Aug     Sept     Oct     Nov/Dec     Jan     Feb     Mar     Apr     May (inventory info)

August 
     WebCollection Plus has been moved to a FCPS central server, housed at Media Services.  Ease of use is no longer dependent upon how well your local server performs.  The remainder of the Follett products are installed at each school on a server.   Additionally, WC+  has a centralized administration webpage which allows you to configure searches using  the web.  Use the website handout given to you in the August 1 LMS  meeting to find your school's administration page.  Changes are password protected and the password may be changed as you feel is necessary.  
     Setting up Patron Empowerment (pdf hyperlink) can allow your students and teachers to be autonomous in finding a list of their checkouts, fines, holds and reserves on the WEB as well as in the local OPAC.  If allowed, patrons can place actual holds and reserves. 
      

September
     Would you like to be able to charge your students or other patrons for things other than overdue books and payment of lost books?  Three applications I can think of are charging for printing; for losing their library card, or for not rewinding videos. 

	Create a new Fine type – System Setup > Setup > Circulation >Fines tab.  Select new and add the code and description of what you need to the fine types listed. FYI: Default Fine types:  Damaged, Lost, Overdue, and Refund are attached to a copy record.  They cannot be deleted. All USER defined are not attached to a copy record and can be deleted only if this type of fine is NOT attached to any patron’s record.
Printing a report of the fines will include both types of fines. Be sure and choose ‘fines only’ for this report

October
     I am hopeful that the technical problems happening with Follett will subside before another month has passed.  We have had a rash of MARC records that seemed to "get stuck in cyberspace" - most recently involving  nearly 16,000 copies which did not travel to schools' databases after being uploaded at the UNION.  In order to catch problems in a timely fashion, our media technicians e-mail you that the items are coming to you and that the MARCs and copies should be in the database at your school too.  ALWAYS, check when you get items from Media Services to see that the MARCs and copies have arrived into your local database.  For data-exchange problems, the first thing to be tried can be done by the STC.  Barby will send directions as you find problems.  
     When anyone searches the UNION Catalog, (s)he will see all MARCs and copies for all schools that have been added at the UNION as well as any copies added at the school.  Also, UNION searching will show NEW-to-the-district MARCs that have been added at the school but UNION searching will not show any editing you have done to a MARC record from your library.  That is to say that changes at your school to existing MARCs stay at your school and do not make a change at the UNION, the tool that the whole district uses for interlibrary loan.  A word to the wise: "Take care to get cataloging done correctly the first time.  FCPS Cataloging Manual
     

November/December
     If you do not find the book MARC record in the UNION and do not want to physically send the items to Media Services for processing, e-mail either Barby or Mary Lou a list of ISBNs and titles.  Whoever will either add the MARC to the UNION so you may pull it down or will e-mail you a microlif file of all the MARCs and you can add the copies. Request MARCs for magazine titles from Barby.  Don't forget that all magazines copies MUST have a call number beginning with MAG, just as all pieces of equipment must have a call number beginning with EQ.
   

 January
     Destiny™ is Follett's next generation automation software.  It is specifically designed for K-12 and brings all of the information onto one central server.  No need for you to ever update or backup again.  It is browser-based and allows librarians to automatically transfer patron data from one school to another.  You can forget about following all the steps to convert patron from STI to upload into Follett.  Destiny can be accessed through the district WAN, the Internet or both.  Both Multimedia Schools and School Library Journal have favorably reviewed it.  You can obtain detailed information about Destiny through Follett's website at http://www.fsc.follett.com/products/destiny/index.cfm 
  

February    

Creating Authority Records in Follett is easy.  Authority Records are also known as "see" and "see also" records.  For instance, when a patron searches by subject for cars, s(he) will get a return as shown to the right.  Upon clicking on the hyperlinked 'Automobiles', users would be directed to all the items which have automobiles as a subject.
There are 2 ways to create AUTHORITY records.
1.	Choose the template that you need.   The most often used is Subject: Topical. You will then fill in the AUTHORITY MARC.  For example:  150 øø _aIndians of North America 450 øø _aAmerican Indians	2.  You may either import a file of  authority records such as this authority record file created by Marilyn Seiler at LHS.  Right click on the hyperlink and save the file.  Go to cataloging > File and choose Then  choose to import the saved file.

In order for the program to block others from checking out those books, you need to create and name a new circulation type in system setup >circulation for that group of books as well as create a new a patron type for those students who can check them out.  Once you create the circ type and patron type in System Setup, you need to assign that circ type to the desired books.  Use your PHD to do this - check with Barby if you need help. Next in System Setup > Circulation > Policies, you need to allow only those patrons to check out by giving them loan limits.  All other patrons will have 0 loan period for that circ type. 
    

Be sure and update to Follett 6.0 before beginning inventory.  

Contact bhardy@fayette.k12.ky.us at Media Services with comments/questions regarding this site.
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