if you have further questions about how this works in your system.
A more in-depth article on the series cataloguing standards change will be available in Connections Issue 77 arriving in schools in Term 2 2011.
