If you haven’t recently looked up a book on the Northside Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC), formerly known as “WebCat,” you’re in for a pleasant surprise.  WebCat has been replaced by “iBistro.” iBistro also displays book jackets, has summaries, and provides reviews of library books.

Disappointed that the book you wanted isn’t available right now?  iBistro can direct you to books like the one you wanted or to books by the same author. You never have to leave a library empty handed! 

Younger readers will love the “Find It Fast” feature, which displays pictures of topics.  Just a few clicks on pictures (i.e. animals, then dogs) and those younger readers will find the perfect book. 

  TeachingBooks.net is available for all teachers, students, and employees, as well as for home use.  It focuses on books and authors through carefully selected Internet sites. An elementary webinar is scheduled for February 20, 21, 27, and 28 at 3:00-4:00.  Librarians and CITs may schedule their teachers to participate in any of the sessions. 

The first half of the session will be the webinar presented by TeachingBooks.net and the second half will be lab hands-on time for the participants.  For additional information, please contact Jana Knezek, Director of Library Services.

  On January 15, 2008, Wendell Butler from ProQuest conducted trainings on eLibrary Elementary and eLibrary Science at the Northside Learning Center.  Fourteen librarians and 2 CITs attended the Elementary session and 6 librarians attended the eLibrary Science session.  eLibrary Elementary  includes a database of magazines, newpapers, books, maps, images, educator-approved websites and multi-media aimed at the elementary age audience.  Passwords for the database can be obtained from elementary librarians.

eLibrary Science contains specialized magazines, journals, reference books, encyclopedias, transcripts, pictures, and multi-media.  This database supports the information needs of both AP and mainstream science courses.  Passwords for the database can be obtained from secondary librarians.

In December 2007 Encyclopedia Britannica was added to the K-12 database package for public school libraries.  Northside was already receiving Encyclopedia Britannica from ESC 20 as part of our co-op membership.  ESC 20 substituted ProQuest for co-op schools for the remaining nine months of the Britannica subscription. 

We hope you will share successful and interesting database experiences with us for future webazine articles.  Enjoy!

Title III Parent Conference

The Title III Parent Conference was held on Saturday, October 20, 2007 from 8:00 – 3:00 at the Northside Activity Center.  The conference began with a Welcome Breakfast and talk by Sandra Martinez, Bilingual/English as a Second Language Family Specialist.  Northside bilingual and ESL parents were invited to attend sessions on various topics of interest. 

Elma Gloria, librarian at Burke Elementary School, presented three sessions on the district-wide online databases.  The first session was in Spanish and the other two were conducted in English.  Ms. Gloria began by showing parents how to access the databases that are available to them and their children through the NISD homepage and/or their child’s library webpage.  Each database was explored and topics were searched. 

The parents were particularly excited about two of our Spanish language databases, the Enciclopedia Universal en Español and Enciclopedia de Estudiantil Hallazgos.  Each family was given a copy of a home-use database card listing all of the databases with logins and passwords.  Two laptop computers were available so that the families could go and explore the databases for themselves. 

New High School Opening in 2010 

One NISD middle school student, who will be an entering freshman at the new high school on Potranco West opening in 2010, will get the exciting honor of naming it. Students research Supreme Court Justices (PBS Online) and develop rationale for the particular name they submit to the Board of Trustees, who make the final decision.

Students at Luna Middle School are using Facts on File and other district-wide databases to do their research for Northside’s 11^th comprehensive high school.  Facts on File has a feature which allows for a federated search, a tool that groups its multiple history databases together and searches them simultaneously.

If you would like to do some research on Supreme Court Justices yourself to experience the many online resources available to students, families, and employees, please contact your student’s campus library or Library Services (397-8190) to receive the required login and password.