SAD 17 librarians collaborate

OXFORD — SAD 17 libraries are improving coordination and updating their catalogues, easing access to books and resources for students district-wide.

During Monday's school board meeting, the district's three librarians presented the board with the district's new, integrated online catalogue system.

According to Oxford Hills Middle School Librarian Jennifer Davis, by coordinating the district's libraries, the three hope to improve learning outcomes for district students.

About a year ago, however, SAD 17's circulation system was collapsing, Davis told the board.

"It was dropping data," she explained. "We're talking about thousands of books and thousands of kids and that adds up to thousands of dollars if you're not getting books back."

Davis, along with elementary librarian Alana Deperte and high school librarian Melissa St. John, began collaborating to improve and coordinate the system.

The result was the district-wide introduction of OPALS, an open source circulation software that can be accessed remotely 24 hours a day.

According to St. John, who took the lead in setting up the OPALS system, the software stores all resources, from e-books to the library's physical holdings to online databases, in one location.

Presenting the software to the board, St. John demonstrated how searching OPALS by key term immediately brought up all relevant references in the school's collection.

Beyond resolving the district's outdated circulation system's failures, OPALS also allows better coordination between the 10 school libraries. 

Even though the middle school, high school and elementary schools have their own OPALS site, the collections are also centralized – students can search the database for books in any district school.

The initial interaction between the three librarians resolved the immediate circulation crisis and the three are continuing to meet and collaborate further, Davis told the board.

The change is significant, she said – until a year ago, the three women had never met.

Now, they're working as a team to improve the district's libraries, integrate their role as librarians with the core curriculum and inspire a love of reading.

"If you love to read, you're a better reader," Davis told the board.

"The goal of school is to make these kids lifelong readers, because that will affect every area of their lives."