|
What is the School Library System?
In 1984 the New York State Legislature established School Library Systems.
Currently 42 School Library Systems exist around the state. The systems
are based within each BOCES and the five Big City School Districts.
School Library System is a state funded program providing a variety
of resources for the school library and the school librarian. Funding
comes from the library component of the New York State budget. Resources
available from the School Library System include system wide databases,
and regional resource sharing for all member libraries.
Download the following documents in Adobe
Acrobat PDF format:
Who can be a member of the School Library System?
The School Library System at Eastern Suffolk BOCES includes 51 school
districts, 230 public school library media centers, 13 nonpublic school
library media centers for a total of 243. There are 13 members of Council
and 51 liaisons. The Council provides policy advice to the School Library
System Director. The liaisons serve as the communication link with the
local school library media specialists in the districts.
What is the function of the School Library System?
It is the function of the School Library System to develop and maintain
a union catalog, provide interlibrary loan, continue professional development
for library media specialists, communicate professional concerns through
newsletters, faxes, email, and liaison meetings, and support cooperative
collection development and electronic databases.
At Eastern Suffolk BOCES Co-Ser 516 Library Services/Media is a shared
service for the purchase and use of online databases to the students,
teachers and librarians in each of the participating buildings. The
Virtual Reference Collection (VRC) is a selection of databases and special
software that permits the user to log in with the same password for
each of the different databases, and then continue to search moving
from one to another. This access is available from the building site
and home. Also, available through Co-Ser 516, is the Digital Media Library
(DML). This service provides videostreaming appropriate for grades K-12.
Training in the use of VRC and DML is provided.
Library Automation Co-Ser 508 assists districts in automating the library
collection so students and staff can easily access information electronically.
The automation systems from Media Flex, Inc. (OPALS) and Follett (Circ
Cat and Destiny) are supported. User group meetings are held to keep
the participants updated on the features of the system software.
Ninety (90%) percent of the buildings have been designated NOVELNY
Ready Electronic Doorway Libraries, EDL's. According to the New York
State Library, an electronic doorway library is an integral part of
the statewide community that makes use of computers and telecommunications
technology with a full range of library resources and skilled library
personnel. The school library media specialists help their students
and staff to evaluate and use information within and beyond the building
walls.
|
