What about e-books?

At SCIS workshops a popular topic of discussion is e-books in school libraries. This blog post provides an update on what SCIS is doing about e-books.

What e-books will I find in SCIS?

SCIS catalogues e-books from a number of publishers and vendors. In most cases schools are unable to send e-books to their SCIS cataloguing agency (due to digital rights and access restrictions) so we are reliant on publishers and e-book system providers for the access that allows us to catalogue e-books.

Note that as titles may be available from more than one e-book supplier SCIS is in the process of changing its cataloguing standards to favour provision of provider-neutral e-book records that do not link to a specific supplier.

SCIS regularly catalogues e-books from the following  e-book providers and vendors

Screen shot from SCIS catalogue
Subject search for e-books in the SCIS catalogue

What about free e-books?

SCIS catalogues Project Gutenberg and public domain e-book material on request from schools if they are seen to be relevant to curriculum or literature programs across a range of schools.
Search the SCIS Catalogue for Project Gutenberg e-books [login required].

What if I can’t find an e-book record in SCIS?

We are keen to ensure that the e-book resources schools are acquiring are catalogued promptly.
Contact your SCIS cataloguing agency with details of the resource you have purchased and we will investigate how to access this in order to catalogue it.

Australian Teacher Librarian of the Year 2012

International School Library Day, coordinated by the International Association of School Libraries, is celebrated each October.

Many school libraries in Australia choose the third Monday in October as the day to celebrate what school libraries are about, and to raise awareness of school library services with teaching colleagues and the community.

Alinda Sheerman
The 2012 Australian Teacher Librarian of the Year
Alinda Sheerman

The Australian School Library Association (ASLA) and Pledger Consulting (LinksPlus/Weblinks) announced the winner of the Australian Teacher Librarian of the Year Award this year won by Alinda Sheerman of Broughton Anglican College, Menangle Park, New South Wales. The judges commended her on

“working closely with the College staff in developing curriculum units based on the Guided Inquiry approach, supporting students at all levels in their learning and at all stages of the teaching /learning process. She ensures that the school library is a positive learning environment for all. She provides leadership not only in curriculum but also the promotion of a love of literature and the use of ICTs, and excels at providing collegial support, willingly passing on her skills and knowledge to others.”

SCIS congratulates Alinda Sheerman and all the state and territory nominees who show what a teacher librarian can do to promote learning and teaching.

  • Susan Busch, Bundaberg North State School, Queensland
  • Karen Mutton, Saint David’s Parish School, South Australia
  • Kathy Norton, MacKillop Catholic College. Tasmania

Connections 83

You can now read the latest issue of Connections at the SCIS website.

Highlights of Connections 83

Ebooks and beyond in the school library

Debbie Price-Ewen discusses changes to publishing models presented by e-books, including the possibilities for literacy development and empowerment of writers through self-publishing. She advocates for creation of an Australasian e-content consortium where school libraries collaborate to support creators and users.

The philosophy of creating displays: Part 1

Anita Vanderberge shares her enthusiasm for library displays, considers the philosophy behind them and gives advice on how to create eye-catching and effective library displays.

The philosophy of creating displays

RDA: new cataloguing rules

Resource Description and Access (RDA) is set to replace AACR2 and Renata Beilharz provides an introduction to why the change and how it will impact catalogue searching results.

OZTL_NET: Building a vibrant future for school library conversations

The Australian Teacher Librarian Network assists teacher librarians  to stay up to date with emerging devices, tools, media and virtual environments. Judy O’Connell reveals changes to the OZTL_NET discussion list and a new social media portal for communication between school library staff.

The National Year of Reading heads for its grand finale

The National Year of Reading (NYR) has conducted successful events throughout the year including The Reading Hour. A legacy event in November is to be held in Canberra to celebrate achievements and influence policymakers about reading in Australia.

What to read next?

SCIS subscribes to LibraryThing for Libraries which has a ‘similar books’ display that matches books based on what members own and tag in the social reading platform LibraryThing.

Look at the SCIS Catalogue screen [subscription required] for a popular title such as ‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid’ and wait for the bottom section of the page to load. There you should see a table of Similar books which will give your students (and teachers) a range of options of further titles to check out. There are 8 suggestions in the table for each title, but by clicking on one of the suggestions you can get another 8 suggestions.

There are also reviews available (77 reviews for Diary of a wimpy kid) – many of them written by students.

Note: This content requires a subscription to LibraryThing for Libraries so the similar books and reviews will not download into your library system with the SCIS catalogue record. Use your school’s SCIS login to give students and teachers access to these ideas via SCIS Catalogue searches.

Work with SCIS

Library Services Coordinator

Education Services Australia (ESA) is a national, not-for-profit company owned by all Australian education ministers. The company was established to support the delivery of national priorities in the schools, training and higher education sectors, in particular to advance key education initiatives and to create, publish and market ICT-based solutions, products and services to support learning, teaching and professional development.

Due to an internal promotion, an exciting opportunity exists to join the Publications and Library Services division. As Library Services Coordinator, you will enjoy a varied role and be responsible for providing support and advice to Schools Catalogue Information Service (SCIS) subscribers in Australia, New Zealand and internationally.

The key responsibilities include:

  • Providing high level subscriber email and phone support including basic cataloguing assistance and complex system support
  • Managing subscriber support/troubleshooting queries escalated from the Customer Service team, and provision of associated documentation and training
  • Developing subscriber information sheets and FAQ and Help resources for print and web delivery
  • Producing current and engaging content for SCIS online communication channels including the SCIS website
  • Developing and monitoring audience engagement with SCIS communication channels including social media
  • Developing plans and managing requests for subscriber training
  • Preparing, delivering and reviewing professional learning sessions for school library staff
  • Contributing articles to the SCIS journal Connections and other professional publications of interest to school library staff
  • Liaising with Sales and Marketing team to ensure optimum delivery of information to subscribers and conducting subscriber satisfaction surveys
  • Producing and monitoring SCIS reports

It is expected that the successful candidate will possess a “can do” attitude with a minimum of two years experience as a teacher librarian in a school library setting. You will also possess practical knowledge and experience in a range of school library management tasks, including integrated library systems, basic cataloguing/indexing and technology support roles. Good knowledge of the SCIS user/SCIS Web system as used in school contexts, and proven ability to learn new systems and processes, is required.

In return, you can expect an excellent working environment with friendly colleagues and great conditions, interesting work, and opportunities for continual growth.

Applications by email to recruitment@esa.edu.au

Applications close Monday 17 September 2012

Position Description

Connections 82

You can now read the latest issue of Connections at the SCIS website.

Highlights of Connections 82

Creative Commons and why it should be more commonly understood

Doug Johnson, Director of Media and Technology in the Mankato Schools provides an overview of the Creative Commons licence system, how to use it for one’s own work and its implications for K-12 education. Originally published in Library Media Connection, vol 27 no 6 pp 56–57 May–Jun 2009.

Digitise the Dawn website

The Dawn of a new resource

Donna Benjamin, Executive Director of Creative Contingencies, tells the story of the project which led to the digitisation of the historical magazine The Dawn, and its addition to the National Library of Australia’s Trove online collection of Australian digitised newspapers.

Practical curriculum opportunities and the library catalogue

Barbara Combes, Lecturer School of Information Studies Charles Sturt University makes an argument for using the library catalogue as a teaching and learning tool, specifically as an example of real-world relational database for secondary computing courses.

Teaching global citizenship

Catherine McNicol introduces a new global education website launched in early 2012 which provides educators with a range of resources to develop understanding and integrate a global perspective in the curriculum.

Ready to improve

The Improve online formative assessment tool was developed by Education Services Australia to meet a need in schools for an interactive system that can be used by teachers and students to support improved learning. This article includes information about the content of Improve and how schools can access it.

Top 100 Australian books

Announcement of the list of Australia’s top 100 books. This list was compiled from a school library survey conducted a result of the Educational Lending Right (ELR) 2011–12.
Download file of titles (307 Kb Word document)

New and revised SCIS Subject Headings List

A summary list of recently added or revised SCIS subject headings.

Print complete issue of Connections 82

New release of Schools Online Thesaurus (ScOT)

Education Services Australia has recently announced the release of Schools Online Thesaurus (ScOT) version 6.7.

ScOT, together with agreed standards for digital resources, technical infrastructure, metadata, and rights management, supports Australia’s national operating environment for digital educational resources. The National Digital Learning Resources Network digital resources are free for use in all Australian schools. The resources are made available to teachers through State and Territory portals or via a national shared portal, Scootle. ScOT terms are also used in Schools Cataloguing Information Service (SCIS) records, accessed via most schools in Australia and New Zealand.
Ben Chadwick is new to the ScOT team and has made valuable contributions to recent ScOT data and user features via his work with web-services, data mining and thesaurus editing has contributed to the delivery of a substantial body of work.
For this release, significant steps have been taken in the area of non-English labels, especially the addition of Chinese, Indonesian, Japanese and Korean term translations. Other preliminary work, including development of language and character encoding support, facilitates translations in Arabic, Māori and other languages. A sample concept can be found at http://vocabulary.curriculum.edu.au/scot/976. This work represents a substantial opportunity for ScOT to support users who are learning or who have a background in languages other than English. Online environments can be designed or adapted to take advantage of standardised language encoding and character support.
A number of new features and improvements have been developed in the ScOT website:
  • User generated reports – lists new, modified and deprecated terms
  • Cataloguing tool – quickly identifies hierarchical relationships within a group of terms
  • Linked Data API for querying the ScOT database: SPARQL Endpoint
  • Tips and code examples for developing search tools and managing term changes
  • Revised license and simplified registration process
  • Auto-complete feature for searching ScOT
  • Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0) – range of issues identified and fixed
The associated report can be accessed from the ScOT website releases page http://scot.curriculum.edu.au/releases.asp.
ScOT and other Australian Education Vocabulary projects are published using PoolParty technologies.

Connections 81

You can now read the latest issue of Connections at the SCIS website.

Highlights of Connections 81

QR codes and iPads in the library
Narelle Keen, teacher librarian and chair of the ICT Committee at Pacific Lutheran College, describes their trial incorporating iPads and QR codes into library orientation activities.

Social media and schools as professional learning communities
Kay Cantwell, Education Officer Digital Learning, ResourceLink at Brisbane Catholic Education, presents ideas for using Twitter and other social media in professional learning communities, in collaboration, leadership support and information provision.

Libraries in the cloud
Doug Johnson, Director of Media and Technology in the Mankato Schools, discusses cloud computing and its impact on how schools provide access to resources, computer applications and file storage for staff and students.

Advocating for librarians – as opposed to libraries
This commentary by Stephen Abram outlines how librarians can market their value and skills as an individual professional without being tied to a physical library.

National Year of Reading update
Sue McKerracher reports on the launch of the National Year of Reading 2012.

Print complete issue of Connections 81

Connections 80

You can now read the latest issue of Connections at the SCIS website.

National Year of Reading starts here

Authors Hazel Edwards, William McInnes and Alison Lester at Bialik College
Authors Hazel Edwards, William McInnes and Alison Lester at Bialik College, Hawthorn, Victoria, for the soft launch of the National Year of Reading in September 2011

Sue McKerracher explains why 2012 has been declared the National Year of Reading, and how parents, teachers, students and school libraries can get involved in this initiative to focus attention on reading and showcase the important role that libraries play in the school community.

If you don’t have a PLN

Bev Novak from Mentone Grammar School encourages educators to start developing their Personal Learning Network (PLN) and discover the joy of lifelong learning – learning anything, anytime, anywhere with anybody they choose.

Australian School Library Association Citation Award
An interview with Pru Mitchell following presentation of the Australian School Library Association (ASLA) citation award in October 2011. Pru discusses the citation and the role and impact of professional associations.

Professional development of library technicians
Kerrie Kelly and Kim Wilson outline the 2012 professional development and networking activities planned by the ALIA Victorian Library Technicians Committee.

The 2011 Horizon Report for schools
The Horizon Report profiles key emerging technologies for education providing estimates of timelines for adoption/implementation.

Print complete issue of Connections 80

Connections feedback survey now live

Please take a few minutes to provide SCIS with feedback on the Connections newsletter.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/HMNS3GX

Which subject search?

The new SCIS Catalogue provides a number of ways to search by subject. To choose the most useful subject search option for your purpose, first consider whether you are looking for:

  1. a SCIS Subject Heading or ScOT term to apply to a catalogue record, or
  2. resources on a particular subject.

1. TO FIND A SUBJECT HEADING

Subject tab returns term anywhere in subject

Subject tab search

Selecting the subject tab before entering a search term provides the most comprehensive option for a subject heading search, looking for the subject term anywhere in subject, and returning any matching SCIS Subject Headings and ScOT terms in an alphabetical list.

The number of related titles, and details of any broader and narrower terms are provided below the subject heading.
While the default display is set to a list of 20 subject terms per page, this number can be changed to 10, 25 or 50 records per page prior to searching.

Subject browse returns term at the start of a subject

Basic search: Subject browse

The Subject browse drop down option within Basic search returns an alphabetical list of SCIS Subject Headings and ScOT terms that start with this term and also provides a count of titles and details of references.

This is helpful for finding the most appropriate subdivision of a SCIS Subject Heading.

2. TO FIND RESOURCES ON A SUBJECT
Note: these search options will provide a list of records, not a list of subject headings.

Basic search: Subject returns records with the term anywhere in subject

Basic search: Subject

Subject search within basic search looks for the search term anywhere in any subject heading and returns the records that meet that criteria.

Results are sorted alphabetically by title, but can be changed to a sort by publication date or author using the drop down options at the top right of the search results.

To find the subject heading used for a particular title, click on the title to display the full record and view the subjects. Click through from the full record to investigate that subject heading further.

Advanced search

Advanced search is accessed from the top right hand banner menu of the SCIS Catalogue, and provides the option to combine a subject search with other search parameters. Advanced search will return a list of records, sorted alphabetically by title.

Advanced search by subject and GMD







Screenshots of SCIS Catalogue courtesy of Ex Libris Voyager system