Issue 135

This morning was cold and grey, with a biting breeze felt to the depths of my core and there was a dampness in the air, making a morning walk with sometimes-crazy 5-year-old border collie Rudy less than inviting for me – and perhaps for him too. As we traipsed through the streets of innercity Melbourne, avoiding traffic lights, which have a habit of upsetting Rudy, the beautiful pale pink of the first blossoms of the season caught my eye. It got me thinking about how beautiful but delicate their brief flowering season is.

Walking further, I spied a wattle in full bloom, its branches stretching high towards the steely early morning sky, awaiting the pale winter sun to bestow its nurturing warmth upon it to sustain the beautifully bright yellow flowers into the inevitable spring. As Term 3 turns into Term 4, I hope everyone in school libraries experiences a similar moment where they see the beauty of their work and how it supports students to blossom and learn.

Welcome to Term 4, where winter gives way to spring, then summer rolls on and we no longer complain about the cold but seek relief from the heat. As poet Robert Frost reminds us, ‘nothing gold can stay’, so celebrate each golden moment, for as quickly as it bestows its beautiful lustre upon us, it can dull and pass us by. Thank you for indulging my contemplative start to ‘Inside SCIS’ as we enter the last term of the year.

Learn how SCIS Authority Files support discovery and unlock resources for library users

At the end of Term 3, the second of our twice-yearly SCIS Authority Files for the year was released. We often get asked by customers how authority files help to enhance their school library catalogues. SCIS Authority Files provide context around authors, subject headings and series titles. Authority files provide the crucial links that connect related resources, making those resources more discoverable for users.

The Name Authority networks information about authors and contributors to ensure all works by a particular author in your school library catalogue can be found by users. For example, Australian author Emily Rodda also publishes under the name Mary-Anne Dickinson and her crime fiction novels are published under her own name, Jennifer Rowe. The Name Authority links all three author names, ensuring that library users can locate all titles published by the author, even if they are using a pseudonym.

For readers like me who want to read everything by the authors they enjoy, this feature ensures catalogue users discover everything by that author held in their school library.

The Series Authority links all titles within a series under the correct series heading. To continue the Emily Rodda theme, the Series Authority groups all books in the Fairy Realm series under the correct series heading. This ensures that all books in the series in your library catalogue can be easily discovered. If a user searches for an individual title from a series, they’ll find that title and a link in the catalogue record to the other titles in the series. Alternatively, if they search for the series name, they’ll be able to see all the titles within the series.

The Subject Authority feature facilitates crucial links by providing ‘used for’, ‘narrower terms’, ‘broader terms’ and ‘related terms’. These additional terms support research and discovery for library users. If we think of a student doing a project on the lifecycle of insects, they may search the catalogue for ‘bugs’. The search will return everything closely associated with bugs but would also have the link to the SCIS Subject Heading ‘insects’. When the user selects ‘insects’ (the SCIS Subject Heading), the title records returned will include search terms related to insects categorised as ‘used for’, ‘narrower terms’, ‘broader terms’ and ‘related terms’ to support the search.

Not every library management system (LMS) integrates SCIS Authority Files data in the same way. If your LMS doesn’t maximise the SCIS authority data in order to improve the search and discovery process for you and your users, please raise this with your LMS account manager or customer service representative. When authority data is integrated well in the LMS, it enhances the user experience, matching the most suitable resource to the needs of your library users.

If you’re speaking to LMS providers about authority files and you’re still having to manually download and upload the SCIS authorities, please mention the SCIS API to them. For the past 3 years, SCIS has facilitated the automation of this process via the SCIS API.

If you don’t subscribe to SCIS Authority Files, please visit our website to create a subscription or contact our customer service team who will be happy to set up a subscription with you. If you want to learn more about SCIS Authority Files, please view our training videos.

• Authority Files subscriptions
• Benefits of Authority Files training video

SCIS on the road in Term 4

The SCIS team looks forward to meeting school library staff in NSW, Queensland and Victoria. You’ll be able to drop by our stands and say ‘hello’ at the Mantle, QSLA and SLAV conferences. We’re very happy to answer any questions, provide advice on making the most of your subscription, and send you home with a free SCIS pen.

The SCIS discovery process

In issue 134 of Connections, I mentioned that SCIS had started the discovery process to improve how SCIS delivers our services and how users interact with SCIS. The SCIS team, along with our technology and marketing colleagues, are continuing our work to analyse customer input, as well planning and prioritising our product improvement roadmap. As you can imagine, SCIS has many moving parts and ensuring that we focus on the right parts to deliver the best user experiences is essential. We can’t wait to share our plans and deliver even better user experiences for SCIS customers.

Welcome to Connections issue 135. We hope that you enjoy it and discover something new from your peers and colleagues.