Issue 131

Product Manager Anthony Shaw at the SLANZA 2024 Conference in Christchurch.

Just like that and we’re in Term 4 and thinking about summer reading and the school holidays.

Term 3 saw the SCIS bus hit the road again. We attended the SLANSW Professional Learning Summit, ConnecTech: Inspired Futures for Information Technology and Digital Literacy Professionals, held in the wonderful library space at PLC Sydney. The bus then flew across the ditch, to Ōtautahi Christchurch for the 2024 SLANZA Conference, He Puāwaitanga: Growing communities, developing knowledge and building confidence. The conference venue was the beautiful Christ’s College Ōtautahi Christchurch. As I walked around the school I did hear the Chariots of Fire theme music in my mind. You’ll be happy to know that I resisted the urge to recreate the Great Court Run.

For me, SLANSW provided practical examples and application of how school library professionals and teachers are navigating the complex world of AI.

Seeing how AI can be used to support better outcomes for students and perhaps freeing up educators from administrative tasks was extremely heartening. It was a pleasant change from the doom and gloom we often hear when AI is being spoken about. I was also introduced to Huey the book bot – look out for a school library spotlight featuring Huey in a future edition of Connections.

The SLANZA Conference was a wonderful opportunity to connect with school library staff from across Aotearoa New Zealand. It’s great to be immersed in the culture and passion of our colleagues who work tirelessly to support better outcomes for students in Aotearoa.

SCIS’s Catalogue Content Manager, Renate Beiharz, presented the preliminary findings of our SCIS survey: Ngā Upoko Tukutuku/Māori subject headings in school library catalogues. As you know, SCIS has been working to enhance SCIS Data to cultivate respect, through culturally appropriate subject headings, descriptive cataloguing and presentation of data. To continue the important work that our cataloguers do we asked all school libraries in Aotearoa New Zealand to provide their thoughts about the value of Ngā Upoko Tukutuku subject headings in catalogue records. In Connections Term 1 2025 we will share the findings of the survey and SCIS’s plans.

Speaking of AI, I may have also used GenAI to create a song celebrating SCIS’s 40th Anniversary – confirming that AI can be used for good. If only AI could improve my singing voice, it would confirm that AI is good for humanity.

As part of SCIS’s 40th Anniversary celebrations, we’re inviting those who’ve used or worked with SCIS – whether recently or in years past – to share their stories. We’re gathering real-world examples to build an online archive showcasing how SCIS supports library staff in their day-to-day work. If you’d like to contribute, please reach out to us at [email protected]. Your experiences can help highlight the vital role SCIS plays in school libraries across Australia.

Did someone say survey? In the last edition of SCIS is more, we shared some key statistics from our 2024 SCIS Customer Survey. Here are a few more statistics:

1. We had a total of 1,210 responses, up from 888 in 2023.
2. The breakdown of responses by market was: Australia 83.3%, New Zealand 12.8% UK 4.5% and International 0.5% respectively.
3. Of the 996 Australian responses we had: VIC 274, NSW 272 , QLD 187, WA 134, SA 89, ACT 19, TAS 15 and NT 6.
4. 58% responses were from government, 24.1% from Catholic and 17.9% from independent schools.
5. Not surprisingly, given the make-up of the school community, most respondents were from primary schools (47.3%), followed by secondary schools (32.7%) and K–12/ composite/combined (18.7%).
6. 76.2% of respondents are qualified library staff. Non-trained library staff or library assistants made up a further 12.4% of respondents, other school staff 4.9% and two bulk deal administrators.

As mentioned in SCIS is more in Issue 130 of Connections, customers overwhelmingly indicated their high satisfaction with SCIS products and their overall experience with SCIS and Connections.

We introduced a new metric into the survey, the Net promoter score (NPS). According to Wikipedia, ‘NPS is a market research metric that is based on a single survey question asking respondents to rate the likelihood that they would recommend a company, product, or a service to a friend or colleague.’

Generally, an NPS of over 50 is considered excellent. The SCIS NPS is 63.8%, which suggests that we’re better than excellent but not yet exceptional (scores over 80 are considered exceptional). As a team, SCIS is very proud and thankful that customers feel that we are better than excellent and we’re committed to striving for exceptional.

Thanks again to the many SCIS customers who completed the 2024 SCIS Customer Survey. We look forward to hearing from you in future, shorter surveys (we hear you, the survey was a little long).

Remember, if you don’t have a subscription to SCIS Data, you can set up a free trial. You’ll need your school email address, a library management system and access to the internet. Go to www.scisdata. com and click on the Free trial tab (www. scisdata.com/free-trial/) to start your 10-day free trail and download 20 SCIS Data records for free. 

A final personal admission: despite the teetering stacks of books on my bedside table and my dressing table, I refuse to wait to dive straight into Tim Winton’s latest release Juice (ISBN: 9781761344893, Publisher: Hamish Hamilton, Published 1 October 2024). It has been too long between releases and despite the slight twang of guilt for the books that are going to be passed over, my love of Tim Winton’s writing wins out. I trust that they, the other books, won’t hold this against me, and become a chore to read – a risk I am prepared to take! Happy reading everyone.