By: mediatheek Marcanti College staff
June 5, 2006
Students mostly visit our library to explore the Internet (typically not for educational purposes). The shelves with Dutch novels and juvenile literature did not appeal much to them, but how can library staff make an effort to update collections when most of the attention is drawn to the students using the computers? For years this had concerned us, so we really wanted to make a change. We started by introducing several time saving methods (see section Best Practices... for more detail). Express cataloging is one of these methods. We already had pioneered with the OpenBiblio library system[1] and frequently visit the forums of the very supportive OpenBiblio community. Their expertise guided us through the adaptation and implementation of the Z39.50 MARC Lookup add-on. Now any title which is cataloged by the regional public library network can be added to our OpenBiblio catalog in less than a minute. It was worthwhile to establish these methods:
Before: Sleepy old books | After: Fresh new books |
Type of education: pre-vocational secondary education (VMBO). In The Netherlands[3] 60% of all students in secondary education are enrolled at this type of schools. Marcanti College offers a broad range in education level, from basic vocational program up to theoretical program. The school has approximately 650 students, most of them aged between 12-17.
Name of library | mediatheek Marcanti College |
Type of library | high school library |
Location | Amsterdam, The Netherlands |
Library Home URL | http://www.esprit-sg.nl/index.php?school=5&page=793 |
OPAC URL | http://openbiblio.marcanti.esprit-sg.nl/opac/ |
mailto:h.vanderweij@marcanti.esprit-sg.nl | |
Bibliography count (sum of all collections) | 3865 |
OPAC Search Results (number of copies) | 4332 |
Estimated annual circulation | 2000 |
The OpenBiblio website, section Add-ons[5], provides links to this additional software. There is a modified version for use with the Dutch server tolk.pica.nl
[2] http://www.marcanti.esprit-sg.nl/ [Dutch language]
[3] http://ec.europa.eu/youreurope/nav/en/citizens/education-study/secondary-school/nl/index_en.html
[General information on secondary schools in The Netherlands. Target audience: European citizens / real-life, cross-border situations]