Where SCIS becomes much more … muchier

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.

Continue reading Where SCIS becomes much more … muchier

Highlights of Connections 101

Here are the highlights from Connections issue 101, which is now available online. To download a PDF of the latest issue, please select this link.

Leadership is not optional – it’s a job requirement
In order to promote libraries as indispensable to the education community, the school library industry needs more leaders. Hilda Weisburg looks at how to step out of your comfort zone and into the leadership role.

Librarians in the digital age: experts in e-health
Susan Marshall explains how the school librarian’s role is central in developing students’ digital literacy and e-health, and introduces a free website to support online safety.

What do our students really want?
Megan Stuart, teacher librarian at Canterbury College, surveyed her students to discover what drew them into their resource centre — and what it could do to draw them in more.

Ebooks: to subscribe, or not to subscribe?
Teacher librarian at Singleton High School, Martin Gray, weighs the arguments for and against ebooks in schools.

Navigating the information landscape through collaboration
Elizabeth Hutchinson, Head of Schools’ Library Service in Guernsey, writes that information literacy is at the centre of student learning, making the role of library staff as important as ever.

Library catalogues and the World Wide Web: it takes two to tango
Nicole Richardson explores the way library catalogues engage with the World Wide Web to create a rich, interactive search experience.

Continue reading Highlights of Connections 101

Fare thee well, GMD

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.

Continue reading Fare thee well, GMD

Highlights of Connections 100

Connections

Here are the highlights from the 100th issue of Connections, which is now available online. To download a PDF of the latest issue, please select this link.

Looking back: school library catalogues and the online revolution
Ex-SCIS manager Lance Deveson looks back on teacher librarianship over the past 40 years, including the introduction of automated cataloguing and the early days of SCIS and Connections.

Leigh Hobbs on school libraries and storytelling
SCIS speaks to Australian Children’s Laureate Leigh Hobbs about his experiences in school libraries, children’s literature, storytelling, and creating characters.

Collector, curator or collaborator?
Jennie Bales, adjunct lecturer at Charles Sturt University, celebrates the collaborative ethos inherent in school library professionals.

Guerilla book fair: getting staff involved in your school library
UK-based school librarian Lucas Maxwell recommends ways to encourage teachers to make use of school libraries.

The future role of the teacher librarian
As the scope of information and technology continues to expand, Dr James Herring considers what impact this will have on the role of teacher librarians.

Let’s talk seriously about series
SCIS cataloguer Julie Styles explains the challenges of cataloguing items within series.

We welcome any feedback you have about this issue, or any ideas you have for future Connections articles. Please email connections@esa.edu.au.

Happy reading!

What’s happening in your school library?

Connections

We recently mailed out Connections 97 to schools in Australia. In this issue, we included an article by Chris Harte about St Aidan’s Anglican Girls’ School which has received great feedback. The article showcases the wonderful things librarians Jackie and Megan are doing in their makerspace, and provides tips for people eager to follow in their footsteps.

Following the interest in this article, we’re reaching out to all of you to see if you are doing exciting and innovative things in your library that you would be willing to share with our readers. This will be a great way to share what’s happening in Australian and New Zealand school libraries and inspire others.

If you have a story to share that may be of benefit to the wider school library community – whether it’s organising your library’s collections in an exciting way, doing innovative things to engage students with their learning, or doing interesting things to promote literacy, STEM subjects, or your library itself – we’d love to hear about it.

Please don’t hesitate to send us an email at connections@esa.edu.au if you’re interested in writing an article for Connections.

SCIS cataloguing standards update: Dewey or don’t we?

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 are interested in learning more about how you manage resources so that our standards continue to reflect schools’ needs

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.

Highlights of Connections 94

Here are the highlights from the latest issue of Connections, which is now available online.

Story Dogs
© 2015 Story Dogs

Lending an ear for literacy
Leah Sheldon and Janine Sigley share how their not-for-profit organisation, Story Dogs, uses Dog Teams to engage students struggling with literacy in Australian schools.

Addressing reconciliation in a school setting
Teacher librarian Jan Poona examines reconciliation and how she has been able to address this in the library. She also includes an excerpt from a chapter she wrote for Reconciliation and Australian Social Work (Magpie Goose Publishing, 2015) titled ‘Teacher librarians, SCIS, and reconciliation’.

Promoting literature to students
Based in New Zealand as a literacy consultant, Bob Docherty offers his knowledge and passion for children’s literature to promote reading and literacy in schools.

Technology
Image credit: Chelsea Wright

Engaging students with new and emerging technologies
Chelsea Wright, Library and Learning Resources Leader at Salesian College Rupertswood VIC, discusses how a library-run Tech and Gaming Club can benefit students and schools, as well as achieve top-level library objectives. She also outlines a number of suggested activities.

From the desk of a cataloguer
SCIS cataloguer Julie Styles reviews some cataloguing decisions made by SCIS, and presents some of the issues librarians face when downloading records from other catalogues and using them to supplement SCIS records.

Highlights of Connections 93

Here are the highlights from the latest issue of Connections, which is now available online.

Cybersmart Detectives in the Principal's Office (c) Commonwealth of Australia
© Commonwealth of Australia

Cybersmart Digital Citizenship
Kellie Britnell, Senior Education Advisor for the Cybersmart Outreach program–a national cybersafety and cybersecurity education program managed by the Australian Communications and Media Authority–looks at how the program can be used by children, young people, parents, teachers, and library staff to understand the rights and responsibilities of a Cybersmart citizen.


The end of an era
Michelle Harvey, Content, Marketing & Projects Coordinator at Education Services Australia, presents the history and highlights of Curriculum Press in the lead up to its closure on 30 June 2015.

Reading like a girl
Bec Kavanagh, Coordinator for the Stella Prize Schools Program, looks at the unconscious gender bias present in the literary world, and how the Stella Prize Schools Program is trying to combat this.

Cheryl shows the teachers the new library. Image courtesy of Cheryl Lopez & Amanda Huxtable
Image courtesy of Cheryl Lopez & Amanda Huxtable

An African library journey
Teacher librarian Cheryl Lopez recently spent a month at The School of St Yared in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Students at the school come from the poorest of homes and their education is sponsored, mainly by Australians. Here she discusses her experience working with staff and students to set up the school library.

Positive promotion of the school library
Australia’s favourite librarian (as voted in a competition run by ALIA) Jae Rolt talks passionately about the innovative ways she uses to promote the library at Cessnock West Public School and get children excited about reading.

ABC Splash website. © Australian Broadcasting Company & Education Services Australia Ltd
© Australian Broadcasting Company & Education Services Australia Ltd

Get the best out of ABC Splash
Leanne Robertson, Senior Manager at Education Services Australia, presents the latest free resources produced by ABC Splash (www.splash.abc.net.au)–a partnership between Education Services Australia and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Supporting Australian book creators
Laura Armstrong, Communications & Projects Coordinator for SCIS, answers some frequently asked questions about the Educational Lending Right school library survey.

Highlights of Connections 92

Copyright for educators
Jessica Smith, National Copyright Officer for the National Copyright Unit.  Here she advises on copyright issues and copyright licences for the Education sector and provides smart copying tips for teachers and librarians

Open Education Resources available from CSIRO Science Image
Open Education
Resources available from CSIRO

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Explore AustLit; explore our storytelling heritage
Dr Catriona Mills, senior researcher for AustLit looks at how the study of Australian literature can be integrated into the curriculum and the classroom by exploring AustLit the most comprehensive source of information on Australian stories.

The fourth age of libraries
Sean McMullen a Science Fiction writer and PhD in medieval fantasy literature wonders  if libraries will still exist in twenty years after having got this far.

Teaching Australian Cinema with Rabbit-Proof Fence
Dr Stephen Gaunson Lecturer in Cinema Studies and Crative writing at RMIT Unitversity looks at how to engage with students beyond the political content of the films, they are studying looking at Rabbit-proof fence.

Rabbit Proof Fence Road
Rabbit Proof Fence Road

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Down the library path

Three Teacher librarians from the Hunter region report on the planning to create an Information Skills Strategy and programme guide for the region based on the NSW DET Information Skills Process.

Highlights of Connections 91

The latest issue of the SCIS newsletter Connections has been distributed to all Australian schools, and is also now available online. Here are some of the highlights.

Purple Heart by Andrew Fiu
Purple Heart by Andrew Fiu

To inspire or to instruct: Andrew Fiu motivational speaker and author of Purple Heart, argues that students have to be inspired to want to learn and that libraries can be the creative heart of a school

Taking the guesswork out of genre: Brendan Eichholzer looks at different ways of shelving fiction and genre in school libraries, demonstrating how SCIS works to create an accessible library catalogue where every physical item has a distinct and logical place.

Graphic novels: providing a different perspective: Karen Gray a primary Teacher Librarian looks at how graphic novels can be used across the curriculum and how the TL must advocate their value via sound professional knowledge of literacy and literature.

Historical fiction in the classroom: reflecting on Our Australian Girl and Do you dare?: Publisher Jane Godwin looks at the role of historical fiction, what makes it compelling and its role in explaining to young readers the complexities of a situation in the teaching of history.

A world of online distraction: Resource Centre Manager Natasha Georgiou looks at student attentions spans, and the growing evidence that the way we use technology is affecting the way we think and act.

In SCIS is more our Manager Ben Chadwick introduces himself and farewells Pru Mitchell