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CATEGORY: Library Automation |
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With these agreements, a total of more than 62,000 K-12 and public library titles are now available for purchase online through parent company Follett's ecommerce sites, Titlewave and TitleTales.
News/Breaking News - Posted 04 Feb 2010
Topping the list of new features is support for Microsoft SQL Server as the underlying database for the ILS application server.
News/Breaking News - Posted 02 Dec 2009
Customer libraries can now find answers to questions such as: Which of the library’s titles are searched for most often? How much time do borrowers spend looking through the library’s collection? Or which subjects merit the most interest from card holders?
News/Breaking News - Posted 13 Nov 2009
SchoolRooms gives students access from a single interface to library resources, online databases, and approved web content alongside new and past curriculum specifically created for SchoolRooms users. Version 3.0 features new administration tools that allow teachers and librarians to customize and adapt the product to meet the needs of students and parents.
News/Breaking News - Posted 01 Oct 2009
The latest edition of the collection development resource for school libraries lists over 8,000 recommended books, 2,000 more than the previous edition. It also features "short list" indicators for the "most highly recommended" works and more specific grade levels indicators than the previous edition.
News/Breaking News - Posted 18 Sep 2009
A year ago, Barbara Fiehn wrote in Multimedia & Internet@Schools about the emergence of social networking features being added to school library automation systems. At the time, Follett’s Destiny was the leader among school automation vendors in implementing the social networking or Web 2.0 features, and some schools and media specialists were getting on board. A good deal has transpired in the ensuing year. So here’s an update based on a user survey Barbara did as well as information from interviews she conducted with vendors at the recent American Library Association (ALA) conference in July 2009.
LS2 Kids has an intuitive, easy-to-use interface that helps children find exactly what they’re looking for within a library’s collection, according to the announcement.
News/Breaking News - Posted 20 Jul 2009
Multiple-drawer card catalogs have long been relegated to storing bulbs and batteries in media centers or nuts and bolts in garages. Static OPACS accessible only in the media center have become web catalogs accessible throughout the school and beyond; WebPACS have evolved into full-featured, one-stop-shopping access points for media centers’ collections, websites, databases, customized lists of state award winners, top checkouts, ebooks, book excerpts, and thumbnail images of book covers. As Mary Alice explains this month, media specialists use these next-generation systems to create reading lists, webliographies, and more, enabling students not only to find books but to contribute to the catalog's content.
OCLC has released the new NetLibrary Media Center, a full-featured desktop application that allows library patrons to easily search, manage, transfer, and listen to downloadable eAudiobooks. (From Information Today, Inc.’s NewsBreaks Weekly Digest)
News/ITI Cross Links - Posted 22 Jan 2009
With these agreements, a total of more than 51,000 K-12 and public library titles are now available for purchase online through parent company Follett’s ecommerce sites, Titlewave and Titletales.
News/Breaking News - Posted 05 Jan 2009
The potential of ebooks in schools can be forecast by the sheer popularity of ebooks in society in general. Over the last 5 years, ebooks are the only book publishing segment consistently showing double-digit sales increases. Why should librarians and other educators jump on this bandwagon? Twenty-first-century school libraries really must provide the tools and resources students need to develop technology and information literacy. Read Deborah McKenzie’s feature to learn more.
LS2, known as "Indigo" during its project phase, is a new development platform for TLC and a new unified ILS that will include Web, client, and mobile interfaces.
News/Breaking News - Posted 03 Nov 2008
While many schools are blocking access to social networking applications on the internet, school library automation OPACs are beginning to provide such applications to students and staff. Barbara Fiehn talked with some library automation vendors and others about this emerging trend to see what they're up to, and with some school library media specialists to gain some insight to their hesitations and acceptance. Read on to see what she learned.
The H.W. Wilson Company is launching Essay and General Literature Index Retrospective: 1900-1984, a new resource that cites tens of thousands of essays from anthologies and other sources.
News/Breaking News - Posted 07 Aug 2008
Users of the new Destiny Library Manager release can choose from a list of classic titles in the middle- and high-school ranges, available through a special arrangement with Follett Library Resources. Once downloaded, the ebooks are searchable and available through Destiny Library Manager.
News/Breaking News - Posted 10 Jul 2008
SirsiDynix released SirsiDynix Horizion 7.4.1, as well as Horizon Information Portal (HIP) 3.09 and 4.13 for North American sites.
News/Breaking News - Posted 14 Jan 2008
SirsiDynix announced the general release of the Symphony 3.2 customizable integrated library system.
News/Breaking News - Posted 23 Dec 2007
Follett's new version 3.0 of InfoCentre streamlines library management and offers access to more services.
News/Breaking News - Posted 25 Oct 2007
Version 8.0 also lets students rate library books, helps districts transfer textbooks
News/Breaking News - Posted 18 Oct 2007
Northern Illinois University library science professor Barbara Fiehn is back again, reporting on library automation for the school media community. This year, after working hard with an automation system to gain some new perspectives, she talked to other users—see her survey results—and to the vendors.
Effective immediately, Sagebrush Books has changed its name and logo. The company is now operating under the name Tandem Library Group and can be found online at www.tandemlibrarygroup.com.
News/Breaking News - Posted 07 Feb 2007
Using the eBOP platform, librarians preview ebooks and other content, purchase and subscribe to individual titles, or create a custom collection on the fly. (From Information Today, Inc.’s NewsBreaks Weekly News Digest)
News/ITI Cross Links - Posted 29 Jan 2007
Last year, in her two-part series, “The Voice of the Vendors: Futures in School Library Automation, Parts 1 and 2,” Barbara Fiehn shared the results of her conversations with Follett, Sagebrush, Companion Corp., Dynix, Mandarin Library Automation, The Library Corporation (TLC), Innovative Interfaces, Inc., and Sirsi Corp. This year, she is once again touching base with as many of these companies as she can to find out what’s new and compelling in the market in general and in their offerings in particular. Here, in Part 2 of her Library Automation in K–12 Update 2006, she introduces Softlink and provide news since her earlier coverage of Follett Corp.—including its acquisition of Sagebrush's library automation products—SirsiDynix, and Mandarin Library Automation, Inc.
While researching her soon-to-be-published November/December 2006 MultiMedia & Internet@Schools article “Library Automation in K-12, a 2006 Update—Part 2,” Barbara Fiehn spoke with Sagebrush Corporation executives shortly after Follett acquired Sagebrush’s library automation products. Here’s her brief report on what’s happening to the rest of Sagebrush Corporation.
The SchoolRooms online portal and a simplified library management system interface are among the offerings for school libraries.
News/Breaking News - Posted 06 Sep 2006
Last year, in her two-part series, “The Voice of the Vendors: Futures in School Library Automation, Parts 1 and 2,” Barbara Fiehn shared the results of her conversations with Follett, Sagebrush, Companion Corp., Dynix, Mandarin Library Automation, The Library Corporation (TLC), Innovative Interfaces, Inc., and Sirsi Corp. This year, she is once again touching base with as many of these companies as she can to find out what’s new and compelling in the market in general and in their offerings in particular. Barbara also identified several other important players in the K–12 automation market—Book Systems, Library Soft, and Surpass—and has added discussions of their products and services. Here, in Part 1 of her Library Automation in K–12 Update 2006, she covers these three companies and notes what’s new at Innovative Interfaces, Sagebrush, and TLC.
Through the acquisition, Follett Digital Resources will be better positioned to meet the growing digital delivery needs of educational publishers and schools, the announcement states.
News/Breaking News - Posted 17 Aug 2006
The browser-based, streamlined circulation interface has been specifically designed for schools.
News/Breaking News - Posted 07 Aug 2006
The Sagebrush library automation business will initially operate under the Sagebrush name as a subsidiary of Follett Software Company and over time will be integrated into Follett Software Company. Sagebrush Books, Sagebrush Library Services, and Sagebrush Viewpoint will continue as a new separate Sagebrush company.
News/Breaking News - Posted 27 Jul 2006
The new release of BiblioFile is a generational upgrade to the company’s ITS•forWindows cataloging program.
News/Breaking News - Posted 26 Jul 2006
Version 6.5 of Follett’s Destiny Resource Management Solution features enhancements that make the product even better adapted to the specific needs of K-12 districts, according to the announcement.
News/Breaking News - Posted 07 Jul 2006
Sagebrush District Reports Manager and Patron Manager allow for ease of use and better district accountability, according to the announcement.
News/Breaking News - Posted 05 Jul 2006
The Fifteenth Edition of the Fiction Catalog is available on WilsonWeb and in print.
News/Breaking News - Posted 13 Apr 2006
Follett’s Destiny Asset Manager uses a browser-based interface and scanner technology to keep track of all of a district’s fixed and portable assets, making sure districts get the most value for their budget investment, according to the announcement.
News/Breaking News - Posted 01 Mar 2006
Many students experience "library anxiety" when making the switch from high school to college. While school librarians do an excellent job teaching information literacy skills to their students, they may find themselves asking, "What other skills are important for my students to learn before they leave high school, and what resources are available for them?" Having worked for years as a librarian and with librarians in school and academic settings, the authors offer solid advice and ideas for school librarians to help students bridge the gap between the high school library and academic libraries.
The new version of the library automation system includes a powerful new WEB Librarian interface and numerous additional added benefits and performance enhancements, according to the announcement.
News/Breaking News - Posted 01 Feb 2006
Pinpoint helps students access and use the best district resources for learning by gathering, evaluating, ranking, and reporting the most relevant results (as defined by the district) from multiple sources simultaneously, according to the announcement.
News/Breaking News - Posted 07 Dec 2005
This client allows librarians to search Z39.50 sites and easily add items to their library catalogs from these sites, according to the announcement.
News/Breaking News - Posted 22 Sep 2005
Sagebrush’s online bookstore now offers titles aligned to state curriculum standards in all 50 states for the core subject areas of language arts, math, social studies, and science.
News/Breaking News - Posted 16 Sep 2005
Bowker has released a variety of new resources to assist library professionals with the operational changes necessary to transition to the new global ISBN-13 standard that takes effect in 16 months.
News/Breaking News - Posted 07 Sep 2005
Sagebrush InfoCentre provides site-based library automation and the flexibility to streamline processes to capture most of the cost savings found in a centralized system.
The upgrade enables users of the new Sagebrush InfoCentre Library Management System to use In-Hand in their libraries to simplify inventory, remote circulation, and in-house tracking, according to the announcement.
News/Breaking News - Posted 17 Aug 2005
Mandarin Oasis is a centralized Web-based library management system that allows access to library resources through any workstation with a Web browser.
This article—Part 2 of Barbara Fiehn's two-part series on a group of library systems vendors that are active in the K–12 realm—reflects interviews with vendors who work with a wide range of library environments: Mandarin Library Automation, The Library Corporation (TLC), Innovative Interfaces, and Sirsi Corporation were asked to talk about current and future developments in library automation.
InfoCentre offers library media specialists the choice of implementing a fully distributed or partially distributed infrastucture, so that they can run their library as they do today and help IT reduce systems maintenance and technology costs, according to the announcement.
News/Breaking News - Posted 28 Jun 2005
The new company, SirsiDynix, will continue development of both the Unicorn and Horizon 8.x/Corinthian ILS platforms.
News/Breaking News - Posted 21 Jun 2005
Thomson Gale has announced the newest enhancement to Gale's Virtual Reference Library, the eBook Subcollection Manager, plus enhancements and additional entries to databases. (From Information Today, Inc.'s EContentMag.com.)
News/ITI Cross Links - Posted 27 May 2005
Bowker’s Book Analysis System enables library professionals to perform quick core and gap analyses of their book collections.
News/Breaking News - Posted 25 May 2005
Mandarin’s new Web-based automation system is centralized, offering one-point installation, maintenance and updates.
News/Breaking News - Posted 16 May 2005
As Mandarin Library Automation, Inc. shifts to a services-based model, it has begun offering the basic Mandarin M3 library management software package as a free download.
News/Breaking News - Posted 16 May 2005
For this article, author Dr. Barbara Fiehn spoke with four vendors—Follett, Sagebrush, Companion Corp., and Dynix—to determine what, in their estimation, would be "coming soon," what would be coming "within five years," what the salient trends to watch might be, and what else mattered in the world of library automation for K-12. (Note that she’ll be speaking with another group of automation vendors for their perspectives in Part 2 of this story, for the July/August 2005 issue.)
COMPanion says its Textbook Tracker v3.03 cross platform textbook management program will enable users to hold students and parents accountable for lost and damaged textbooks, thus saving schools/districts money.
News/Breaking News - Posted 08 Apr 2005
News/Cool Links - Posted 28 Feb 2005
We now have some pretty good track records on some new technologies that make access to information—both physical and intellectual access—simpler and, therefore, we hope, better. Hurdles to that access exist in both the physical and virtual worlds. Requiring a PC or specific browser to access information sets a hurdle in place in the virtual environment. Requiring information to be used within a library during specific hours is a hurdle of sorts too. Here are five key technologies that improve access in one way or another, or both.
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