Did you know Google has digitized several thousand books? This is a constant and ever-growing iniatiative...and this is an awesome thing.
The other day I forgot to bring my textbook to school. I had a quiz over the reading. I needed to look up a couple keywords in the 486 page text. Even if I had the book think how long it would take me to find that particular combination of text!
Provided Google has digitized the book your interested in users can do a full-text search of the ENTIRE book. I was able to do a couple queries and boom...I was able to find the particular page, particular context, and voila...the answer!!
Here's a link to the Google Book Search. I linked to the advanced search for a good reason. You'll want the advanced page so you can enter the book title or author title. This is a must if you plan to search for a combination of keywords "in your book". Keywords go to the top (blue) area, book specs go in the boxes below (white area).
Yeah...I know my last blog post was in the fall. Opportunities to keep this thing up to date are limited.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Friday, September 15, 2006
Homecoming Week
Friday afternoon, finally stopped raining this week, homecoming game tonight, what a way to end the week.
We've been SUPER busy this week. Next week is ISTEP and classes have stormed the Media Center for books. Good thing, the testing week presents tons of downtime for casual reading.
In addition to tons of circulation this week we've seen an increase in human circulation. The new paint has beckoned some to the library this fall.
I attended a good conference Wednesday of this week. I heard a gal from YALSA speak. YALSA is the national version of school library associations. Usually someone who speakes from YALSA attends a state-wide meeting. The day was informational and allowed me a ton of networking with other media specialists. Due to afterschool activities I was forced to leave early.
I've been busy pouring over new books (additions) for the library. I've got to whittle down my budget by year end or face the possibility of loosing it. On my radar screen are books 1200 lexile and above. I've got a really good list, some fiction and some non-fiction. I'm also looking to expand the low end, particularly our new to English group.
I've spent the last two weeks ordering and shopping. I'm now anxiously waiting for the stuff to show up.
We've been SUPER busy this week. Next week is ISTEP and classes have stormed the Media Center for books. Good thing, the testing week presents tons of downtime for casual reading.
In addition to tons of circulation this week we've seen an increase in human circulation. The new paint has beckoned some to the library this fall.
I attended a good conference Wednesday of this week. I heard a gal from YALSA speak. YALSA is the national version of school library associations. Usually someone who speakes from YALSA attends a state-wide meeting. The day was informational and allowed me a ton of networking with other media specialists. Due to afterschool activities I was forced to leave early.
I've been busy pouring over new books (additions) for the library. I've got to whittle down my budget by year end or face the possibility of loosing it. On my radar screen are books 1200 lexile and above. I've got a really good list, some fiction and some non-fiction. I'm also looking to expand the low end, particularly our new to English group.
I've spent the last two weeks ordering and shopping. I'm now anxiously waiting for the stuff to show up.
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
New Paint
Over the summer we received a new paint job. Gone is the ugly blue - gray vinyl wallpaper! The moisture of the room caused each seam on the wall to begin to buckle and show its age.
We received a complete strip of the wallpaper and lots of surface prep. After several coats of mud, a coat of primer, and two coats of finish our walls are now bright and clean.
I have designs for future decorating. I'd love to paint the metal trim and introduce a maroon accent color...one of these days.
I'd love to hear comments on the new color, "humble gold". Stay tuned for a future project involving art club! I hope by Christmas to have frames and artwork where there was once posters, staples, and tacks holding up the wallpaper.
We received a complete strip of the wallpaper and lots of surface prep. After several coats of mud, a coat of primer, and two coats of finish our walls are now bright and clean.
I have designs for future decorating. I'd love to paint the metal trim and introduce a maroon accent color...one of these days.
I'd love to hear comments on the new color, "humble gold". Stay tuned for a future project involving art club! I hope by Christmas to have frames and artwork where there was once posters, staples, and tacks holding up the wallpaper.
Welcome Back!
The start of school was a whirlwind of activity for the PHS Media Center. I've been so busy I've not had a chance to post to the blog. Below is a list of activities we've been busy with:
- Printing, attaching, new sping labels to books
- Cataloging new books
- Purchasing of new books
- Instruction to classes of our new Infocentre Search Tool
- Research instruction to classes - Inspire, CQ Researcher, Facts.com, and Grolier
- Updating of Scholastic: Reading Counts, SRI, and rosters of students in each
- Updating of Infocentre - importing of students from SASI and troubleshooting of missing information
- Re-shelving of the Fiction genres into one collection
- Cataloging of, labeling of, and shelving of a World War II collection of books donated from a local family - 39 books total - they are awesome!
- Eliot Rosewater - pictures of books on hallway pillars
- Display case - cafeteria
- Research talks to classes - never ending :)
We're ready for another exciting year in the PHS Media Center! As you can see we've been busy and active!
Friday, May 12, 2006
Books Due
Today all books were due from students. In a perfect world they all would be! However this isn't a perfect world. I wish I had "Easy Button" like the commercial :)
Next week starts the beginning of the inventory for us. I wish all the Copy ID's were fixed so things would be more automated. I guess job security for the summer hours! It will take me all summer to change 2,000 some books. It doesn't help that the program is cumbersome in this regard. Once its done I'll be happy :)
Next week starts the beginning of the inventory for us. I wish all the Copy ID's were fixed so things would be more automated. I guess job security for the summer hours! It will take me all summer to change 2,000 some books. It doesn't help that the program is cumbersome in this regard. Once its done I'll be happy :)
End and Beginning
I've had a bit of repreive for the last two weeks. My masters classes wrapped up the last week of April with projects due at the end of the month. I've had a chance to work on some of the back office issues I've been wanting to get to. Items such as ordering and analysis of collection strengths coupled with work on non library related duties have taken the expanse of my time.
I had a good question posed to me the other day. "What is it you do all day long?" I laughed and thought..."you really have no idea". What I've come to really enjoy in my position is the variety. I work on different issues almost daily. What I do all day is more than checking books in and out or read the paper. In fact I wish I had to just sit and read the Tribune. There's a lot of background I must do when establishing decisions on purchasing. Similar to buying a car or large ticket item I take that approach when purchasing for the collection. From day one my goal has been to exhaust resources allocated to me. In this regard I'm still learning the paperwork. As I'm learning the landscape of my new position I'm trying to pick up on the things I want to improve upon for next year.
I'm looking forward to summer vacation, like everyone around here, however for me, for different reasons. I'm going to be working extended hours in the media center for summer school. I'm leaving my long time post as a summer school instructor. My hope is the time in the library will allow me the ability to tweak database issues that reared their ugly head with the switch to Infocentre. Hopefully these issues will all be ironed out by August.
As my classes ended it took me a couple days to adjust to "normal" life. More free time has boosted my morale at a point in the year where I needed a break from the Master's grind. However as one semester has ended another has begun. Starting today my Summer I session has started. I'm forced to take off three days of school to attend a day long class 9-4. My class is finished for the day...early no less. Before I logged off the laptop I took a couple minutes here to blog.
I had a good question posed to me the other day. "What is it you do all day long?" I laughed and thought..."you really have no idea". What I've come to really enjoy in my position is the variety. I work on different issues almost daily. What I do all day is more than checking books in and out or read the paper. In fact I wish I had to just sit and read the Tribune. There's a lot of background I must do when establishing decisions on purchasing. Similar to buying a car or large ticket item I take that approach when purchasing for the collection. From day one my goal has been to exhaust resources allocated to me. In this regard I'm still learning the paperwork. As I'm learning the landscape of my new position I'm trying to pick up on the things I want to improve upon for next year.
I'm looking forward to summer vacation, like everyone around here, however for me, for different reasons. I'm going to be working extended hours in the media center for summer school. I'm leaving my long time post as a summer school instructor. My hope is the time in the library will allow me the ability to tweak database issues that reared their ugly head with the switch to Infocentre. Hopefully these issues will all be ironed out by August.
As my classes ended it took me a couple days to adjust to "normal" life. More free time has boosted my morale at a point in the year where I needed a break from the Master's grind. However as one semester has ended another has begun. Starting today my Summer I session has started. I'm forced to take off three days of school to attend a day long class 9-4. My class is finished for the day...early no less. Before I logged off the laptop I took a couple minutes here to blog.
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Barcodes Blues
New scanners arrived today. New problem...
Our new scanners read ALL the barcodes we have. Yippee! Not all books are cataloged in the system with the proper length (amount) of digits. Bummer!!!
Bottom line we're forced to re-catalog (number) thousands of titles to straighten out the problem. Once all titles are matched up correctly we should alleviate all problems with barcodes.
The time it will take to re-tool each record will be tremendous...bummer!!!
Our new scanners read ALL the barcodes we have. Yippee! Not all books are cataloged in the system with the proper length (amount) of digits. Bummer!!!
Bottom line we're forced to re-catalog (number) thousands of titles to straighten out the problem. Once all titles are matched up correctly we should alleviate all problems with barcodes.
The time it will take to re-tool each record will be tremendous...bummer!!!
Friday, April 21, 2006
Barcode Issues
In the midst of all the data / patron issues it became apparant some of our barcodes are badly outdated. Prior to Infocentre we'd always had issues with our 4 digit codes from Follett. We'd hoped that when the new system was installed these issues would disappear. Unfortunately things didn't rectify themselves.
After our initial install several types of barcodes didn't scan at all! After more days on the phone with Sagebrush it was apparant some software adjustments were necessary. Though we were able to get a couple hundred titles to scan we still had issues with the dreaded 4 digit codes. Shocking to me over 2,000 titles in my collection have 4 digit codes! The time it would take to re-label all these books would be tremendous! After much consultation and a test of a new scanner I've been able to conclude new hardware would be a more valuable purchase than the labor and time required to re-label. To boot many of the 4 digit titles are older books and have significant less circulation than those of the newer barcode labels. I hope to get new scanners ordered and installed prior to the end of school.
After our initial install several types of barcodes didn't scan at all! After more days on the phone with Sagebrush it was apparant some software adjustments were necessary. Though we were able to get a couple hundred titles to scan we still had issues with the dreaded 4 digit codes. Shocking to me over 2,000 titles in my collection have 4 digit codes! The time it would take to re-label all these books would be tremendous! After much consultation and a test of a new scanner I've been able to conclude new hardware would be a more valuable purchase than the labor and time required to re-label. To boot many of the 4 digit titles are older books and have significant less circulation than those of the newer barcode labels. I hope to get new scanners ordered and installed prior to the end of school.
Patron Problems
Coming back to school from break we had more and more issues to deal with in regards to our new system. I spent one entire day cleaning up patron information. Several individuals were not in their proper designations.
Related to our data issues not all patron information was converted correctly. For example several patrons had books checked out and Infocentre didn't show them as checked out. Other issues were related to fines. Infocentre in some cases wasn't able to correctly show fines for patrons who owed them. Adjustments to loan periods helped rectify several of these situations however our data corruption from Athena threw a major money wrench in the works!
As a result of the inconsistencies we've been checking books in using both Athena and Infocentre at the same time. After spending several consecutive days on the phone with Sagebrush it was apparant the only way to work around the data issues was to run parallel systems. To date we've yet to receive all remaining Athena books. As we've continued to check out with Infocentre the system has worked flawlessly.
Related to our data issues not all patron information was converted correctly. For example several patrons had books checked out and Infocentre didn't show them as checked out. Other issues were related to fines. Infocentre in some cases wasn't able to correctly show fines for patrons who owed them. Adjustments to loan periods helped rectify several of these situations however our data corruption from Athena threw a major money wrench in the works!
As a result of the inconsistencies we've been checking books in using both Athena and Infocentre at the same time. After spending several consecutive days on the phone with Sagebrush it was apparant the only way to work around the data issues was to run parallel systems. To date we've yet to receive all remaining Athena books. As we've continued to check out with Infocentre the system has worked flawlessly.
Data Problems
The high school was the third building in the corporation to undergo the system upgrade. The Friday before spring break our tech department started our upgrade. I was looking forward to the new fresh software and all the capabilities it would provide us. The data conversion commenced around 11:00 am that morning. The conversion process didn't finish until late in the evening that night. Longer than we expected.
Monday morning, during Spring Break, I met with technology to discuss the next stage of our conversion. Of the 10,000 some titles in my collection the conversion only gathered 1063 titles. Consequently we were forced to re-run the conversion. After a failed second attempt technology was forced to export my data to Sagebrush for support.
By Thursday of vacation the data was evaluated and imported into our network for Infocentre's initial trial. All said and done I lost 48 items from the collection due to data corruption from Athena! To make matters worse neither Sagebrush or my technology folks could pinpoint what 48 items I had lost records of!! Needless to say I spent the remainder of vacation looking into the records trying to make sense of the confusion. The only good that came from this was I learned the ins & outs of the new software attempting to make sense of things.
Monday morning, during Spring Break, I met with technology to discuss the next stage of our conversion. Of the 10,000 some titles in my collection the conversion only gathered 1063 titles. Consequently we were forced to re-run the conversion. After a failed second attempt technology was forced to export my data to Sagebrush for support.
By Thursday of vacation the data was evaluated and imported into our network for Infocentre's initial trial. All said and done I lost 48 items from the collection due to data corruption from Athena! To make matters worse neither Sagebrush or my technology folks could pinpoint what 48 items I had lost records of!! Needless to say I spent the remainder of vacation looking into the records trying to make sense of the confusion. The only good that came from this was I learned the ins & outs of the new software attempting to make sense of things.
Automation Upgrade
Corporation Media Specialists have been consulting different systems over the past several months. The goal being unifying all PCSC buildings under one automation system. The following companies and products have been under consideration.
Follett - Destiny
Sagebrush - Infocentre
All buildings but one have been using Sagebrush's existing product Athena. The Sagebrush corporation has built a completely new software, Infocentre. The goal with Infocentre was to compete with the much larger used Follett product. Sagebrush has combined all their previously supported packages' best features to create Infocentre.
As media specialists we felt the familiarity with Sagebrush's Athena and the upgrade cost per building warranted the purchase of Infocentre. The cost per building was literally thousands of dollars less, each, due to our current customer status with Sagebrush.
Follett - Destiny
Sagebrush - Infocentre
All buildings but one have been using Sagebrush's existing product Athena. The Sagebrush corporation has built a completely new software, Infocentre. The goal with Infocentre was to compete with the much larger used Follett product. Sagebrush has combined all their previously supported packages' best features to create Infocentre.
As media specialists we felt the familiarity with Sagebrush's Athena and the upgrade cost per building warranted the purchase of Infocentre. The cost per building was literally thousands of dollars less, each, due to our current customer status with Sagebrush.
Thursday, March 09, 2006
Electronic Serials
As I'm ordering this Spring I'm looking to take advantage of subscriptions that include an online version. Many publishers are attempting to steer clientel to the electronic realm as it is more cost effective for them. For the end user (my patrons) the benefit is 24/7 access. A couple titles I'm working going online with are: Wall Street Journal and Inside Photoshop.
Another benefit to online journals / periodicals are the back issues. Patrons are able to view any of the titles back issues. It remains to be seen at this point what search capability among back issues exist or will exist. The fact that availability is flexible is a step in the right direction.
Another benefit to online journals / periodicals are the back issues. Patrons are able to view any of the titles back issues. It remains to be seen at this point what search capability among back issues exist or will exist. The fact that availability is flexible is a step in the right direction.
Equipment
I'm in the beginning stages of getting some new technical equipment. Over the next couple of weeks, especially Spring Break, I'm going to be getting an LCD projector mounted in my ceiling. With the install comes speakers for presentations and two large screens for meetings or presentations. My hope is to be able to do research lessons in the library where kids can physically see the stuff on the shelf I'm referring to.
One screen will be set up for the permanent mounted projector. The second screen will be for portable setup so a larger group can use the library if need be.
Also this spring I'm looking forward to getting my room repainted. I'm unsure when this will take place. I'm anxious to change the look and feel of the room.
One screen will be set up for the permanent mounted projector. The second screen will be for portable setup so a larger group can use the library if need be.
Also this spring I'm looking forward to getting my room repainted. I'm unsure when this will take place. I'm anxious to change the look and feel of the room.
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