The rise of eBook collections (SMH Article)

Last Saturday (16/1/2015), The Sydney Morning Herald did a short feature on the rise of eBook collections in public libraries in Sydney. Sydney City Council now claims to have 10 000 eBooks in its collection.

It also claims that more people are joining libraries in response, encouraged by the convenience of iPads and Kindles as a reading tool, and existing members are borrowing more regularly which is encouraging news.

But the article fails to mention the percentage of eBook loans in comparison to loans of printed items. There are definitely some that have been attracted to borrow because items are now available as eBooks and don't have to lug a printed book around, or is it merely because people want to read something in print? Or perhaps did reading something in a digital form encourage them to pursue reading in a printed format.

Also have loans of printed items increased? We don't get that figure either.

Looking on the positive side, it is good though to see people making use of their local libraries and their collections, while at the same time developing their interest in reading. As I do believe, some are more suited to reading items digitally as opposed to print. Everyone has their style of learning and therefore everyone has their way of reading.

And what if one cannot access that printed copy of a book that they want to read at a particular point in time - at least an electronic version will fill that need, unless they really want that tactile version.

What about in a classroom situation? There will be no longer an excuse to not have bought a book to class, especially if the school library has its own eBook collection. I would be encouraging my students as well to pursue membership of their local library, not just for their digital collections, but also their print collections. Every library in every council area has its own unique collection of books. From holding accounts with four councils, I am often coming across items that are "exclusive" to that collection and have read some very interesting books that I may have not come across. I even want to recommend them for my school library!!! I might make that a challenge for this year in my work.

BOSTES Accreditation - Some reflections

A big step for me professionally has taken place in the past few weeks in relation to seeking accreditation in NSW as a teacher at Proficient Level. I have submitted my samples to my current school for the writing up of the accreditation report.

It has been a year since I looked at my progress and since then, really was in a sense just about ready to present that evidence to a school, and just noting that I had found. I think that time last year came to be really handy because it has made everything much easier. I was able to approach my school, show the samples (and that they had signed off) and it was fixed.

I was able to provide some additional samples of evidence in recent months and also have my practice observed by an experienced teacher.

Hopefully the next entry on this topic will be about gaining the proficient level and giving credit to those involved in my journey there. So far a big thankyou to each and everyone of them.

Some Teacher Librarians may be finding it daunting to collect evidence, but really it is easy to collect. If you teach a lesson (especially primary school), keep a lesson plan, keep copies of sheets or handouts, newsletter articles (communication with the school community), professional learning diaries or samples of student work. Even minutes of a meeting you might have with your library team, faculty or colleague will count. Ideas are endless.

What about classroom management or student discipline? Create a discipline policy that you apply for the library that you work in. Casual or temp? Make a generic one and mention that it is adapted to all schools that you work at. Your teacher observation will also be handy here too like it has been done with me.

Make sure that you look at the standards and make sure that the samples will allow you to meet them all.

A big tip from me is to annotate your samples which you can do with Adobe Acrobat where you can show where the standards have been met and will guide your mentor or TAA in finalising your report.

With your annotations with your samples, go to some detail because it will make a difference as well. It will help you too in determining whether or not you have met the standards.

If you are stuck on doing it from a Teacher Librarians perspective, feel free to get in touch with me or  speak to your TAA.

Dads and reading

Here is a recent article from The Daily Telegraph, where they explored the importance of fathers in reading to their children because it encourages more abstract thinking.

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/why-reading-a-book-with-dad-is-more-important/story-fni0cx12-1227544210970?sv=c8dc7500c1dc4c401c3b8dd4b6bf8d4a

It made even think too about my work in girls schools to date as a Teacher Librarian and undertaking wide reading sessions. It made me think of the higher order questioning that I did with them. I remember one instance asking students about why the covers of a Harry Potter book had been presented in a particular way and why the covers were designed that way. It got them thinking, even if they weren't too short.

For us men, it even encourages us to work in girls only schools, as the girls do also appreciate a male perspective on reading and literature.

Stocktaking Time (ii)

OK, a week has passed since I looked at stocktaking and have attended the webinar by Softlink. It was a good afternoon to be briefed on the stocktaking processes associated with OLIVER.

I think that there is really little to fear, even for those in DET schools who are moving over from OASIS to OLIVER. The big advantage that OLIVER has over OASIS is the interface and that you can see 20 results on a page as opposed to one so it can actually help you sort out items that are missing or poorly catalogued.

A bit like cooking, there is preparation for a stocktake which must not be overlooked like undertaking a simple housekeeping procedure to ensure that everything in the collection is on the system and to help identify items that are catalogued incorrectly.

And I liked how you can scan in barcodes once you have imported them to account for unscanned yet available items!!!

Don't ever fear closing a library just to do a stocktake, like they used to!!!

Stocktaking Time

For school libraries, its almost (or perhaps already) that time of year again - stocktaking time.

I am going through the process of stocktaking for the first time and I've been quite amazed at the simplicity of the process. I thought doing something like was daunting with alot of steps involved. This was the case until I was delegated with a good challenge - create a set of procedures based on the system used by the school and how to do with the diverse collections available.

It might appear to be a little time consuming at times because of the checks that have to be made with error reports and the like, but at the end of the day, we as librarians have to account for every single item that forms the collections within the library.

A big plus, is that it gives one the chance to correct the errors that may have arisen in cataloguing an item/s. We are human at the end of the day.

I am aware school libraries where collections have been in a state of disrepair. This blog is not about naming them and shaming them at all. In fact stocktakes have not been done or if done not properly. It raises issues in terms of managing the broader library. The consequences can be massive with items simply "disappearing" (or missing in more technical sense) when they are on the shelves. I have discovered that for myself with one school.

I also was reading a post this week on the NSWTL message board (Available to those with NSW DET email accounts) and one question came forward. For those outside of NSW, OLIVER is being introduced to all NSW Public Schools as the main circulation system for school libraries. The Teacher Librarian had asked whether or not a stocktake should be done following the transfer of data from OASIS.

It comes down to when the last stocktake was done. If it was done right before the transfer, I would say "No". If the Stocktake is yet to be done for this year and would normally proceed this term, I would suggest "yes", provided you have the Softlink Manual. It is not really that complex after all from what I found and applying it to the school library. I'll admit I've made a few small modifications to my procedures as I have gone along, which has been good for eyeing out any problems.

For those out there especially in the NSW DET Schools who are struggling, please feel free to get in touch with me.

Noise @ Kogarah Library

There has been a big debate over the purpose of libraries which has stemmed from complaints by patrons of Kogarah Library over noise. Click here to read the article.

Last month a lady made complaints about what libraries should be for, and it led to me writing a letter to The St George and Sutherland Shire Leader. The letter was published in the St George edition on September 1.