School Libraries - New School Year

School Libraries - New School Year

About

This article is meant to orient new and returning school librarians at the beginning of the school year.

Support

If your library is part of the Montana Shared Catalog (MSC) there are many resources available to assist you in your daily work. Over 200 libraries are part of the MSC and dozens of them are schools. A team of system administrators at the Montana State Library manage the system and are available to help you navigate and make the most of your integrated library system, SirsiDynix Symphony Workflows. 

The Montana Shared Catalog (MSC) is one of several departments of the Montana State Library that uses the Zoho Help Center. To get the most out of Zoho, see the following articles:
  1. Zoho - Creating an Account
  2. Zoho - Submitting a Ticket
  3. Zoho - My Area

New School Librarians

If you are new to your role or library the first step is to let the Montana Shared Catalog / Montana State Library staff know.
  1. Create an OKTA account so that you can use the ticket system and update your library information in ASPeN, the library directory.
  2. Update your library in the ASPeN library director to show that you are the new librarian - Managing Your Organization in ASPeN
  3. Submit a ticket to the Montana Shared Catalog  (see above for instructions) to let the MSC know that you are new at your school library. 
  4. If you have trouble navigating the ticket system to start, reach out to any of the Montana Shared Catalog team members by phone or email - MSL Staff Directory 

For help getting started with Symphony Workflows, the Enterprise online catalog, and BLUEcloud Analytics (BCA) reporting:

  1. New Staff Landing Page - articles and video tutorials geared toward staff training.
  2. Knowledge Base - articles and video tutorials answering our most frequently asked questions.

Additional resources:

  1. Learn about MSC Administrative/Business - budget, bylaws, Executive Board, Content Management Committee, etc.
  2. Attend MSC meetings - agendas, meeting links, archived minutes, etc.
  3. Join Gov-Delivery to get system alerts and other important information from MSC system administrators.

Preparing for a New School Year

Settings to review/consider at the start of the school year:
  1. Student grade level management - Grade level is selected in User Category 3 in a student's user profile. Making sure the grade level is accurate will allow you to run grade level reports, and to remove seniors after graduation. If you do not have automatic loading of students (such as from PowerSchool or another software), the MSC can roll up students to the next grade in batch so that they do not need to be updated manually. Submit a Ticket to request student roll up, or if you are not sure whether you need a student roll up. 
  2. Reports and Notices - If you need access to reports, need reports changed, or need new reports set up, Submit a Ticket and MSC staff can assist you. Some common reports that schools need include: overdue or checkout reports and notices by grade level; most checked out titles; materials not checked out for a specific length of time (for weeding); and inventory reports. Read more about BCA Core Reports here.
  3. Special Due Dates / End of Year Due Dates - If you need a special due date or end of year date for certain materials or for certain users, Submit a Ticket and MSC staff can assist you. For example, if you want your Chromebooks or all items checked out by your teachers to be due in June next year then we can usually create a special rule for that group of checkouts. Circulation rules are based on User Profile and/or Item Type so it helps if you know what Item Type or User Profile you want to include in a special rule. If you do not know, we can help you find out.

Fall & Spring School Surveys

Spring and Fall surveys are sent to school libraries using Gov-Delivery so please make sure that your library is signed up to this group. 

The fall school survey asks for school closed dates (including spring break and winter break), last day of school, and new library staff information. The spring survey asks for end of year due dates and whether/how you would like students rolled up by grade. It is helpful to MSC administrators to have schools answer both surveys so that updates can be completed in a timely manner. However, any of these settings or updates can be changed by submitting a help desk ticket.

    • Related Articles

    • Directors Landing Page

      About This article is meant to orient library directors to MSC resources. Overview of the Montana Shared Catalog View a quick overview of the Montana Shared Catalog consortium on the State Library's YouTube page. Read through Montana Shared Catalog - ...

    • MSC Resource Sharing Groups

      What Does it Mean to Be in an MSC Resource Sharing Group? While all libraries in the Montana Shared Catalog (MSC) consortium share the Symphony integrated library system (ILS), as well as access to system support and training, the MSC's resource ...

    • New Staff Landing Page

      About This article is meant to orient new (or not-so-new) library staff to MSC training resources for WorkFlows, the online catalog, statistical reporting, and more. To practice the WorkFlows tasks covered in the articles below (configuration, ...

    • Zoho - Submitting a Ticket

      About Our self-service, online knowledge base will supply the answers to many of your questions. However, if your question is not addressed, you are encouraged to submit a ticket. If the problem is related to a patron or material issue, please ...

    • Zoho - MSC Ticket Support Procedures

      About The MSC staff will maintain a member support help desk in order to facilitate communication from the members to staff related to system connectivity, MSC procedures, enhancement and configuration requests, and MSC-related billing or general ...