BookWhere at North Valleys High School
North Valleys High School is part of the Washoe County School District, a public school system. The School was built in 2001 and has approximately 2,300 students. I’m the Library Media Specialist at the school and am a long-time user of BookWhere, having used it earlier at O’Brien Middle School.
I catalog a lot of videos and ‘oddball stuff’ as well as local Nevada books, so I appreciate the successful hit-rate that BookWhere affords. For these items in particular, BookWhere is a tremendous time-saver.
While BookWhere helps me save money on book processing, it isn’t the main reason I use the program. It helps me save on professional cataloging tools. With my background in cataloging and by comparing records from a variety of different sources I can pick the most complete and accurate records to include in my catalog. As a result I don’t have to keep on-hand copies of expensive manuals, which my Library really wouldn’t be able to afford or justify for just one user (me!).
Using BookWhere means I can make sure that the records we receive from various sources are accurate and complete. Even though we do have Follett’s Destiny product, and many school libraries like ours do use their excellent product, there are still definite gaps in my workflow where I absolutely rely on BookWhere. For example, sometimes the records are not always available in a timely manner through Follett, and then when they are some of them are not complete or accurate.
So, if I were to summarize why BookWhere makes sense to our Library it is because it has allowed us to eliminate backlogs. I can process new titles before they become yesterday’s news, and that’s good for my students and teachers. My goal is to buy resources that the kids are going to use. It’s not just about choosing the right titles; it also means getting them cataloged as soon as possible. And that means using BookWhere.
I catalog a lot of videos and ‘oddball stuff’ as well as local Nevada books, so I appreciate the successful hit-rate that BookWhere affords. For these items in particular, BookWhere is a tremendous time-saver.
While BookWhere helps me save money on book processing, it isn’t the main reason I use the program. It helps me save on professional cataloging tools. With my background in cataloging and by comparing records from a variety of different sources I can pick the most complete and accurate records to include in my catalog. As a result I don’t have to keep on-hand copies of expensive manuals, which my Library really wouldn’t be able to afford or justify for just one user (me!).
Using BookWhere means I can make sure that the records we receive from various sources are accurate and complete. Even though we do have Follett’s Destiny product, and many school libraries like ours do use their excellent product, there are still definite gaps in my workflow where I absolutely rely on BookWhere. For example, sometimes the records are not always available in a timely manner through Follett, and then when they are some of them are not complete or accurate.
So, if I were to summarize why BookWhere makes sense to our Library it is because it has allowed us to eliminate backlogs. I can process new titles before they become yesterday’s news, and that’s good for my students and teachers. My goal is to buy resources that the kids are going to use. It’s not just about choosing the right titles; it also means getting them cataloged as soon as possible. And that means using BookWhere.
