School libraries

10 essential resources for online cataloguing

SCIS cataloguer Heath Walsh reveals his 10 most essential sources for creating quality catalogue records.

As I work through my daily cataloguing lists at SCIS I have a set of go-to online resources that I use to help me with my cataloguing work. The list of these resources below describes how they aid my cataloguing, and is designed to help any school library staff who wish to tap up their own records.

Trove / Libraries Australia

Cataloguing is a collaborative process, not only between work colleagues but between cataloguing agencies. This is especially true at SCIS where we attempt to catalogue titles that we do not have on hand and so must rely on online data from other agencies. For this reason, the Trove discovery service – or the subscription service Libraries Australia, which helps underpin Trove – is essential for SCIS cataloguers.

Hosted by the National Library of Australia in partnership with content providers, Trove is an Australian online library database aggregator and service which includes full text documents, digital images, bibliographic and holdings data of items which are not available digitally, and a search engine as a discovery tool.

Worldcat provides a similar service globally, but bibliographic records from the Australian National Bibliographic Database (ANBD) are also uploaded into the WorldCat global union catalogue, which means that records found in Worldcat can often be found in Libraries Australia. Libraries Australia provides MARC records not only for titles found in ANBD but also Worldcat, which makes it an essential subscription service for cataloguers.

A picture of the trove libraries Australia interface — The Trove Libraraies Australia interface

WebDewey

WebDewey provides search functions that make locating the relevant Dewey classification number and cataloguing efficient and accurate. The database, which is updated regularly, includes the most current version of the Dewey Decimal Classification.

I can’t imagine constructing Dewey numbers from print volumes like librarians used to do last century. Rifling through four volumes of the Dewey Decimal Classification tool to find the relevant number for a particular topic seems awfully onerous compared to the lovely search indexes found in WebDewey.

A subscription is required, but this is an essential resource not only for constructing Dewey numbers, but as further input for subject classification given that it has its own taxonomy of subjects.

Library of Congress Authorities

When it comes to creating new SCIS personal name authorities, input from the Library of Congress is useful when there is confusion over definitive renderings of personal names. At SCIS when we devise new SCIS authority subject headings we are mindful of Library of Congress treatment as input for our working papers, thanks to this search engine.

Booktopia

At SCIS we often work through ebook lists and Booktopia is very handy due to its coupling of print and ebook formats for a given title in separate tabs. The same goes for audiobooks. It is also a great source for finding target audience data, such as age-appropriate classifications.

Books In Print

A subscription is required to access data in this Bowker resource, which is invaluable for finding data on publishers and their physical locations. Great for gleaning target audience data and reading levels, this resource also sometimes provides a Dewey number.

The resource interface from Books in Print — The resource interface of Books in Print

Schools Online Thesaurus (ScOT)

When cataloguing video shorts on specific concepts – typically in mathematics and science – this thesaurus is terrific. At SCIS we provide these headings in bibliographic records. As a cataloguer I have needed assistance from this thesaurus to select suitable SCIS headings.

ScOT provides a controlled vocabulary of terms used in Australian and New Zealand schools. It encompasses all subject areas as well as terms describing educational and administrative processes. The thesaurus links non-preferred terms to curriculum terms.

Ulrichsweb Global Serials Directory

This is the online authority for data on periodicals. Subscription is required, which we do not have at SCIS, but I have wished for it whenever a SCIS subscriber requests a SCIS record for a magazine or serial title.

ISBNdb

ISBNdb gathers data from libraries, publishers, merchants and other sources around the globe to compile a vast collection of book data searchable by ISBN, title, author or publisher.

ISBNdb calls itself ‘The world’s largest book database’. I have tended to use it when I have been unable to get results from my usual sources such as Libraries Australia or Books In Print.

ISBN converter

Situated on Bowker’s ISBN.org website, this is great for when I need a quick conversion from the old 10-digit ISBN format to the current 13-digit. This can occur at SCIS when we have old records that require enhancement, often in response to subscriber requests.

RDA Toolkit

At SCIS, when we do not apply our own standards related to content, we turn to RDA. Institutions require a subscription to access the Toolkit, which now enables subscribers to create what is called an application profile. This presents the way in which a subscriber applies RDA in its own institution.

I hope you find these resources useful as you navigate your way through the seas of bibliographic description. Bon voyage!

5 questions you’ve been asking about the Schools Catalogue Information Service

The who, what, why, where and how of the Schools Catalogue Information Service (SCIS).

Every day our customer service team speaks to staff from schools across Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain, and the world. Whether it be on the phone, via email, or in person, there are some questions that are more commonly asked than others. That’s why we’ve written this 101 guide on the five facts people most want to know about SCIS.

1. Who/what is SCIS?

The Schools Catalogue Information Service (SCIS) is primarily a cataloguing service for your school library. Our service is a layer of data called catalogue records – these are like a digital version of the physical catalogue cards that libraries used to use many years ago. Our catalogue records can be imported into the software you use to manage your library (referred to as a Library Management System or LMS for short). Our records contain information about all your books and resources, and this helps you and your students to find resources when you search by keyword, subject, author, title, publisher or publication date.

We service almost 80 percent of schools in Australia, over 40 percent of schools in New Zealand, and our services are being taken up by a growing number schools across Great Britain and other parts of the world. We’re owned and run by an Australian not-for-profit company called Education Services Australia.

Creating catalogue data is laborious work, but it’s essential to students being able to find the information they need when they search in your library. Our cataloguers are all qualified librarians who skilfully sift through resources by hand to ensure our data is accurate and high-quality.

2. Why would my school need SCIS?

If you ask any qualified librarian, they will tell you that cataloguing takes a huge amount of time and effort. Each resource catalogued must be examined and classified with a set of terms that are consistent across records, otherwise your resources become increasingly hard to find in your database. For example if your library uses the subject heading “World War II” on one history book but then uses “World War 2” for another, both books might not appear in in the same search. Our service spares you all the time and effort of creating this complicated and essential data yourself, and your school can ask us to catalogue new resources for you whenever you like.

Many people don’t realise that failing to catalogue resources with accurate, consistent information makes managing, stocktaking and weeding your collection very difficult.

Additionally, having one over-arching, cohesive catalogue can be of great help even if you don’t have a centralised library – quality cataloguing is still important when your resources are split up between classrooms. If one class is doing an assignment on volcanoes and students can’t locate any of the relevant resources in any other classrooms, there can be some significant consequences, including:

Your students missing out on fundamental learning and research opportunities
You and your colleagues being forced to spend additional time locating resources physically rather than digitally
The valuable resources you have spent time and money acquiring sit on a shelf unused.

All school staff benefit from SCIS records as they help to save school staff time (which is a precious resource in all schools) and help provide the correct resources to your students.

3. What products does SCIS offer?

SCIS offers two main products: SCIS Data and Authority Files.

SCISData provides you with access to our catalogue record database of over 1.6 million high-quality catalogue records. With a SCISData subscription, you can search and download as many of these as you like – and this includes records for digital products in addition to physical books.

Authority Files are files that generate ‘see’ and ‘see also’ references for searches in your catalogue, meaning that if you search for books about ‘bugs’ you can also return results on books that include ‘insects’ as their subject. Authority Files create important, verified connections between related subjects, names and series.

These two products together create a powerful combination and streamline your school library services. This saves you time and allows you to focus more on what matters: connecting with your students.

In addition to our two subscription products, SCIS also offers professional learning opportunities and library barcode scanners. Our professional learning sessions are designed to help you learn to manage your resources effectively and optimise your students’ learning experiences. And, of course, our barcode scanners will assist you at the circulation desk to ensure all loans and returns are processed smoothly and efficiently!

4. Does SCIS provide any free support?

SCIS assists in connecting an enormous variety of teachers, school staff, parent volunteers and library professionals. We endeavour to provide this vast community with the best support we can. We publish a termly magazine in print and online called Connections, where you can find out the latest school library news. Connections publishes pieces written by practising educators, teachers, library staff, authors and industry figures, offering a wide variety of views to reflect the variety of our audience.

Additionally, we often share news and updates across our social media channels on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter and Vimeo. Our Vimeo page offers all viewers free advice that can help you make the most of your SCIS subscription.

And lastly, we have a wonderful blog – which you’re reading right now! We post all sorts of news from educators, publishers and our own news on this site. We welcome all manner of contributions to this blog, so if you have any ideas, please feel welcome to write to us about it!

5. Is SCIS the software I use when I’m searching in my library?

SCIS is not what’s known as a Library Management System (LMS). When you’re using your system, the interface is not what we’ve created. There are a number of wonderful vendors who create all sorts of different Library Management Systems you can use, and we work with all of them.

Our data sits ‘under the hood’ of your LMS. It powers your searches for resources, provides data consistency that makes them findable, and gives you back the time it would take to catalogue your resources manually. That’s the magic of SCIS, we work so seamlessly within your Library Management System that we’re practically invisible!

Supporting new and experienced librarians

Saving time for librarians

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted that using time efficiently and having well-organised resources underpin a school librarian’s ability to support their community.

Resourcing can present a particular challenge to primary school librarians when managing their libraries. Robyn Byrne from Traralgon Primary School (Stockdale Road) explains how SCIS helps her overcome these challenges.

‘Unfortunately, many primary school libraries are now managed by a sole education support staff member, with no formal training and in a part-time capacity. My school is no exception, so I have benefited greatly from having a SCIS subscription.’

With standing orders, books received through a rewards program and purchases from local stores and booksellers, the school acquires a substantial number of new books.

‘Cataloguing of the books – with the limited hours the library is staffed and with my hit and miss knowledge of cataloguing – is only possible due to SCIS. It works with our library system, and I would say 99.5% of my requests are matched, ensuring those books are out on the shelves in a timely manner and catalogued in a consistent way,’ says Byrne.

Collection development and professional learning

Joumana Soufan from Lalor North Primary School moved to a position in her school library last year and recently started to explore SCIS. She’s found it helpful for cataloguing but has also enjoyed the collection development tools that SCIS provides.

‘I have been enjoying looking for new apps that maybe useful to use for the library. I recently discovered that the Canva app is free to all school staff, which is a big bonus! I have been busy creating posters and resources for upcoming events. I have also just become aware that there are heaps of free e-books, so I’ll be busy downloading some as soon as I get time.’

In addition to this, Joumana has been enjoying SCIS’s professional learning program.

‘I recently attended the workshop on making the most of SCIS,’ she says. ‘It was a very informative and really enjoyed it.’

SCIS community

SCIS provides school librarians with community through the Connections school library journal and its social media pages. Robyn Byrne has found this particularly beneficial.

‘I work alone in the school library so look forward to Connections, the SCIS publication, to keep me up-to-date with what is happening in other school libraries, get inspiration and information. Connections, the recent SCIS workshop I attended, and my local SLAV branch meetings are a great support network for me.’

Now serving school libraries across Australia and internationally for almost 40 years, SCIS is working hard to continue supporting librarians in a changing world, through quality cataloguing and cultivating a community of practice that helps librarians bring more to their schools. If you wish to know more about how SCIS can help your school library, email help@scisdata.com.

Things to lookout out for when moving to a new Library Management System (LMS)

Though SCIS is not a Library Management System (LMS), we spend most of our days curating and creating the data that is held in them. Thus, we have plenty of advice to offer on how to manage your data when moving it from an old LMS to a new one. Written by SCIS Sytems Coordinator Adam Styles, this article serves as a helpful guide on how to approach moving your data when migrating to a new LMS.

What is an LMS data migration?

A library management system (LMS) data migration is essentially the process of transferring your current core LMS information into a new LMS. This focuses on safely moving your bibliographic records, borrower records, statistical records and other relevant collection data into another platform.

It is important that core information is transferred to a new LMS in an ordered, methodical way to mitigate the chance of data loss.

What data is available to migrate? What should I migrate?

Any current library system will offer both standard and non-standard information that you can export, clean (quality control) and import into your new system. ‘Standard’ in this case implies industry standard data in all library systems, and ‘non-standard’ implies custom information in some but not all library systems.

Data that should be migrated to your new LMS includes:

Bibliographic records (standard):
- This is your collection information in MARC21 (machine readable cataloguing) or another relevant library standard format or other relevant library formats, such as your collection items and associated subject headings.
Borrower records (standard):
- This is your borrower information including borrower history, personal details and related.
Statistical records (standard):
- These are the usage statistics of your bibliographic items. They allow reports to be run on most borrowed and least popular items, trending titles, and more.
System policies, rules, profiles and metadata (standard):
- Lending rules and restrictions for borrower profiles.
- Current bibliographic collections or current staff access profiles (access and restrictions)
Custom metadata not covered above but deemed valuable to keep (non-standard):
- Current reading lists that have been generated by library staff, teaching staff or students
- Collection tags that are used in user search tools to help discover collections
- User collection reviews such as book reviews or comments.

What formats will the data be migrated in? How do I export in these formats?

Bibliographic records formats will be available to migrate in:

MARC21: A standard, machine readable format for bibliographic records in the library industry. This format allows you to transfer current library system bibliographic files into your new library system in a trusted format.
Extensible Markup Language (XML): A human-readable and machine-readable file format (.xml).

Borrower records formats include:

XML: See above description.
Java Script Object Notation (JSON): This is commonly used for transmitting data in web applications and it is a very open universal compatible format.
Comma Separated Values (CSV): A file format that separates information using commas. This is a very open universal compatible format.

If you have any non-standard data (as defined above) to migrate, this can be done using JSON or CSV.

What are the tasks to perform data migration?

Your library team will be responsible for completing the following tasks as part of the data migration.

Export the required data from your current LMS
Clean and quality control the exported data
Import cleaned, quality-controlled data into new system
Evaluate imported data in the new system while you still have access to your previous system
Store backup versions of both the original exported data and the cleaned, quality-controlled in an offline environment
Once all processes are in place, establish a time and date to stop using the old system and start using the new system.

What could my school be responsible for and what part might my new library vendor do for me?

Library vendor

Changing library systems may seem like a complex move, but your library system vendor may be available to give you support as you move to the new system. Your vendor will usually be able to:

Provide support during the export from the existing system and help import data in to the new system.
Provide support in the setup of system policies, rules and profiles.

Your school or team

This will vary greatly depending on the size of your school and your library team. Generally, your school library team will be responsible for:

Identifying data to export from current system
Planning and implementing the data export from your current system in the required formats (this may be your system support officer or IT department)
Cleaning and quality control of exported data offline, ready to hand onto vendor for new system import formats (this maybe a system support officer or local IT department, if your school has these positions on staff)
Backing up the original and cleaned exported data for long-term storage
Reviewing and evaluating the current system data imported into new system, to ensure the information is correct and presented as expected.

Make sure you migrate your SCIS records, don’t re-download them!

A key thing to note is that you shouldn’t re-download SCIS records from our website into your new system. This is because you will have added data to the SCIS records on your old library management system during its lifetime, such as local spine labels (custom call numbers) and a variety of other small but meaningful changes. This data would not be present in freshly downloaded records from our website.

We recommend you export all bibliographic records and subject headings from your current library system and import them into your new library system to help avoid potential data loss.

Can data loss occur during migration?

Data loss is the unintended loss of information from a system or data set. Data loss can occur for many reasons, but is often caused by one of three key factors:

Dirty data: Information that contains incorrect, invalid or duplicated items. For example, bibliographic records that contain error prone fields that might cause an error in a new system.
Forgotten data: In some cases, you might fail to identify a set of information in your current system that you need in your new system. So, it is data you forgot to export from your old system which may no longer be available.
Data format: The format that the data is imported or exported in, which might not carry in to the new system due to compatibility issues of the way the information is fed to the system. This can be trying to import a word doc of data where word docs will not carry in to a system.

How do I mitigate the chances of data loss during migration?

Losing data is a risk during a migration. If data is lost then a new library system may not work as you expect it to.

You can take the following steps to reduce the chances of data loss:

Thoroughly review your existing system to ensure you have captured all of the data you need to carry into your new system. Check with your existing vendor to ensure you’re exporting all the required data.Export data in industry standard formats (vendor may recommend formats otherwise – see above).
Quality control data that will be imported into your new system, by working with your vendor to check which formats are available or required.
Evaluate imported data in your new system while the old system is still available.
Ensure you create offline, long-term back-ups of both your original non-quality-controlled export from old system and the cleaned version of exported data.

How to get help from your library community?

Your library vendor is the best place to seek answers during your migration, as they will be familiar with the specific requirements for important choices such as data format and data quality control.

Further to this, LMS data migrations have been around since the very first library system was invented. There are many articles online that offer tutorials, tips and guides for many different library systems.

Lastly, remember that the SCIS customer service and technical team are here to help. We will do our best to work with you and any new vendor to get your SCIS records into their new home.

You can do it! Be bold, be courageous, ask questions and enjoy a well-deserved tea break every now and then.

Awards help select resources for your school

Finding the best learning resources for your school is a task that requires a complex range of skills and connections with various and specific stakeholders. Teacher librarians have these skills and work hard to pair the right learning materials for their teachers and students.

The Educational Publishing Awards of Australia can be a great way to connect with the latest trends and innovative offerings from Australian publishers, who collectively produce roughly 2000 new titles per year. The Awards, known as the EPAAs (said Eeepars), are built on the principles of education research and innovation, and showcase the titles launched to the education market in the previous year.

An important aspect of the EPAAs, which relies on the participation of teacher librarians, is the Publisher of the Year survey. The survey collects valuable information about publishers’ product quality, field services, company services, marketing and innovation. Data is analysed and the publisher voted as “the best” is celebrated at the Awards ceremony. This information is used to improve the industry for the benefit of teachers and students.

One teacher librarian who has followed the EPAAs for a long time and completes the survey each year is Tasmanian based, Dr Jillian Abell. Dr Abell says she uses the Awards as a way to get a good overview of current new resources.

“The EPAAs are invaluable to teachers in their selection and evaluation of recommended resources,” Abell says. “In addition, as a teacher librarian, I followed the Awards to learn more about reputable trends in educational publishing for each of the disciplines/key learning areas and age-appropriate learning materials. I would purchase as many as I could, and certainly disseminate the information to staff. For example, it is always a trusted way to get an overview of new resourcing, such as peer-reviewed materials to support First Nations.”

Understanding what a teacher librarian does is helpful for Australian publishers. Dr Abell explains, “Teacher librarians develop extensive cross-curriculum knowledge and expertise for the skilful selection and evaluation of resources to be purchased across all educational levels and areas of learning support. They are experienced with identifying reputable and new works of interest through authors’ reviews, editors’ notes and Australian publishers’ blurbs. They understand the market trends, publication costs and quality of the digital or multi-modal resources. They can predict how a resource might be used by teachers and students and the wider school community.”

On the relationships between educators and publishers: “The collaboration and valued connections are well-developed over time through publishers’ generosity in showcasing and invitations to educators to be part of an awards process. After all, this process is an important part of teachers and teacher librarians meeting many of their Australian professional teaching standards (AITSL) and engaging with each other to select and use appropriate resources and participate in professional learning networks,” Dr Abell says.

2020 was certainly a disruptive year for the education sector, but while educational publishers responded to the pandemic by opening up access to resources to transition learning online, new resources were also finalised and made available.

The Educational Publisher Awards of Australia 2021 will showcase these resources from 2020.

The EPAA event will be held on 9 September 2021.

The Publisher of the Year survey, where book prizes are on offer, will open in late May.

Dr Jillian Abell AALIA, FACE, FACEL is President, Network of Educational Associations of Tasmania (NEAT); Director, Australian Professional Teaching Association (APTA); Chair, Tasmania Branch of the Australian College of Educators (ACE).

Find out more about the awards here.

ASLA Australian Teacher Librarian of the Year 2021. Congratulations to Anne Girolami!

Congratulations to Anne Girolami
Learning Leader – Information Services
Mercy College, Coburg, Victoria

The winner of the ASLA Australian Teacher Librarian of the Year 2021 was announced on 13 April 2021 at the ASLA/SLASA National Conference by Kerry Pope, ASLA Vice President and presented by Caroline Hartley, SCIS Manager. The Schools Catalogue Information Service (SCIS) is the proud sponsor of this prestigious Award. This National Award recognises and honours an Australian Teacher Librarian who has made an outstanding contribution to the profession of school librarianship. Through their high level of achievement in professional knowledge, professional practice and professional engagement they have had a positive impact on teaching and learning in their school.

Principals, professional colleagues and members of the school community were encouraged to nominate their Teacher Librarian for this award. This year there were 7 nominations from across Australia for this award. All nominations received were of an extremely high standard.

The ASLA Board and Members congratulate Anne, on this significant achievement and thank her for her outstanding contribution to our profession. Anne’s passion for school libraries and Teacher Librarians has been a driving force in her career and she has devoted many hours to this cause. She has over 30 years of experience as a Teacher Librarian in School Libraries and loves sharing her knowledge and expertise with colleagues.

Anne Girolami

Anne’s work at Mercy College has been exceptional. Anne is a key member of the Curriculum and Pedagogy Team and meets regularly with her School Leaders. She works enthusiastically with the Library Team to deliver services and programs that are at the heart of learning and teaching and that are adhering to best practice in library standards. She continually shares her love of reading and literature with her students. Anne works hard with staff to analyse data and identify student needs. She works closely with teachers and support staff to build their capacity to prepare students for life-long learning. Anne is highly respected and valued by her Principal, the students, staff, parents and members of her school community.

Anne has made a significant contribution to ASLA over many years, as an active and committed member. She has served as an ASLA Board Director, presented at ASLA Conferences, reviewed policies and reported at ASLA Annual General Meetings.

Anne has led a number of joint working parties with ASLA and ALIA, responsible for reviewing and writing National Policies for Teacher Librarians. Anne was Chair of the ASLA Policy and Advisory Project Team (PAPT) to produce Evidence Guides for Teacher Librarians in the areas of Proficient and Highly Accomplished Accreditation to support AITSL’s Professional Standards for Teachers. These documents have proved to be invaluable and are referred to constantly by Teacher Librarians undertaking accreditation today. In 2019 – 2020, Anne chaired the team reviewing and updating Table 6 in the combined ASLA/ALIA publication ‘Learning For The Future’. Recommendations of minimum information services staffing were thoroughly researched and documented.

With Anne’s calm, intelligent and thoughtful leadership approach, these Working Parties progressed diligently and consistently with the task at hand, resulting in the production of current, relevant and outstanding documents for Australian Teacher Librarians.

Anne is to be highly commended for her extraordinary and exemplary work in advocacy. She has been a Fellow of ALIA since 2020 and is a long-term convenor of ALIA Schools, working hard for the promotion and development of school libraries in Australia. She is an active member of the School Library Coalition and the FAIR Great School Libraries Campaign. Anne Girolami is an extremely worthy recipient of this Award for 2021.

Improving education through linked technology

In the latest SCIS Publisher Spotlight, Story Box Library explores innovating reading and learning with stories.

Digital learning is complementing traditional teaching methods with innovations. While classroom time is key in children’s development and learning, platforms like Story Box Library (SBL) bring stories to student’s fingertips.

Designed to be used by educators across a variety of ages and curriculum requirements, Story Box Library’s growing collection of stories and resources bring engaging learning options to any classroom.

Story Box Library’s Education Specialist Jackie Small says, “Story Box Library’s unique format of traditional storytelling presented digitally with the inclusion of support features provides educators with essential multimodal texts that convey meaning through written, spoken, visual, audio and gestural languages.”

“Resources such as SBL are essential because they meet a need for a society that has become increasingly multi-modal.”

Partnering with educators to enhance education

Saving time for educators, subscribing schools can now search SCIS to find stories from the entire Story Box Library (SBL) collection. This means all SBL titles, including storyteller images, can be downloaded and incorporated into school systems.

Along with MARC records and the corresponding ISBN numbers, SBL collections seamlessly integrate into school cataloguing systems. The SBL digital resource is now even easier to access for educators and students in Australia.

In keeping up with technological demand and developments of our changing world, SBL offers a complementary learning opportunity for educators and schools. Enhancing classroom learning and saving teachers time, teachers can engage students in a lifelong love of learning, reading and inspire curiosity, creativity and play.

Stories connect us to the rest of the world. While students discover stories in a safe, online space, their reading and literacy skills improve. Stories help children and young minds not only establish language and literacy skills but also create frameworks of the wider world, their community, friends, family, and their identity.

“Stories are thoughtfully curated based on thematic and literary value,” says Jackie.

“This makes them perfect springboards into a wonderful world of discovery and learning both in English and other key learning areas.’

Innovative classroom tools for all educators

Story Box Library’s additional expert-designed classroom resources help teachers save time in the classroom, assist in class preparation, and align with the Australian Curriculum. Designed to be used alongside story reads, and adapted seamlessly to any educator’s specific needs, SBL’s education resources make learning fun. Built-in features like playlist and search filter functions allow educators to find and save stories according to themes, topics, or their own personalised requirements.

“I like to think of our additional resources as creative seeds for educators,” Jackie says.

“They provide them with diverse and engaging ideas that provide children with opportunities to listen to, view, speak, write, create, reflect and compare texts within our library while also developing other skills such as metacognition, social skills, and critical and creative thinking.”

Based on unique themes, story structures and language features of each story, Classroom Ideas are flexible, adaptable and easily accessible for any Educator’s specific needs. Downloadable PDFs feature practical discussion questions and activity ideas aligned with curriculum areas. Stories also come with Student Task Sheets, which are grouped by themes and designed to be used independently by students. Students are provided with three task options towards meeting achievement standards via downloadable PDFs.

Recently released, SBL’s new Graphic Organisers and Thinking Tools assist students into becoming critical readers, designed to provide opportunities for deeper learning. With more in development, the first release of resources includes a Y-Chart, Character Profile, Story Map, Plot Summary, List Template, T-Chart, Venn Diagram, Menu Planner, Recipe Planner and an Interview Planner.

Connected to a world of stories

With one login, the entire school community of teachers, students and their families access to a world of diverse, high-quality stories. SBL is safe, secure and trusted by educators around the globe, and helps create curious and understanding young minds.

Story Box Library is working with partners like SCIS to inspire young minds, assist educators, and encourage a lifelong love of reading and learning.

For more information on Story Box Library, and to enquire about a school subscription, visit the Story Box Library website.

Story Box Library is a subscription based educational website, created for children to view stories by local authors and illustrators, being read aloud by engaging storytellers. With a world of stories and educational resources, it’s Storytime, Anytime!

www.storyboxlibrary.com.au| @storyboxlibrary | Story Box Library

SCIS Data case study: Kathryn Harris, Pymble Public School, NSW, Australia

‘My job is to help the teachers with their teaching and the children with their learning. I do that in whatever way I can.’

School: Pymble Public School
Type: Primary K-6
Enrolment: 600+
Cataloguing subscription: SCIS Data + Authority Files
Library management system: Oliver Library Software
Size of collection: 18,000

The teacher librarian’s role

Kathryn is the only trained teacher librarian in the school. She has help in the library from another teacher who teaches classes and assists with circulation but does not assist with management tasks. There is also clerical support one day per week.

Kathryn runs the library herself. She buys and manages resources and assists teachers where she can, such as by recording programs to meet curriculum needs. One of her roles is to provide support for classroom teachers to provide specialist information services and teaching programs.

‘I see my job is to help the teachers with their teaching and the children with their learning. I do that in whatever way I can.’

Library collection

Pymble Public School library

As a New South Wales government school, Kathryn’s library uses the Oliver library management system. She says that 15,000 items are standard library resources – books, posters, charts, big books, teacher reference materials. A further 3000 items, such as the computer software, the DVDs and the textbooks are in the school resources section – students can’t see these on the catalogue. Technology items, such as laptops, are not loaned through the library.

Kathryn and the English as an Additional Language or Dialect (EAL/D) teacher worked together to create a collection of books in languages other than English. ‘We’ve got a Community language section which has the non-English books. These are books in some of the languages represented within our school community’.

Everything in the library is catalogued. Kathryn lends nothing that isn’t on the system, although she admits that she sometimes lends her stapler but says, ‘It’s out and back for the day!’

SCIS for over 30 years

Kathryn has been in school libraries for 30 years and has used SCIS in every one. When she first started, SCIS records were on microfiche. Kathryn found the support from SCIS particularly useful as a new teacher librarian. ‘I knew that my books would be in the right place because the books were being catalogued by proper cataloguers.’ Later to automate her small school library Kathryn used Rapid Retrospective, from SCIS, to import the record. ‘We just sent in the ISBNs and SCIS sent us the records. Straight into the computer.’

At another school, Kathryn had dial-up internet in the library. She used to get to school at 7:00 am, Sydney time, while other parts of Australia were still asleep, to do the SCIS orders. ‘SCIS was so much faster at 7:00 in the morning!’ Kathryn managed the process to add extra SCIS subject headings using the Authority File to suit her students. She really enjoyed this work and didn’t regret the early starts!

SCIS hit rate

The hit rate in SCIS Data is normally around 98 per cent, except for items like a Harry Potter book in Chinese, or another of their community languages, that hasn’t necessarily been catalogued. If a record is not available, Kathryn normally checks the following week, but also sometimes sends items in to SCIS to be catalogued.

Kathryn finds the people at SCIS to be incredibly helpful when there are issues. She especially enjoys the conversations she’s had with SCIS cataloguers who share her fascination with the process.

Kathryn says, ‘Our collection is all beautifully arranged, thanks to SCIS. Even if I don’t always agree with all SCIS standards I can easily adapt them for our collection.’

Using the catalogue

Students use the catalogue to find resources in the library. It can be difficult to teach them how to use the catalogue successfully as they only have half an hour library lessons once a week, and that includes borrowing time and a teaching program.

Students who want to spend time searching the catalogue have access at home and the opportunity to come in at lunchtimes or in the morning every day. Students can access curated lists of educationally focused websites via the library catalogue (curated by the Department, using SCIS Data).

The catalogue is a well-used by Pymble Public School students.

A great collection in a small space

Due to its small size the library is used as a dedicated, traditional library space, rather than as a common area for games, puzzles and computer games or other pursuits. It also houses the school computer server (Kathryn is the computer coordinator) and a teaching space. The teaching area includes a SMART Board and a document camera that Kathryn finds particularly useful.

Kathryn is justly proud of her library. ‘We have an absolutely stunning collection.’ There are sections for community languages and graphic novels with fiction and non-fiction areas. The library includes a senior section for years 5 and 6, and a junior fiction section. Sets of readers for history, geography, science and sets of novels, dictionaries and home readers also have their place in the library.

Kathryn has become an expert at managing the space she has to the best effect. She says, ‘Everything is where it is because that’s the only place it can possibly go.’

‘The service and data provided by SCIS allow me to deliver a well-catalogued collection with minimal expenditure of time and effort. SCIS frees me to do the more important work of a teacher librarian – support my staff and students.’

Hooked on NZ Books: a place for young readers to join the critical conversation

Melissa Wastney, Read NZ Te Pou Muramura,
introduces school libraries to Hooked on NZ Books He Ao Ano, an online platform and literary community for readers aged 12-19.

The looks hook people in, but the blurb brings it home (literally, I always leave bookshops with a lot of books.)

This book deserves all of the praise it receives; it is a beautifully told, undeniably raw, and extremely emotional read…

Once I had read this I was able to understand that although New Zealand claims to be diverse and accepting, racism affects our day to day lives, whether you are able to see it or not…

– Quotes from some recent Hooked on Books reviews.

At Read NZ Te Pou Muramura we want to encourage all of us to read more, and at the same time acknowledge the social aspects of literature; how books bring us closer to each other.

In the words of American writer Patricia Hampl, ‘’If nobody talks about books, if they are not discussed or somehow contended with, literature ceases to be a conversation, ceases to be dynamic. Most of all, it ceases to be intimate. Reviewing makes of reading a participant sport, not a spectator sport.’’

Building a community of readers who discuss books, and growing the next generation of critics is what Hooked on NZ Books He Ao Ano is all about.

Established four years ago by Peppercorn Press to complement their print journal NZ Review of Books, Hooked on Books is an online platform and literary community for readers aged 12-19.

Read NZ adopted the programme in 2020 and would love your help to find enthusiastic young readers to review the latest New Zealand books for us.

How does it work?

First, we match readers with new books: mostly novels, but also non-fiction, poetry and essays. Our reviewers live everywhere from Invercargill to Kaitaia.

We ask for the reviews to be emailed back within a month, and the reader gets to keep the book.

Our editor works with the reviewer to edit the piece so it’s the best it can be. This can sometimes involve a week of revisions and emails but is always an encouraging and supportive process.

We publish the final version of the review on the Hooked on NZ Books website, and share it with our wider community. The best review from each month is published on the official Read NZ website.

Read NZ CEO Juliet Blyth says the purpose of Hooked on NZ Books is to grow the audience for home-grown literature, to provide another space for young writers to be published and to nurture the next generation of critical readers in Aotearoa.

“Our reviewers have the opportunity to respond personally and critically to the latest reads while together building an online resource about NZ books and a genuine platform for their voice.

“Anyone can say that they loved or loathed a book, but it’s much harder to say why. Reviewing is important because well-argued reviews can influence what gets published and what gets read,” she says.

We at Read NZ would love your help to identify young readers and writers aged around 13 – 19 to participate.

We welcome enquiries from school librarians and teachers, but we’re also happy to work directly with young readers.

Interested reviewers can sign up on the Hooked on Books website, or contact Read NZ to get involved.

www.hookedonbooks.org.nz
www.read-nz.org

Publisher Spotlight: Ford Street Publishing

Paul Collins is the publisher at Ford Street Publishing, an independent Melbourne publisher. He also runs Creative Net Speakers’ Agency and is the author of over 140 books for children and young adults. In our first Publisher Spotlight for 2021, Paul contemplates over 45 years as a publisher and author.

The publishing and writing industry has changed a lot since I entered it in 1975.

In the early ’80s, I published Australia’s first high adventure fantasy novels from a small office attached to a secondhand bookshop. I even typeset books on a hulking IBM machine that had dials to tell you when to go to the next line. One dial was colour-coded, the other had numerals. If a line ended on, say, yellow and the number 8, I would type y8 at the end of the line. When I’d finished a page of such rows, I’d hit a button, and the page would print out ‘justified’. The tricky part was that the dial might land between yellow and blue. Type a b when it should’ve been a y, and that line would be out of whack.

To save typing out the entire page again – there might be five lines incorrectly spaced – we would type out the lines, cut them out and paste them over the printed page (I tell students that’s where cut and paste comes from). If there were typos – they could be many – we’d type out the word and paste that over the typo. Tricky to get straight, so sometimes we’d type a few words out so the line would be easier to superimpose over the error/s.

I mention the above because today designers with InDesign can do all that for you and it comes out (mostly!) perfect. Back in the ’70s and ’80s, we had to re-type the entire manuscript on a machine like the above. And that was costly. An 80,000-word novel would cost around $1,000 to get typed – a stack of money back then.

So current technology saves both time and money. But it also makes us work faster and harder. In the decades I mentioned (and into the ’90s) I might have received ten letters a week. People used to be careful and say everything they needed to in those letters because it would be two weeks before expecting to receive a reply. It’s just too easy to dash off an email without thinking. My ten letters (that’s a maximum guess) are now 40 emails in a day. If I count all the spam etc., I get two dozen emails before midday. So time is no longer on our side. My modest effort in the decades mentioned was so simple. I’d give the printer the laid-out sheets of text and, voilà!, it would come back as a printed book. I would have the stock delivered to the distributor. I’d send out review copies, and that was it. Nowadays, social media can easily be a job in itself, and all the digital and print-on-demand (POD) platforms would fill another job. Admin and reading email could well give another person a job.

One of the upsides is that the internet is a great leveller. I’ve always been a micro-press. That is a one-person show. Needless to say, I’ve had small distributors that don’t have the market penetration of the bigger distributors. The internet puts Ford Street’s website up against even the biggest publishers’ sites. With their great SEO, major publishers may come first in search engine results, but we’re still there beside them. Brick-and-mortar shops only have limited space on their shelves. Understandably, they’ll take the big-name authors over lesser-known authors. So this means you’ll be lucky to see Ford Street titles in many bookshops – but on the net, you’ll see all of Ford Street’s books and every other micro press’s books. So too, with digital publishing. I see no reason why smaller presses shouldn’t be rubbing shoulders with the major publishers’ digital books when it comes to distribution and display.

It’s funny how people have the perception that if a micro-press publishes a book, it can’t be any good. ‘Hey, if it were good a bigger publisher would’ve published it.’ Right? Wrong. In recent years this micro-press won the Gold INKY award, the Family Therapist’s Award and the big one, the Children’s Book Council of Australia’s Picture Book of the Year award.

Book: I NEED a Parrot BY CHRIS MCKIMMIE — Author and illustrator Chris McKimmie won the 2020 Children’s Book Council of Australia’s Picture Book of the Year award with I NEED a Parrot!

What do I like about being a micro-press?

It means I choose what I publish, and if I find a promising but unpolished manuscript I can choose to work with the author and hopefully turn it into a gem. This kind of editorial nurturing was more common to publishing in the past, but it seems to me that this rarely happens within most large publishing houses now, driven as they are by marketing teams and strong competition to sell ‘units’. A-list authors have to come from somewhere, though. A-list authors rise from B-lists. Knock out the B-list and exactly where the A-listers are supposed to come from?

For me, every author/illustrator is on my A-list.

I do not have to appease a marketing team.

The challenges

Distribution. Publishers who distribute other publishers’ books present their books first. So if a bookseller runs out of time or their budget is gone, lesser-known publishers may not be represented in bookshops.

Competition from high-discount book stores. Major publishers mostly dominate sales to high discount stores. Books sold in places like K-Mart are often sold as loss leaders to draw in customers. Regardless, the more books you print, the cheaper the cost per book. No matter that they’re sold at a 70% discount, big sales are still profitable.

Cashflow. Creatives, printers, designers, editors, scanners are all paid upfront. But from the moment a book goes to all the above, to the moment it brings in money, can be eight months to a year. So if you’re a micro-press publishing 15 books, that’s a lot of money tied up before you can expect recompense.

Lack of staff. A micro-press owner needs to be a jack-of-all trades.

Export (distribution problems).

Inability (time/money) to visit major book fairs: Bologna, London and Frankfurt.

Speaking as an author … what are the challenges?

Low pay. Most authors, like me, have manuscripts lying about that took up to a year to write but have never been published. So that’s no pay for a year’s work. But that’s all part of the gig.

You have no benefits such as sick pay, holiday pay, an employer’s super scheme.

Isolation. COVID-19 has shown that solitary life doesn’t suit everyone.

Contracts. Agents don’t usually send out manuscripts. Some charge 15% commission of their authors’ ELR/PLR/CAL income.

And the benefits?

Self-employed, no travelling to work.

ELR/PLR/CAL/workshops for helpful advice.

Most people don’t realise that authors/illustrators generally make more money from school/library/festival visits than they do from their actual writing. An 80,000-word novel can take up to a year to write. The average advance might be $4,000. Spread that out on an hourly basis, and you’ll see creatives are working on a low wage. But then take into account royalties, PLR/ELR/CAL and presentations in various venues, and it works out pretty well.

Like many authors, my way around financial shortcomings is to have several jobs. It certainly makes my life varied!

– Paul Collins

Image credit
Book cover supplied by Ford Street Publishing.

Stay tuned! We have more great articles aimed at promoting the importance of the published word scheduled for 2021.