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.

Two children reading happily

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

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

Pile of books

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

Hooked on NZ Books logo

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. 

SCIS celebrates the joy of reading with Australia Reads

SCIS READS

Louise Sherwin-Stark, CEO of Hachette Australia and the Chair of the Australian Reads Committee, invites Australians of all ages and from all walks of life to share and celebrate the joys of reading. And together we say a big thank you to Australia Reads authors Danielle Binks, Jacqueline Harvey, and Virginia Trioli for their amazing support of the school library community!

#AustraliaReadsAtHome

There’s no denying that this year has been a challenging one. But, despite the hardships, it is encouraging to discover that reading has been a source of escapism, entertainment and comfort for many Australians during this time. 

A July 2020 report into the impacts of COVID 19 showed that:

  • 20% of Australians say they are reading more books due to lockdowns.
  • Gen Z are reading more books than pre-COVID and their reading has increased more than older generations.
  • This increased engagement with reading has been fairly steady since March.
  • In terms of reading more on a permanent basis post COVID, 12% of Australian say they will. Interesting, as the waves of isolation continue, the habit forming is increasing.

Rediscovering books and reading is what Australia Reads is all about. Its an important campaign supported by the whole book industry, running from the 1st to the 12th November. Our aim is to encourage all Australians to pick up a book and enjoy the benefits of reading.

Australia Reads logo

This year we are excited to be hosting three virtual events that will highlight the need to stop and read on Thursday 12th November for Australian Reading Hour

Ambassadors Peter Helliar, Dervla McTiernan and Will Kostakis will join a stellar line up of amazing Australian authors who are contributing to an incredible three programs for kids, teens and adults each of which you will all be able to screen directly into your classroom or library. 

The three programs and their scheduled times are:

Australia Reads Kids – Sydney Opera House Stream

Monday 9th November – 10.30am AEDT

Featuring: Ursula Dubosarsky, Andy Griffiths, Bluey, Sami Bayly, Anna Fienberg, Osher Gunsberg, Peter Helliar, Jacqueline Harvey, Beck Fiener and more.

One lucky school will also have the chance to win a prize pack of special edition Australia Reads books!

To register for the program, head to the Sydney Opera House Digital Events pages HERE. This program is available free of charge to all Australian schools.

Australia Reads Teens – Sydney Opera House Stream

Monday 9th November – 12.30pm AEDT

Featuring: Will Kostakis, Rawah Arja, Cath Moore, Amie Kaufman, Danielle Binks, Garth Nix, Alex Dyson, Lisa Fuller and more.

Each author will give students an insight into their writing process, character development and how reading encourages emphathy and increases connection.

One lucky school will also have the chance to win a prize pack of special edition Australia Reads books!

To register for the program, head to the Sydney Opera House Digital Events pages HERE. This program is available free of charge to all Australian schools.

Australia Reads Main Event – YouTube Live Premiere Event

Wednesday 11th November – 12.30pm AEDT 

Featuring: Judy Nunn, Peter Fitzsimons, Peter Helliar, Michael Robotham, Dervla McTiernan, Tanya Plibersek, Andy Griffiths, Nikki Gemmell, Anita Heiss, Kevin Sheedy, Virginia Trioli and more.

To watch the Main Event broadcast simply log on to the Australia Reads YouTube Channel HERE, subscribe and click on the bell to set a reminder for the program.

Of course, school library staff understand that books – in whatever shape, size, or form – are a great way to unwind, to learn new things, discover new stories, and feel all kinds of emotions. Please take the time to watch this incredible video of Australia Reads authors Danielle Binks, Jacqueline Harvey, and Virginia Trioli celebrating the value of school libraries!

WATCH: Australia Reads 2020. The importance of libraries.

Author Jacqueline Harvey speaking about Australia Reads 2020

Join us and unwind, get inspired and find joy in books! From islands, blue shores, bushland to red heart – Australia Reads.

Louise Sherwin-Stark
CEO of Hachette Australia and the Chair of the Australian Reads Committee

australiareads.org.au

Genre Headings

It is SCIS policy to assign genre headings to works of fiction, including fictional films, television programs, etc. In some cases more than one genre heading may be assigned, as well as subject headings from a theme. Obviously not all SCIS records will contain a genre heading.

The ‘Guidelines to Using SCIS Subject Headings’ contains a comprehensive list of all the fiction genre headings used by SCIS  (see section 5.7).

To see which records in your library contain any of the above headings, you can do a subject search within your library system. Similarly, if you want to see which records on the SCIS database have been given genre headings, you can login to SCIS OPAC:

Go to Advanced options http://opac.scis.curriculum.edu.au/vwebv/searchAdvanced.

  1. In the ‘Search’ box type in the genre heading, for example ‘school stories.’
  2. Select ‘as a phrase’ from the drop down menu.
  3. Select ‘subject’ from the second drop down menu.
  4. Once you retrieve your results, you can then select ‘Publication (most recent first)’ from the ‘Sort by’ drop down menu.

Taking the guesswork out of genre by Brendan Eichholzer, from the latest issue of Connections, explores the issues of shelving by genre. He argues that ‘Knowing where each book lives is a key component of the job description.’

If you are thinking of genre-fying the library there are some excellent posts from colleagues outlining the processes they have gone through – here are two of them:

Genre-fying the Library! (3)

Genre Shelving In Progress.

genre

 

Enhanced content in SCIS catalogue

The SCIS Catalogue is a valuable starting point for school staff looking to identify books, digital resources and websites to support the curriculum, and subscribers are encouraged to use it as a selection aid for locating resources that are required for a particular purpose in a school. While providing catalogue records is core business, SCIS recognises the value of enhancing the catalogue record where possible with any information that may help school staff discover and review resources of interest.

In July 2011 SCIS added enhanced content services from Syndetics Solutions and LibraryThing for Libraries to the SCIS Catalogue, via a subscription with Thorpe-Bowker. The bibliographic records in SCIS OPAC are enhanced to display additional detail about resources, including plot summaries, author notes, awards and reviews. This content is delivered to SCIS by linked data based on ISBN.

Consider the subject headings and notes if using SCIS Catalogue as a selection tool
Figure 1: If using SCIS Catalogue as a selection tool, consider using the Subject Headings and notes

The SCIS Catalogue bibliographic record display provides a link to Google Books. The Google books link/s (if any) will appear at the bottom of the display.
There are three possible links:

  • Entire book is viewable
  • A portion of the book is viewable
  • “About This Book” information is available.

These links will enrich search results with lists of relevant books, journal articles, web page citations and links to related works and full text when available.

Google Books link in SCIS Catalogue record
Figure 2: Google Books link in SCIS Catalogue record

 

Social bookmarks links in SCIS Catalogue
Individual records from SCIS Catalogue can be saved directly to selected social media services as bookmarks. The persistent website address (URL) for these records will be in the format http://opac.scis.curriculum.edu.au/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=1411770 where the bibID is the SCIS number for that record.
Note that you will need a subscription to the social bookmarking service you wish to use, and anyone accessing these SCIS records from your bookmarking service will need to be a SCIS subscriber.
The social bookmarking services currently supported include delicious.com, diigo.com, facebook.com, google.com and StumbleUpon.com.

Social bookmarks links in SCIS Catalogue full record screen
Figure 3. Social bookmarks links in SCIS Catalogue full record screen

 

Images linked to Google Books are not available for download from SCIS. The book cover image from Thorpe Bowker located within the catalogue data (if available) can be downloaded into your library management system from our orders page or via your system’s z39.50 connection. Subscriber schools may also display the images on the school website including blogs, wikis, online newsletters and the school intranet.

Syndetics content in SCIS Catalogue
Through the subscription service Syndetics, SCIS offers additional descriptive and evaluative information where available including:

  • summaries and annotations
  • fiction and biography profiles
  • summaries and annotations
  • fiction and biography profiles
  • author notes
  • awards
  • books in a series

Syndetics reviews
Syndetics delivers edited reviews from authoritative reviewing sources including:

  • Bookseller & Publisher reviews
  • New York Times reviews
  • School Library Journal reviews
  • Publishers Weekly reviews
  • The Horn Book reviews
  • Kirkus reviews

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.

Feathers for Phoebe

‘We find stuff’ for Australian Library and Information Week, 23-29 May 2011

The aim of LIW is to raise the profile of libraries and information service professionals in Australia, so check out the myriad of ideas on the ALIA website and take time this week to tell your teachers, students, parents and community what school libraries do!

We catalogue stuff!
We look up stuff!
We research stuff!
We know stuff!

National Simultaneous Storytime

NSS 2011 logo
National Simultaneous Storytime, 11am Wed 25 May

NSS is one of the highlights of the week for school libraries.

At 11am on Wednesday 25 May 2011 everyone stops to read Rod Clement’s colourful, creative story Feathers for Phoebe [SCIS No 1487992].

Register your storytime to join in the fun and add your site to the national map.

Phoebe at Marryatville PS
Marryatville Primary School's Phoebe (created by Tsam)

e-book versions
PowerPoint, PDF and podcast versions of Feathers for Phoebe plus interactive whiteboard activities are available to registered participating sites.

Teacher’s notes
Christine Sarandis provides links to author information, reviews and activities to use this week.

Blog posts with more ideas
Auburn North Primary School
Book Chook
Book Crowd
Ian McLean
Kids Book Review

Read and enjoy!