INSIGHT

Office of Library Information Services Newsletter
November 1999

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CollegeView   Get Promotional Flyer to announce the services and access passwords to your students and their families!   Share this announcement with your Guidance Department!

CollegeView and CareerView Internet Versions Now Available to 21 School Subscribers (Click here to see if your school is a current subscriber.) In 1998, Ed Fangman, Facilitator of Career Connections arranged for the purchase of the CD-ROM version of these programs for 21 school Guidance/Career Centers. These programs are now accessible from any computer with Internet access 24-hours a day - from school and home. Della received a "hot tip" from Kay Jones about the product conversion and within days arrangements (including upgrade payment provided by Ed Frangman) were finalized. Our goal is to seek more efficient and effective ways to distribute information resources via our onLINE homepage - this fit the bill! Career View contains information on more than 7,600 careers to make students aware of the diverse opportunities available in today's economy. Students can pick the categories based on interests, talents, educational goals - Career View automatically generates a list of occupations that meets their criteria. Exclusive OccuFacts provides details on approximately 250 of the most popular occupations. Students can learn more about the working conditions, employment outlook, training, earning potential, and related occupations. The military folder includes information and multimedia presentations on hundreds of career paths available in the U.S. military College View contains the most accurate, comprehensive, and up-to-date information on more than 3,800 two- and four- year accredited colleges and universities, and nearly 900,000 scholarships. Current information on each school's student body, student life, dorms, meals, student organizations, activities, athletics, special services, admissions criteria, tuition, and more.

CareerView   Get Promotional Flyer to announce the services and access passwords to your students and their families!   Share this announcement with your Guidance Department!

S.A.F.E. Grant Reading Assessment Website

In collaboration with the Baltimore County Public Library, the Office of Library Information Services will be developing a website, "Reading Around Baltimore County." The purpose of the website is to assess the impact of the new reading materials purchased with the S.A.F.E. Grant funding. The central questions are: (1) Are students reading more? (2) Are they able to demonstrate that they read by writing a response to literature? BCPL currently has a website for kids to share reading experiences; however, there is not much activity. We feel that with the support of teachers and library media specialists encouraging students to make contributions, planning instructional activities where kids write their responses on a printed template, and, with the help of parents, teachers, volunteers when needed, their responses can be typed into the website. Since we are still in the planning stage, your ideas are welcomed and your help with the website design would be most appreciated. Please email Della.

Role and Responsibilities of the School Library Media Specialist
Several years ago the Office of Library Information Services distributed to library media specialists a statement of the role and responsibilities of of the school library media specialist. This statement was summarized from Information Power: Building Partnerships for Learning, the national standards for school library media programs published by ALA. This summary is very useful when explaining your role to administrators, teachers, and parents. We have used it many times to clarifying your role to administrators and for recruiting purposes.

Action Research - YES!
American Association of School Librarians (AASL) Examines Impact of School Library Media Center on Academic Achievement
With the support of a $5,000 World Book ALA Goal Grant, the Research and Statistics Committee of the
American Association of School Librarians (AASL) is preparing the Information Power: Building Partnerships for Learning Action Research Project. This national study seeks to assist individual schools to collect, analyze and disseminate information about the impact of the school library media center on academic achievement and to judge how the implementation of Information Power: Building Partnerships for Learning (Chicago: American Library Association, 1998) has affected student achievement.

Periodical Order
The magazine and periodical catalog (yellow) should have been completed and sent to Purchasing for your school by October 22, 1999. Information about the H.R. Wilson materials will be forthcoming from Purchasing.

1999-2000 Vendor Information
Vendor number, address, and contact are updated in this pdf file. Use Acrobat Reader to open the file.

Booktalks Quick and Simple Website- WOW!
This is an excellent booktalk resource for library media specialists! Search by author, title, subject, or interest level to locate a "quick and simple" booktalk script. In addition, booktalking tips, award winning books, book review sources, reading lists, and much more! Check out the reading lists...there's a bibliography on almost every topic!
Maintained by Nancy Keane's Booktalks on the Air: Kid's Book Beat on WKXL Radio. 

Encyclopedia Britannica: What's the difference between the free and subscription version?

Terri D. Hawkins, Sailor Database Librarian asked this question of Jerry Nagy, Britannica Sales Rep. The following is the text of the message that was sent to Della on the School Library Administrators Listserv:
"These two resources are not identical. The new free site does contain the full text of Encyclopedia Britannica, but a search will typically only retrieve 2 or 3 articles (as opposed to the subscription version which generally retrieves a
greater number of articles). In addition, in the next month or so, the subscription version will add about 38,000 articles aimed at middle and high school students. These articles will not be available on the free site."

Observations from Collection Analysis
Schools should be using Library Pro 2.1 available for downloading at Chancery's website http://www.chancery.com
After viewing the automation databases sent to our office, several common errors have been noticed. Please check your data and make any corrections necessary.

• All cutter letters should be capital.
• All location designators should be capital.
• Leave one space between the designator and the Dewey number and between the Dewey number and the cutter letters.
• Use the approved designators for all categories (refer to the Cataloging Specifications for Baltimore County Public Schools)
• Check any items with <<marc00000... numbers instead of the barcode number. If these items exist, scan in the correct barcode. If these items do not exist, delete the item from your data.
• Check your data for duplicate titles. Correct any errors.
• General encyclopedias should have only one title entry with the additional volumes scanned into the same record. For example - World Book Encyclopedia should have one entry for c1998 and 22 copies scanned into that record.

Library Pro 2.1 users need to also correct any errors in their data.

• Be sure the Branch abbreviation is in all titles and all copies. (Use the global change feature to do this).
• Be sure the Location table matches the location you have added to each title and copy.
• Be sure the location designator matches the location in each title and copy.
• Be sure that nonfiction books have nonfiction in the 852 k MARC field.
• Be sure that fiction books have fiction in the 852 k MARC field. In addition, fiction books should have F added to the DDCN or 082 MARC field, to ensure proper alphabetical order will occur in the software. (Use the global change feature to do this).
• The following MARC fields should have indexing:
  020 ISBN
  082 DDCN
  100 a AuthName
  245 a Title
  260 c PublDate
  852 a Status
  852 b CircBran
  852 e CopTmLoc
  852 j CollName
  852 k CircLoc
  852 p CircNum
• Reindex your catalog, patron, and verify circulation every week. Check the Logs folder for any circ.err or duplicate.log files. Open these items in Simple Text and then correct any mistakes in your data.

Cataloging Specifications for Baltimore County Public Schools

• Use the current edition of the Abridged Dewey Decimal Classification.
  
• Use the current edition of the Sears List of Subject Headings.
  
• Use capital letters in the call number.
  
• Do not use a designator for juvenile, fiction, or professional books.
  
• Supply full MARC cataloging in MICROLIF 91 format. Use the diskette size format (IBM or MAC) specified on the Library Media Order Cover Sheet.
  
• Print the following information on the circulation cards, book pockets, and spine
  labels.

Automation Supplies: 1999-2000 Vendor Information and Price List
Check this list for new product information for barcode scanner, pricing for all supplies, and vendors.

Student Assignments? Notify Baltimore County Public Library
Alert the public library serving your area of research assignments given to students. The public library would like to better serve students by knowing in advance of the assignment requirements. This information will ensure that materials needed by students will be available from the existing collection as well as provide acquisitions librarians ideas for new items. Use the convenient Assignment Alert form that is on the onLINE website. Click the appropriate level (Elem., Middle, High School) in the homepage section K-12 Essential Curriculum Links. The School Assignment Alert form is at the top of the page.

Another Published Article by Jane Scott - Congratulations!
Check out the October 1999 issue of School Library Media Activities Monthly and read about the authentic learning (online field trips) going on at Franklin Elementary. "Using Internet Field Trips to Provide Authentic Learning Tasks" will certainly give you many excellent ideas for your library instructional program as well as an effective way to use the Internet. Jane states, "The connections they make with people and places in other parts of the world help to mold them into global citizens and change their perceptions of the world around them. To me, this is what the WWW is all about. As we learn new things about faraway places, I can almost see the web spinning in the minds of my students as they create their own connections to the real work. This is what education is all about." School Library Media Activities Monthly, October 1999.

School Library Journal Online
SLJ has a web companion to one of the top print resources for librarians. If you can't afford to purchase the print subscription, this is your second best choice...at least you will be able to read some of the professional literature. Features include news from the world of libraries, full text of the most requested articles from the print version, popular Internet sites for librarians, best CD-ROM's, index to the print journals, and much more.

American Library Association Position Statements Webpage
Looking for support for various aspects of school library media programs? Connect to ALA site to get information on the Library Bill of Right, staffing, confidentiality of library records, information literacy, resource-based instruction, outcomes-based instruction, site-based management, flexible scheduling, value of independent reading, and value of library media programs in education.

Maryland Technology Showcase Volunteers Needed
Here is a great opportunity to learn more about 21st century library media programs. Gail Bailey and Jayne Moore of the Division of Instruction & Staff Development, Maryland State Department of Education are asking for library media specialists volunteers to staff the Library Media Center of the Future at the Maryland Technology Showcase. The event will be held December 8 and 9 at the Baltimore Convention Center. They will need people from about 8:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m.

Some of the areas needing volunteers are: electronic book, animation and computer graphics, NASA, web development, storytelling, video production, professional development, adaptive technology, optical scanning for identification, circulation desk (Winnebago Spectrum).

Theu also will need people to coordinate the volunteers, greet visitors and help circulate students (only high school students will attend this year). Anyone interested in volunteering should contact Jayne Moore [410 767-0442 ] or by email [moore@umd5.umd.edu].

BCPS Online Research Modules at the Maryland Technology Showcase
The Library Media Specialists Online Research Module Development Team will be demonstrating their outstanding work in the Best Practices area at the Maryland Technology Showcase. The modules were recognized by the Maryland Business Rountable and MSDE as one of ten exemplary uses of technology in Maryland. Library media specialists who received a letter from Della in October requesting their participation are to confirm participation by November 12, 1999. Please call Della [4035] or email [dcurtis@bcpl.net].

Library Pro Collection Analysis Training

Technology Plan
The 25-page Library Media Technology Plan is nearly completed. Presently, it is being reviewed for comments by other curricular offices such as art, tech ed, and the Dept of Technology. The plan with be made available over the Internet. Look for a FirstClass message announcing the URL.

Lesson Plans from School Library Media Activities Monthly
Need some ideas for library lesson plans? Check out the website organized by ERIC of the lesson plans published in the popular School Library Media Activities Monthly journal. Paula Montgomery, former Chief of School Library Media Services at the Maryland State Department of Education, is the editor of this extremely useful resource for school library media specialists. Lesson plans are organized by curricular content area for browsing. In addition, you can search the website by concept your are planning to teach.

Thanksgiving Activities and Research
Billy Bear's Happy Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving Pictures to Color
The First Thanksgiving
The America's Homepage
The Mayflower Webpages
Thanksgiving Poems
Thanksgiving Songs

Puppets Around the World from Aunt Annie Crafts
In Puppets Around the World make puppets and put on plays based on folktales from around the world. Puppets Around the World features over 100 puppets to make in the categories of finger, hand, and stick puppets. Also included are instructions for making stages, scenery and props -- everything you need to put on a puppet play. Several plays based on folktales are ready for you to stage.

Mark Your Calendar

• November 4-5
  Maryland Educational Media Organization (MEMO). Fall Conference. Ocean City, Maryland
  http://www.tcps.k12.md.us/memo/fall99.html
• November 10-13
  American Association of School Librarians (AASL) Conference. Birmingham, AL
  http://www.ala.org/aasl
  
• 
  November 14-20, 1999
  American Education Week
  National Education Association provides history, quotes, and ideas for your school's celebration.
  http://www.nea.org/aew/
  
  November 15-20
  National Children's Book Week
  http://www.cbcbooks.org/pubs/aboutbw.htm
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Happy Thanksgiving Holiday November 25-28
  
• December 8-9
  Maryland Technology Showcase at the Baltimore Convention Center
  http://www.mdtechshowcase.com/
  
• A Look Ahead! National Library Week April 9-15, 2000
  Check out the ALA website for announcements, activities, press releases, and much more!