SCIS – Page 21 – News, updates and issues in school libraries

Enhanced catalogue content trial

SCIS is trialling additional enhanced content in its online catalogue, including summaries, reviews and other content from Syndetics and LibraryThing for Libraries.

Step through our guided feedback survey
We are very interested in your feedback to help us decide on the most appropriate new content to display in SCIS OPAC.

You are welcome to explore the trial database

Notes
The trial catalogue contains a small subset of records from the SCIS database so you will not find a wide range of titles.
Enhanced content in SCIS OPAC is a display feature only and will not be downloaded with SCIS records.

New in SCIS series

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.
———————————————————————–

Thangmar Göttingen, SUB Library, Lesesaal, old bibliographies, Public domain — Gottingen, Old bibliographies by Thangmar 2005, PD

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.

——————————————————————————

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.

Why authority files?

What are authority files?

Authority files list the Preferred Term for each concept in a Controlled Vocabulary. In practice, they also may contain variant terms.
A Variant Term may be a synonym, an abbreviation, an acronym, a misspelled version of the Preferred Term, or any other term that a researcher or Search Engine might like to use to find the concept.

‘Authority file’ n.d., Taxonomy Glossary, Taxotips

What benefit are SCIS authority files?

In the case of SCIS authority files, the cross-references that establish relationships between subject terms provide additional functionality to catalogue searching. It would be an extremely time consuming process to enter references manually into your library catalogue each time you use a new subject heading, whereas SCIS authority files do this work automatically to:

enhance subject searching by students and staff
improve retrieval rates of the most appropriate resources
increase usage of resources
provide a cost-effective library solution

How do authority files enhance resource discovery?

As a controlled vocabulary specifically for print and digital educational resources, SCIS Authority Files provide enhanced subject retrieval for school catalogues.
For example, a student searches for ‘dieting’ in your library system. Without SCIS Authority Files the student will not locate all the resources. With SCIS Authority Files the student will locate more relevant resources because SCIS maps their subject searches to related subjects.

Susan Marshall from Chilton Saint James School says

What I like most about SCIS Authority Files is that even if our users enter a non-preferred search term they will be taken to the available resources for the preferred term.“See also” references are also provided to suggest alternative subjects to search.

What does it cost?

Government schools in ACT, NSW, SA and WA are provided with SCIS Authority Files by their school system.
For other Australian schools the 2011 cost is AU$85.00 and for international subscribers AU$77.00.

Complete the SCIS authority file order form

School Library Advocacy YSL6

Evidence & Image is the focus of the Your School Library conference being held online from 4 – 18 March 2011.

An impressive array of international guests will provide presentations on the theme of school library advocacy and help school library staff develop strategies to explain the value of the library to administrators, colleagues and parents.

School libraries are not a luxury item – they are essential to learning. But getting that message out is a challenge.

Presenters and participants will share success stories from around the world
Gary Hartzell – Stephen Krashen – Keith Curry Lance – Carolyn Foote – Tricia Adams – Jerry Hurst – Maureen Twomey – Georgia Phillips – Sharon Bird, MP – Lisa Perez – Buffy Hamilton – Sarah Pavey
Further details are available in the YSL6 flyer (pdf, 597kb)

Once registered you will receive a login to the Sosius online forum where each day a new presentation is loaded, and email discussion gets underway. The online forum allows you to work entirely at times that suit you, but to get maximum value from the conference many find it important to negotiate at least one professional development or work from home session during this time.
The tag for the conference is #ysl6

PD Planning 2011

Last Friday the Australian National Professional Standards for Teachers were released with some strong statements about professional engagement and professional learning.

Standard 6 – Engage in professional learning
Standard 7 – Engage professionally with colleagues, parents/carers and the community

The timing of the standards publication is apt, as school library professional associations and other professional learning providers in Australian and New Zealand are getting started on their professional learning calendars for the year. Here are some of the upcoming highlights which SCIS is involved in.

SCIS Seminar, ACT, Friday 18 February 2011

SCIS is running its first ‘Making the Most of SCIS’ training seminar for 2011 at the Centre for Teaching and Learning in Canberra, on Friday 18 February.

This training will highlight how SCIS cataloguing services can assist staff to provide a more effective library service to their school community. Learn how you can customise your SCIS profile to optimise your use of SCIS. Make the most of book cover images, catalogue records for TLF learning objects, Clickview files, educational websites and e-books. Find out how to use SCIS Authority Files to save you time and enhance your library catalogue.

It’s not too late to register your interest at: www.surveymonkey.com/SCISACT

ASLA ACT AGM and PD Day, Canberra Grammar School, Saturday 19 February 2011

Pru Mitchell, SCIS Subscriber Coordinator will be presenting a session on ‘Rethinking the OPAC’ at the ASLA ACT conference on Saturday 19 February at Canberra Grammar School, Red Hill. The programme includes:

Lyn Hay, Charles Sturt University: The Future of School Library: A State of Emergency?
Delia Browne, Copyright Advisory Group: Copyright Issues for Educators in the Digital World
Sue Martin, Burgmann Anglican College: Glogster workshops
Paul MacDonald, Beecroft Childrens Bookshop: The Place of the Book in the E-Book Age

AISWA Resource discovery and the OPAC, Scotch College WA, Wednesday 23 February 2011

This workshop is being offered through the Association of Independent Schools of WA (AISWA) on Wednesday 23 February at 4.00pm, Bunning Resource Centre, Scotch College Swanbourne.
Register at: www.aiswalibraries.org.au

Planning your PD for 2011

The edna Library events calendar lists further opportunities for school library staff planning their professional learning and professional engagement for the year.

Happy Library Lovers Day!

Connections 76

You can now read the latest issue of Connections online. Copies have been mailed to all Australian schools. There are articles of interest for everyone involved in school library activities.

An introduction to the Australian Curriculum

Dr Grette Toner outlines the structure, implications and opportunities for teacher librarians of the Australian Curriculum. As well as new content, the curriculum will involve new skills and new tools.

Harnessing the e-book juggernaut

Kerrie Smith traces the rise in interest and use of e-readers in Australia during 2010 and discusses the issues facing school libraries considering adoption of e-book technology. She explains what is currently available and lists criteria for consideration before purchasing a device.

The KnowledgeBank: Next Generation Project

Katrina Reynen describes a Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development digital teaching and learning resources project. FUSE (Find Use Share Education) is a portal of 30,000 pieces of content from a number of partners. She outlines policy challenges addressed, as well as research undertaken into patterns of student use of FUSE.

School library blog value

Emily Pyers points out how a blog can be used as an effective tool to communicate the library’s activities and the value of its resources to staff, students and parents.

From little things big things grow

The fourth instalment of Nigel Paull’s account of a new BER library looks at the challenges for users during operations from a temporary library.

Print complete issue of Connections 76, term 1 2011

Eventful 2011

With people around the world, our thoughts at this time are with all those affected by devastating floods. We are waiting anxiously to see how schools, libraries and infrastructure have been disrupted and how as a community we can help in the aftermath. This is not the beginning to 2011 that anyone expected when they closed their doors at the end of the school year.

Flooding doesn't concern wheelie bins Flooding by Kingbob86 CC-by

Events such as this and the 2010 Canterbury earthquake in New Zealand have certainly shown the impact of online social media and crowdsourced, citizen journalism. It has been impressive to witness the community in action through twitter, facebook, flickr, YouTube and mapping tools.

The Wikipedia article on the 2011 Queensland floods is one resource ready for teachers addressing this issue with classes in a few weeks. Starting on 29 December 2010 Wikipedians have maintained updated summaries of the extent of the floods across each river basin, described the response effort and referenced over 80 sources. Viewing the history and discussion associated with development of this article provides a highly relevant starting point for an information literacy activity.

It is amazing to realise that on Saturday 15 January 2011 Wikipedia will turn 10.

Celebrations of the relatively short history of this project are planned for many places around the world, and people are sharing their stories of what being involved with Wikipedia has meant to them.
Wikipedia Timeline
Our stories: Wikipedia10

Wikipedia10 by JayWalsh CC-by-sa-3.0

2011 Calendar

Planning library displays or theme-based units for 2011?

To find events to celebrate or commemorate in 2011, check out the 2011 Australian Schools Calendar of special events available from Education Network Australia (edna).

The calendar lists events and celebration days with each date linked to event information, useful for planning library displays, school theme-based events, blog posts and online celebrations.

2011 is …

International Year of Chemistry
International Year of Forests
International Year for People of African Descent
International Year of Youth
World Veterinary Year
Year of the Bat
Year of the Solar System

Print your calendar

This year’s downloadable calendar was designed by Alice Fraser of La Trobe University, Bendigo. Alice took the UN International Year of Forests as the theme. Print each month and display the calendar in your school’s library, staffroom and classrooms.

Download complete 2011 calendar in pdf format

Online calendar

From the regularly updated online version of the calendar you can download events, school term dates and public holidays into your calendar software.

Click the calendar icon in the right hand column of the online calendar to download events one-by-one

Subscribe to be notified of new events as they are added to the Australian Schools calendar during the year.
Suggest an event to be added to the calendar.

2010 in stats

As we finish the 2010 school year in Australia and New Zealand, and with many libraries completing a stocktake, there may be some interest in statistics for annual reports.

SCIS has a feature in MyProfile that quickly counts the total records that a user has processed during the year.

Take a guess at how many catalogue records you think you have downloaded – then check out your library’s total.

Go to the SCIS website
Click on My SCISWeb to login in
Go to MyProfile on the banner

From the main tab, click on
Records ordered this year: check here (may take a few moments to calculate)

————————————————————-

SCIS Vital Statistics

So how has SCIS itself gone this year?

Thanks to our wonderful team of cataloguers, a total of 48,766 resources has been catalogued in 2010 (to 9 Dec)

7,866,341 catalogue records have been processed by SCIS users in 2010 (to 9 Dec) – an average of 151,276 records per week.
What a wealth of resources and literature supporting learning that represents through school libraries!

Would you care to celebrate and share some statistics from your school library’s activities in 2010?

ELR supports Australian book creators. Will you?

The Educational Lending Right (ELR) 2010-11 School Library Survey was commenced in the first weeks of term 4 with 600 Australian schools invited to participate.

Participation involves running a small software program or performing an ordinary back up, depending on the library management system. Feedback from schools indicates that participation is quick and easy, taking only minutes to do. From the results we are able to create a book count of titles held in the schools. The Australian Government uses this data to calculate payments to Australian book creators.

Australian book creators highly value the income they receive from this important cultural program.

If you have been invited to participate and have not done so yet, please respond as soon as possible. We have received less than half the required number of responses to make the data statistically viable.
More information is available from ELR 2010-11 or telephone 1800 337 405 (outside Melbourne); 03 9207 9600 or email elr@esa.edu.au.

ELR – Encouraging the growth of Australian writing and publishing

SCIS Vital Statistics

Subscribe By Email