Issue 123

Welcome to the Term 4, 2022 issue of Connections.

For my 10-year-old daughter who reads, or perhaps more aptly devours, books at a frenetic rate, the school library performs a vital role in satisfying her broad appetite for written content. More importantly, the school library plays an essential role in supporting the broader school community and promoting better educational outcomes for students. ‘The goal of all school libraries is to develop information literate students who are responsible and ethical participants in society.’ (IFLA School Library Guideline, 2nd ed.) These are the drivers that drew me to the role of Product Manager with SCIS.

Anthony Shaw at a recent SCIS conference

I started this new role in the depths of a Melbourne winter during the latest COVID spike, working in a hybrid environment after more than four years of working remotely – and in a different library sector. This may appear difficult, but to me it is a wonderful challenge which I’m embracing. School libraries have a special place in my heart, albeit a distant one, from when I attended school. They have always been places to discover and learn, to share a love of books with friends, but importantly they can just be a safe and quiet space for kids.

For the past five years I worked with public libraries supporting the delivery of better outcomes for their communities. Public libraries face many challenges including budget stress, resourcing issues associated with both the pandemic and skills shortages, and changing delivery models. I’m sure these all sound very familiar to school library staff who face these same challenges and more.

My work with public libraries focused  on data analytics, streamlining workflows and providing evidence-based collection management tools to help libraries make informed decisions. The idea behind this is to help libraries save time and money, while delivering efficiencies. The need for greater efficiency has never been more evident for public libraries, with increased budgetary pressures, resource shortages and the  ‘great resignation’ seeing library staff not only moving to other library roles but also leaving the library industry to pursue different careers.

These same challenges have been a constant for school libraries, in many cases for years. The struggles for school libraries seem to be ongoing and the opportunities to deliver greater efficiency through process improvements are limited. For example, without trained library professionals in school libraries, who holds the knowledge and skills to implement new workflows that drive efficiencies?

SCIS Data, which fully integrates via a school’s library management system  (LMS), is a simple way to drive efficiencies, ensuring that items in the school’s catalogue are easily discoverable by the school community. Imagine being able to download high-quality catalogue records and authority files into your LMS with the click of a mouse! You don’t need to imagine this, it’s exactly what SCIS Data provides for schools with a subscription.

Manually creating quality catalogue records for print books, ebooks, audiobooks, websites, apps and digital videos is a challenge for well-resourced libraries and removes staff from their student-facing tasks. For under-resourced libraries, who are navigating the internet in order find information across the growing number of formats, manually creating catalogue records takes time that staff don’t have and takes them away from core tasks.

To quote from one of my favourite children’s books, Where the wild things are, why would library staff search ‘through night and day and in and out of weeks and almost over a year’ for accurate, quality data to create catalogue records? Quality consistent catalogue records can be downloaded from SCIS Data, day or night, any day of the week throughout the year, freeing up staff for a ‘wild rumpus’ (with apologies to Maurice Sendak). 

I’m excited to be working with school libraries. I hope that our efforts continue to support the delivery of efficiencies and free up time for library staff to focus on great outcomes for their school communities.