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| LIBRARY STATUS |
| The Central School Library has been open for approximately four months and I would like to inform everyone about what we have worked together to accomplish. Automation To begin with, an automation system called Athena by Sagebrush Corporation was purchased and installed so that all books could be processed by using a hand-held scanner and a PC instead of a manual card system. Now, all students and staff have been assigned a barcode with which they can quickly take out books, and the library catalog is on a computer, so searching can be done quickly and research can be completed easier. Also, as I'm sure most of you know, approximately 2,000 new volumes were purchased in 2001 for our new library. These volumes were purchased "shelf-ready", meaning they came with barcodes and spine labels on and were accompanied by data on floppy disks allowing them to be added to our new automation system within minutes. Weeding In addition to the 2,000 new books, we had over 6,000 books brought over from the old Central School. These books had to be unpacked and evaluated to see if they should be retained in the collection. After going through approximately 360 cartons of books, we had to decide which books should be withdrawn based on the book's age, accuracy and relevance to elementary school curriculum. This was and is a time consuming process that continues today. Processing Old Books Each of the books from the old Central School have to be added to our computer system one at a time. This means we have to pull each book off the shelf, find its Library of Congress number or ISBN number, and either look up the book online or add in its information by typing it in. Once that is done, we put an assigned barcode label on each book with a plastic protector over it. As you can imagine, this is a very time-consuming process. So far we have added in approximately 2,000 of those books one at a time. We have totally completed our non-fiction section, which was a priority so that students would have this material available for research and reports. Volunteers We have had approximately 40 parents coordinated by Karen Mooney involved in all steps of this project. Some are helping to incorporate the old collection and others are helping in the day-to-day operation of the library. This involves checking books in when a class arrives in the library, sending out reminder slips to those children who have forgotten to bring in their books and checking out books to those students. In addition, 6 high school students who are doing community service are helping to process books as well as two librarians from South School (Kathy Plati) and Stoneham HS (Tricia DiPietro) are being paid to assist in this project. USAGE STATISTICS: Number of items: On Loan........................438 Overdue........................ 87 On Reserve................... 0 Number of Patrons: On File..........................462 With Fines..................... 0 With Items On Loan.....353 Amount Of Fines: Outstanding................$0.00 Collected Today...........$0.00 Check Outs Renewals Reserves In-house Other Total Today 31 2 0 0 0 33 Apr '02 1006 145 0 0 0 1151 Mar '02 1294 91 2 0 0 1387 Feb '02 343 4 0 0 0 347 May 2001 - Jan2002 0 0 0 0 0 0 |
| By Mrs. Lucille Beeth, Library Media Specialist |
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