Choosing the Right OPAC

In an ideal situation, we as Library Media Specialists would be able to sift through the many OPACs available to libraries and regardless of cost, choose the right one for the individual school. With budget cuts and lack of funding, schools need to choose wisely and sometimes adapt to the OPAC that is available for their use. My school uses InfoCentre, and this was the OPAC in place when I came to the school four years ago.Are there better, more advanced ones for our school? Certainly. Is there a chance that we may change to another with more advanced features that will move our students forward into the 21st-Century? Realistically, I would have to say no. Our district, like many others in Massachusetts are experiencing major budget cuts in all areas. The likelihood of changing over to any new technology at the present time is slim.Until that changes, we as LMS need to utilize our present OPAC to the absolute best of our and its abilities for the benefit of our learners. It is our responsibility to our students to know the system we are using and all of its features. Then we need to ensure that our students know how to use the system to get the most information to help them access the resources they are searching for. Working together, students and LMS, to get the most out of the OPAC can compensate at least in part for the lack of an updated version or a new more advanced one.

Interviewing LMS on Library Automation Systems

One thing that all school libraries have in common is their need for a library automation system. Not only useful as an organizational tool for librarians and a “Table of Contents” for patrons searching for informational and recreational materials, a good system will serve as a portal for students allowing them access to resources beyond their library’s four walls, their district schools, and into the world wide web. The needs of each individual school are different as are the needs of their student population. Certain criteria should be considered when choosing a library automation system for your school. Comparing systems and accepting feedback from product sales representatives along with customers currently using the system will help you make an informed decision that will benefit school staff as well as students.

Interview One- Sirsi/Dynix User

Gary Metzenbacher
Library Media Specialist
East High School
Columbus, OH

Question: What system do you use?
Answer: SIRSI/Dynix

Question: What is the support like? How available and helpful are they?
Answer: Fairly helpful. Our downtime is very short and outages are few and far between.

Question: Do you have one server between many schools?
Answer: "Our" server actually takes care of numerous school systems. We don't actually own a server for library automation but we utilize SIRSI which is a major provider. Our IT people could not possibly handle library automation. That requires some background in library services and it's much better for our district to simply contract with someone who knows what they're doing for that. The downside is that when the main server is down everyone in the state on SIRSI is down. Downtime, however is very, very seldom and very, very short.

Question: Can you search other libraries?
Answer: We can search the libraries of all the Ohio schools using SIRSI so that gives us all of Columbus City Schools (140+ buildings) and Southwestern City Schools (20+ buildings) and quite a few school districts and private schools around the state.

Question: Is the search easy (ours need to be exact titles, or search comes up empty)
Answer: Easy search: keyword search, title search, author search, subject search. The default is keyword and you can specify a particular building/library as well if you want. It is fairly user intuitive and simple to use.

Question: How about updates and upgrades?
Answer: Updates and upgrades are all done at the main SIRSI Ohio center in Lima. The main hiccups would be with our own district IT people who aren't always on top of their game if you get my meaning. For the most part, updates are transparent and seldom affect users EXCEPT for major revisions which require us to have new training, which is provided by SIRSI. We've had 2 major revisions in the 6 or 7 years we've been using the system. Not bad for such a big setup.

Question: Do you have any other comments, positive or negative?
Answer: As to negatives; since SIRSI was originally designed as a public library system there are a few quirks that you have to work-around as a school library. They are willing to accommodate SOME requests to adjust the setup for your building/district but they take a while before they actually grant such accommodations and requests. Inventory could be a lot simpler than the multi-step process they designed but I've managed to get my inventory done by eliminating some of those steps but you have to pay careful attention when you do that or you could miss something and not be able to figure out where you did.

Question: Do you think this is the right system for your school?
Answer: I'm not sure I would say our system is the best one for our school but every system has its positive aspects as well as its faults. It really depends on what the users are comfortable with and what the costs over the long term will be. Costs are not always monetary and one needs to make sure they consider the user frustration or acceptance as a very real cost to any system you implement or consider. Additionally you need to consider long-term customer support. Is the system reliable and will there be technical support over time or will it get orphaned and leave you with problems? We use our system and like some things about it but dislike some things as well. I don't care for the inventory module because it is too labor intensive. It was easier (and quicker) with the shelflist cards and a box. I do like, however, that I can search all of our buildings and some others as well. The interlibrary loan module still relies on our personal contacts via phone or email but it works for us. It would be more convenient to make the request electronically but we're not there yet.


Interview Two- InfoCentre User

Deborah Caudill
Library Media Specialist
FallBrook Elementary School
Leominster, MA 01453

Question: What system do you use?
Answer: InfoCentre

Question: What is the support like? How available and helpful are they?
Answer: When Infocentre was first introduced into our district schools, it was a product of Winnebago, a company later bought by Sagebrush. As far as support, I cannot give an honest report because I was not using the system during that time. Since then, Sagebrush has been bought by Follett and so Infocentre support comes from them. Follett has stated that they will continue to support InfoCentre users and keep them updated with the latest improvements, updates, and upgrades. Our library has been a customer of Follett in the past and we have been extremely satisfied with their support and speed at responding to our questions or concerns. I have no reason to believe that their support of InfoCentre and our district as a client would be any different or of any lesser quality.

Question: Do you have one server between many schools?
Answer: We have one server to support all the schools in our district. The server is housed at one of our middle schools and is serviced by our district’s IT staff that was trained by Sagebrush to manage the system. When our server is down, it affects all schools but because it’s within our district, downtime is limited.

Question: Can you search other libraries?
Answer: Besides our own catalog, we can search those of all other schools within our district. This can be done from our library computers, all classroom and teacher computers, and from students’ homes. This is a great feature in that parents can also access our library catalog to search for books for student projects or personal interest.

Question: Is the search easy?
Answer: The simple search can be done by keyword, title, author, or subject and Infocentre also offers an advanced search which makes it easier to do a Bibliography list for teachers or students searching for books on a specific subject. Another great feature is the visual search allowing younger, slow readers and also the many ELL students in our school to search by topic pictures instead of words.

Question: How about updates and upgrades?
Answer: Because updates and all upgrades are performed from Follett’s host website, they are fast and easy and ensure the most advanced technology for our library. When we are ready to upgrade, Follett’s InfoCentre 2.0, a newer version, is available for download from their site.

Question: Do you have any other comments, positive or negative?
Answer: There are a lot of positives. For instance, InfoCentre includes features previously considered add-ons such as: an integrated Z39.50 server; the Visual Search interface; the WebServer component to deliver the Web Catalog interface; multiuser licensing; the ability to load user data into InfoCentre from other databases. The search interface can be configured to display results from one or more libraries in the district. This makes it a good fit for our schools.

Question: So it sonds like you wouldn't replace InfoCentre?
Answer: With budget cuts and frozen spending, an upgrade is not in the immediate future. With a system that works for us and a company like Follett backing us and ready to support upgrades when we are ready, InfoCentre would be my choice for our library’s OPAC.

Moving Our School Library Forward

In my opinion, The OPAC assignment was one of the most useful to me as a current, albeit novice, LMS. I began the unit questioning its worth as compared to some of the others and wondered if I would value the experience with its time and energy demands. This doubt coupled with the confusion of where to begin led me to drag my feet a bit at the thought of beginning my quest. After my first attempt at making some sense out of the Breeding site offered, I wasn't feeling too much better. Then two things happened. The first was that reality slapped me in the face screaming "You have to do this so get over the whining and get to work!" This reality check was the impetus of the second. In researching other library OPAC systems and paying closer attention to my own and what it has to offer, I concluded that I don't know very much about the system I've been using for the past four years except for the applications that I had become familiar with. Because I came into the position as a permanent LMS sub, a role that lasted for two years, I was expected to function as best I could without guidance from a mentor or the tech support. After being offered the position as a permanent LMS teacher, things began to change and I was assigned a mentor. I was able to catch up and fill in the blanks through the help and support of her and others. Still I became comfortable with what applications I needed I continued on through my blissful ignorance believing that this was enough and that I was doing the best I could under the circumstances.
With the help of Marshall Breeding's site and after my eye-opening experience of researching other school library automation systems and my own in more depth,I have come to the conclusion that this assignment has been so beneficial to me by making me aware of the importance of knowing the system you are3 utilizing so that your students benefit fully from its use.
I interviewed myself as an LMS using Follett's Infocentre. In additio, I interviewed Gary Metzenbacher, a Library Media Specialist in East High School, Columbus, OH. Mr Metzenbacher uses Sirsi/Dynix. I had heard from colleagues that this system would be one worth looking into as a possible replacement for InfoCentre. Mr. Metzenbacher answered questions and gave his opinions as a current user as to the positive and the negative points of Sirsi/Dynix. In comparing the two systems using criteria such as tech support and user friendliness, I have decided to prepare an argument to keep Infocentre in our district schools. One thing that Mr. Metzenbarger said that holds true when choosing an automation system for your school library: "Costs are not always monetary and one needs to make sure they consider the user frustration or acceptance as a very real cost to any system you implement or consider." Metzenbarger also stressed tech support as an important component:
"Additionally you need to consider long-term customer support.Is the system reliable and will there be technical support over time or will it get orphaned and leave you with problems?"
I found it advantageous to talk to a "live" LMS. In discussing the advantages of any system with someone who has been using it in his library, I was given a picture of the system in action within a school library environment with a firsthand source of positive and negative points. On the other hand, if I had discussed the same only with the system's sales representative, there would always be the feeling that the main goal of the discussion was to sell the system. The only sure proof of an automation system's success is in its initiation wihin the school library and observance of daily student and teacher use.

Where Does Dewey Fit In?

One of the ongoing jobs of a public or school librarian is that of cataloging. Where there are print materials meant for circulation, there is a stack of books and periodicals each waiting to be christened with a call number and take its place on the appropriate library shelf. In years past, when Dewey was king of library cataloging, there was little if any discussion or much thought going into the process of cataloging each book. It was a simple if not tedious process of assigning a predetermined call number according to Dewey's system to each resource. Like everything else in our world today, cataloging has become a little more complicated.
Some school librarians are questioning whether or not it would better serve the students to catalog books, not according to Dewey as was done in the past, but more in the fashion of book stores where materials are clustered together with similar topics for easier access. So one shelf would house "Mysteries" while another "Historical Fictions" and so on. While it may be true that this system would likely help students in the short term to locate the materials that they want or need, I don't feel we should totally discount educating students on Dewey's catagories. When these students move on to middle school, high school, college, and beyond, they will have to locate resources that no doubt have been cataloged and shelved according to the Dewey system. Without the proper early introduction to Dewey and practice locating materials in this way, these same students will be lost when later attempting to find books. Wouldn't it better serve our students if we took the time to teach them about Dewey and his ten catagories? Library lessons can be planned that are fun and helpful in its teaching. For instance, classes could participate in a Dewey Scavenger Hunt where each member of a team picks a card with a call number on it and has to locate the book that corresponds to it. First team to collect all the correct books is the winner. With lessons such as this, it won't be long before the students are skipping the catalog step and heading right for the shelves to choose their books to take out. With a little practice, Dewey isn't that hard to figure out.
No one knows what the future holds for libraries. But for now, I think we should hold onto a system that's been around for a while. It's not time to do away with Dewey.

Cyberbullying Education for the Very Young

So as educators we are becoming convinced that it is our responsibiity to make the students aware of the causes and the hurtful effects of cyberbullying. Such education should begin at the beginning of the school year and continue throughout the year. The presentation would be far more effective if constructed and presented by the older students, in my case grade five. But the question arises as to what grades will make up the audience. I look at children working or playing in their kindergarten classes, and I find it hard to believe that such innocence could produce hateful bullying or cyberbullying against other children. Yet these children are being exposed to more media, positive and negative than ever before and at an earlier age. With this exposure comes the potential for harmful learned behavior that could lead to bullying and cyberbullying. Parents want their children to compete with children around the world and be prepared to "keep up" in the 21st Century. This pressure to compete causes parents to start their children early whether it be sports, music, or academics. So it also goes for technology. If the door is open to all that today's internet has to offer, the good, the bad, and the ugly, isn't it possible that they are given the opportunity to be bullied or even to cyberbully someone else? With this in mind, why not follow along this pattern of early education and instill in them the message that cyberbullying is never something that they want to be involved in, offer them ways to prevent it, and if it happens to them, teach them ways that they can help themselves.If we capture this audience at a young age and continue to educate them with a continuing cyberbullying awareness program throughout their elementary school career, we may be able to stop or at least greatly decrease the magnitude of cyberbullying in their lifetime. Something needs to be done and there's no time like the present.

Keeping Safe While Traveling in Cyberspace

How many people, regardless of age, do you know who do not spend at least some of their time online? In fact, we are becoming a society of internet dependent people. The first PCs became available to consumers in the early 1970s and I’m sure not many could have imagined the impact that they would have on our lifestyle. Today consumers rely on their computers for so many daily tasks that they could not imagine their lives without their computer. People shop, do their banking, pay their bills, search for any kind of information, book travel arrangements, find their ancestry, amuse their children while they tend to other chores, do their bookkeeping and scheduling, and communicate with each other, all from the privacy of their home or workplace.

But along with these life changing technological timesavers, come new dangers for consumers of all ages. The cases of identity theft are on the rise, as is the number of children predators and subsequently children victims. No one at any age is safe from cyber crimes. Our addiction to computer use has given rise to a vulnerability that we as a society, as parents, and as educators must address. Our global society has told us that we need to expose children today at an early age to the benefits and positive successes that technology brings. It is our responsibility to our children and their achievement and productivity to make sure that they have access to all that computer use can offer them to help them compete in a 21st Century global community. But we will be failing them if we don’t at the same time alert them to the dangers of functioning in cyberspace and continually educate them in practices of safe internet use and etiquette.

With this in mind, I have developed one of many possible student presentations with the purpose of alerting the student population of the dangers lurking on the internet. The presentations will only be effective if they are coupled with continual in class reinforcement of the important things to remember and internet use that will potentially expose them to some of the dangers but with teacher supervision to address any issues, concerns, or questions from the students. Another part of the plan is to have the older students research and organize their own presentation of caution and advice which they will present to the younger students of our school. We can never do too much to ensure the safety of our children in our technologically advanced global community.

Annotated Bibliography of Informative Websites



www.netsmartz.org/

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children sponsors this interactive site dedicated to internet safety education for parents, teachers, and children. Its goal is to make children aware of the dangers they can encounter with internet use, to teach them to be cautious when dealing with strangers online, and to encourage them to report any uneasy situations to their parents or other adults. Kids are told to UYN ("Use Your NetSmartz") when it comes to dealing with situations on the internet. The site offers music, games, activities, and videos to help teach internet safety.


http://www.safekids.com/

Larry Magid, author of the 1994 brochure entitled “Child Safety on the Information Highway”, created this site dedicated to the education of children in internet safety and civility. The site is separated into sections for teens, kids, and parents. Menu bar takes viewers to more pages of safety tips which include cell phone as well as social web safety and blogs about Cyber Safety themes. Kids can take the online quiz to see how much they know about online safety Online Safety Quiz.


www.bullying.org

This site started by Bill Belsey is perhaps the most frequently visited site devoted to the prevention of cyberbullying through awareness and safety education. The site makes available resources and educational programs for educational institutions and other organizations and private families. Sections include facts and myths about bullying and places victims can turn to for help. There is also a Helpful Resource page where you can contribute resources such as multimedia presentations, books, or articles.


http://www.ncpc.org/cyberbullying

The National Crime Prevention Council sponsors this site supporting their campaign against cyberbullying. The site offers help to those who have been victims of cyberbullying and useful tips on how to prevent it from happening. There are links to other sites to inform kids of their rights and offering more awareness and prevention tips.


http://www.cyberbullying.us/

The Cyberbullying Research Center offers updated information on what is new at the research center including latest publication entries. There are also updated lists of Blogs on the subject of cyberbullying and headlines from around the world. The site has so much to read to help stay in tune with what is happening worldwide.

http://www.stopcyberbullying.org
Stopcyberbullying.org is another informational awareness website. It offers a flash presentation of a cyberbully typing out messages to his victim. The messages are chilling when you think that a child could be on the receiving end of them. It covers what cyberbullying is, how and why it works, steps to prevention and taking action, and laws against cyberbullying.

http://www.cyberbullying.org/

This site believes as others do that awareness of the problem and education as to what can be one to prevent it, are the keys to controlling cyberbullying. Flash messages of facts and encouragement appear as you enter the site. The menu bar offers links to facts, informational resources, and contact information.



http://www.commonsense.com/internet-safety-tips/tips-for-kids.php

This is a non profit Internet Survival Guide with a section directed towards kids and teens and one specifically for parents and teachers. Tips on internet safety at every age and every stage of development are included and also a downloadable guide for parents.

The LMS as a Leader in the School Community

The demands on the school Library Media Specialist are great. The LMS is a teacher, an organizer, an administrator of the library, and a leader in the school community.
The LMS is responsible for keeping up with the ever increasing array of Web 2.0 tools and how these tools can and should be implemented in the classroom to enrich the 21st Century learning environment. It is an easy job compared to the one of convincing that school community of teachers and other staff of the benefits of taking the time to learn the tools and in turn to teach their students the same.
So in planning a PD for these teachers with the purpose of training them to use these applications with their students, I feel it is important to assure these teachers that learning them will not be a waste of their time and show them examples of how student learning will benefit from their incorporation. A tough job? Yes. Impossible? No. The key is not to expect all teachers to be on the bandwagon from the start. Take it slowly. If you can convince even a few teachers to try a certain application and then be there to support the teacher as he/she becomes comfortable with its use, then it will only be a matter of time before more teachers want to follow and the number of successful users will increase.
So where do I begin? Which tool should be my initiation? I plan to begin with the wiki. Most of the teachers by now have heard the term wiki and though not too many in my school district have used one in the classroom, I feel that they will be more open to listen to my views and recommendations for its use if they've heard it mentioned.
I plan to announce my intentions with another application, a Voki. I think this will break the ice and make the teachers more curious about what they may be able to learn to create. The PD will be in the form of a PowerPoint which I find is still one of the best forms of presentation.
Whatever the outcome, it is my responsibility to offer training and support to classroom teachers, administrators, and students, a challenging role but one I feel I am willing and able to accept.