2012 Wrap Up

As the end of the school year draws near, there are a few things that need to be done in order to tie up loose ends....Can you please:

- ask your students to return any school class sets or individual loans that they have in their possession,

- check your record and return any items that you no longer need,

- speak to library staff if you would like any items renewed for the holidays (please only keep what you really need so that other staff have the opportunity to utilise the other resources),

- count and return any class sets that you have borrowed in your name to use with multiple classes,

- get your students to do a thorough clean out of their homeroom and lockers and return any items that are found regardless of whose they are,

- do a thorough clean out of your office and return any items that are found regardless of whose they are.

Please do not return any items that have a barcode on the back that has been crossed out with black texta. This means that have been deleted from our system and we no longer need them. You can keep them.

Thank you, and enjoy your last couple of weeks before your holidays :)

New ReadPlus website subscription

Sometimes it can be difficult finding appropriate texts for students or classes that are based on a particular theme. In the past, we have purchased guide books that list recommended fiction for themes- but these can become outdated.

It has come to my attention that there is a website available which contains the same information, is easily searchable, and updated more regularly than the books. I have purchased a one-year licence for access to this website, so that all teachers can use it at any time to help choose books for class reading, paired-texts or specific curriculum based topics.

This will be most useful for English teachers, who need to find books to fit their TLC's Big Question, and can save a lot of time.

For access to this website, please find the username and password on the Moodle. Please give this a go, and provide me with feedback on it, so I know whether to continue the subscription next year or not.

If anyone has questions about using this website, please see me.

Tiffiny Hall the White Ninja

Well today was a very exciting day here at the Seaford Library, because we were lucky enough to have a very special guest. Tiffiny Hall, ex 'Gladiator' Angel, and trainer of the white team on 'The Biggest Loser' came to speak to 4 Seaford 6-12 School classes about her new book 'White Ninja'.

'White Ninja' is a book about Roxy Ran, a 13 year old girl who gets bullied at school constantly, until one day she realises that she has super ninja powers and can beat the bullies.

Tiffiny spoke to our students about how bullying at school can affect people's self esteem for life. She gave students her undivided attention at the end where they had the opportunity to ask her questions, buy her book, get autographs and have photos with her.

We were very lucky to host Tiffiny and must thank Shakespeare's books for providing us with such a great opportunity!

New cards for new self service system

You may have noticed a new library card in your pigeon hole, with a note explaining that we are moving to self service checkouts in the next few weeks. In order to use the self service, you must have your library card with you. With this in mind, we are providing all teaching staff with a new library card on a lanyard to help you keep your card available for whenever you need it.

If you did not receive a new card for any reason, and would like one, please see a library staff member to arrange this.

If you have any problems using your new card, please don't hesitate to bring it in so we can correct it.

I'd like to also take this opportunity to remind you to try and renew your items online using the details provided on the notice that came with your card.

Do you still need that book?

As we near towards the end of Term 2, it would be very helpful to library staff if you could return all of your items that are no longer needed or are overdue. Please remember that in returning these books, you are also helping other staff members who may need them for next term.

As I mentioned recently, library staff are no longer able to simply renew your 'lost' items in bulk. It is now a really long process for us and it would be much appreciated if you could come and see us before it gets to this stage.

Hopefully now, you will have received reminder emails that we set up for you to help you with this. As soon as you get the email, you can either forward it to me with a message of what you would like to renew, or come in and see us.

Please attend to your overdues before you go on your holidays....

New Library System

It has been a massive month for us here, changing to a completely new computer system in order to become a part of the 'One Card' system, which gives you access to resources from public libraries from all over the state. Onkaparinga Libraries were in the first group to launch this, which means that it has been hectic, but we are already seeing the benefits.

One change that will affect you as school staff is that now, when your items become 'lost' (meaning that they are more than one month overdue), we cannot simply renew them anymore like we used to be able to. This makes it much more important for you to follow up your overdues as soon as possible, so we have utilised a function of the system to send you reminder emails when items are about to become overdue.

Please take notice of these emails and either:

* forward it to me so that I can renew the items in question

* print off your email and highlight items you would like renewed and put it in my pigeonhole

* call me to notify me which items you would like renewed

* come into the library and let us know what you would like renewed

The best way of dealing with this though, is by managing your own account and renewing them online before they become overdue. This can be done at http://sapln.ent.sirsidynix.net.au/client/onkaparinga and you will need your library card barcode number. Your PIN is your month and year of birth ie September 1987 would be 0987. Give it a go.

Please talk to us if you need help with any of this.

New look library!

Over the holidays we had some work done to refresh the look of the library. This included a new sign on the front of the library, a new returns bin and refreshed walls in the entrance and at the rear, which I might add, look amazing!

As a result of this, we made some changes to the class areas at the back of the library and the Macbook Trolley area is now right next to the Library ICT to enable quicker access to the printer. The other area, which used to be the Library Class area has been replaced by a general study area, giving students who access the library during their 'frees' more room. So far this seems to be working really well.

Below are some images of the new look areas...... I think you'll be impressed :)

New Macbook Area

New student study area

Don't forget to book your Class Sets for Term 2!

Just a reminder, that if you are planning on booking a class set for Term 2, you need to get in early so that you can be guaranteed of getting the books you want. You can either email this through to me over your holidays, or come in (emailing would definitely be easier!!).

Some important information to know (particularly for new staff):
- If your class is the only class using a particular novel, students will be required to borrow their own copy of the book and will be responsible for taking this book with them to and from lesson- these books are not to be stored in a classroom (this is when we lose lots of books..).

- If your whole TLC is using a particular book and there are not enough copies for each student, the Program Manager can borrow the entire class set, however, it is extremely important that this is managed properly. Tigress is an excellent working example of how this can be a successful way of borrowing the books, and this is (as I understand) how it is done, and how I would recommend it to be done by others:

* Program Manager borrows entire class set under their name.
* Stores all books in a crate in teacher office.
* When needed, teacher goes into teacher office and brings the crate of books to class for students to use.
* Teacher collects all books at the end of lesson and makes sure the same amount come in as went out.
* Teacher puts crate back into teacher office.

The key here though, is that 5 copies of the book are left in the library for students to borrow if they need to catch up overnight, or if they want to read on further. The students borrow these books on their own card and so they are responsible for bringing them back.

Please give this method a go. So far, I think it is the most successful method we have had.

PRC registrations go through the roof!

Not sure if this is because of the anticipated prize of an iPad.....but either way, we are up to 83 students who have entered the challenge so far. This is the best result I have seen since I have been at Seaford 6-12, and I hope this number keeps growing and that these students follow through and complete the challenge.

Delays in cataloguing to occur

Hi All,

With the implementation of our new Library Management System coming up soon, there will be some significant delays in the processing of new materials. This means, that for 3 weeks before the system is installed, all of the data will be getting transferred from the old system to the new system, which means that there can be no cataloguing done during this period. In addition to this, it will be a completely new system and therefore library staff will need to concentrate on being trained in its use. This means that it could be another 3 weeks until cataloguing can start again.

So, effectively, there is likely to be a 6 week window where no cataloguing occurs, between mid April and the end of May.

If you are planning on making any purchases that you would like to go in the library collection, please ensure that you have given it to us before the end of Term 1 if you would like access to it at the start of Term 2. Otherwise, you will need to wait until about Week 7 of Term 2 before it can be catalogued.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Premier's Reading Challenge 2012

It's that time of year again! The Premier's Reading Challenge has officially begun and so it would be great to see as many students participating in it as possible, especially since it is the National Year of Reading this year.

As most of you would know, last year the Seaford Library, in conjunction with the Friends of the Seaford Library, donated an iPad2 as an incentive for students to complete the challenge, and one lucky student who completed the challenge received this amazing prize. Obviously we will probably need to continue this tradition of a prize now, but what exactly this year's prize is, is yet to be decided.

If you can encourage as many students to be involved as possible, it would be great- and even better, if you could do it as a class it would be amazing! Given that 46% of adults in Australia do not even have the basic literacy skills to read a bus timetable or medicine instructions, we need to promote reading as much as possible....

Oh, and for those of you who were wondering, Roxette were AMAZING!! (both times)!!!

Induction of new students and information sessions

Well, my voice is nearly non existent (phew! I hear you all say!) and I am sick of hearing myself talk after 2 days of solid inductions and information sessions to students.

Hopefully now the new students feel more comfortable coming into the library and are familiar with their new surroundings. It was great to see their excitement when realising that we had the '2012' version of the Guinness Book of Records, or that we had an Xbox, Wii, Nintendo 3DS and iPads. "At Primary School we never had this stuff" was a comment I heard on multiple occasions.

Thanks to the teachers that have encouraged and supported these sessions and I hope you have found them useful for your students.

Now I must go and rest my voice so that it is ready for 2 Roxette concerts in the next 5 days! Woohoo!

Helping your students choose the right books

If you are bringing your students over to the library to borrow individual novels, please be aware that we have a Children's Fiction collection as well as the Youth Fiction collection. There is significant crossover between these collections, so please make it clear to your students that there are more choices for them if they cannot find a suitable book.


The Children's collection is in the Children's library and is appropriate for students up to about Year 8, but some of these students may also be more advanced and wish to choose from the Youth Fiction collection, located next to the Macbook Trolley area with the purple wall.

For older students with low literacy, we also have plenty of "high interest low level" books that look at more mature topics and these are located in the Youth Fiction area.

As always, if you or your students need any help finding appropriate reading material, please don't hesitate to ask myself or other library staff.





Subscribing to this blog....

It's been an exciting afternoon here in the library, with the discovery of a tool which will allow you to receive email updates each time I add a new post to my blog. If you are interested in keeping up to date with what is happening in the library or any new resources that might be available to you, it would be great if you subscribed. All you need to do is type in your preferred email address into the little text box where it says 'Get emails with blog updates' (just above the holiday countdown) and you should receive an email each time I add a new post.

You can also make comments on any of my posts by using your Google account details or by posting anonymously if you do not have a Google account. If you post anonymously, it would be great if you could write your name after your comment so I know who to respond to :)

I really hope you find this useful....

Library Orientation information

This year the Library Orientation tours will operate differently. They will be specifically aimed at new students to our school who are not familiar with the processes and procedures. This means that this year, teachers will not be able to book their whole class in for a session.

Later in the year, all classes will  be given a lesson on how to use the new Library Management System after it has been implemented, so until then, this is purely an introduction for new students to our library so that they understand procedures and how we operate.

There will be set times for students to attend an orientation session. They are:

Monday 13th Feb
- Session 1: 8.50am
- Session 2: 10.55am
- Session 3: 1.20pm

Tuesday 14th Feb
- Session 4: 10.55am
- Session 5: 1.20pm


As you can appreciate, these times are set times and are worked around other appointments and commitments I have and are therefore cannot be changed.

If you wish to book any students into one of these timeslots, please email me the names of the students and the session they will be attending (this is probably best done by caregroup teachers so no one doubles up). I will need these names so that I can keep the numbers at a suitable level and will unfortunately have to send students back if you have not given me their name. The session will go for approximately 1 lesson.

Thanks

Clickview, Online Referencing Generator & eResources

Thanks for listening to my session this morning. As mentioned, if you have ANY problems accessing any of these resources, please do not hesitate to speak to me. It is going to be really useful for you to be able to access these resources, and it will save you a lot of time.

Hopefully I will have provided you with enough information for you to show your students how to access and use them, but if you are not confident, please see me and I can come to your classroom when the start of the year activities have died down a bit.

Welcome to 2012...

I hope you all had a fantastic and relaxing break and that you are feeling refreshed and ready to go!

I've been here trying to get everything up to scratch and ready for the year ahead so that everything goes smoothly for you all.

I'm going to be utilising this blog a lot more this year, as my main means of communicating with school staff. I plan on advertising new resources for staff and any news from the library that might affect you.

Please do take the time to check it out, or subscribe to the feeds so that you get the most up to date information when it is posted.

:)