What is SCIS?

Schools Catalogue Information Service (SCIS) is a business unit of Education Services Australia. It provides cataloguing services to school libraries across Australia and New Zealand. The NSW agency of SCIS provides this service to all NSW and ACT public schools, Catholic and independent schools.

SCIS records are created to a set national standard for the school environment that include SCIS Subject headings and Schools Online Thesaurus headings. The SCIS NSW agency is here to support:

• teacher librarians
• library assistants
• school support officers

SCIS NSW helps you access quality resource records and provides professional cataloguing advice.

All cataloguing enquiries should be directed to SCIS NSW.

Subscription

All NSW Department of Education schools use SCIS for cataloguing via Oliver. Subscription is automatic for all NSW public schools, so no additional purchases of any SCIS products is necessary.

School Catalogue Information Service (SCIS) provides schools with access to a database of consistent catalogue records created according to agreed national standards.

Charges for School Catalogue Information (SCIS) Subscriptions are processed through an consolidated invoice. To view these transactions through the Schools Overview Report using the Goto menu to access the Actuals Detail Report..

The process will directly debit this annual charge from the following cost assignment and no action will be required by schools:

• General Ledger 528655 Periodicals, Newspapers and Subscriptions for School Catalogue Information (SCIS) Subscriptions.
• Fund Code 6100
• Cost Centre 6XXXX101 Educational Delivery

SCIS charges to NSW Department of Education schools are aligned to school enrolments and calculated annually according to fees set by Education Services Australia. This bulk arrangement continues to provide significant savings to schools for SCIS services.

For additional information contact: librarysupport@det.nsw.edu.au

How to send physical resources

1. Make a list of your resources
2. Include the list with the resources
3. Include your return address and contact details
4. It is essential that resources are packed securely and in an appropriately sized package to prevent damage during transit.
5. Post your resources

Cost

• Schools are responsible for the cost of postage to SCIS NSW.
• SCIS NSW will return the resources via Australia Post.
• Parcels must be under 16 kg weight – this is an Australia Post requirement.
• Schools must arrange their own return via courier if this is preferred method.

Online resources request

The SCIS NSW Team can create records for most print resources via an email request. The exception to this is sets of readers which we require to be physically sent in to us, as there is often little metadata to be found online.

To help us create the most accurate record for a print resource we request you to scan the following pages for each item:

• front and back cover
• title page
• verso (i.e., publication/copyright details page)
• contents page

Please also indicate last numbered page(s) (e.g., vi, 322), presence of illustrations (e.g., colour illustrations, some colour or black & white) and presence of an index for each scanned item in your cover sheet.

For websites, data bases, and online resources we require for each item:

• title
• author and/or publisher if relevant
• web address (URL)

Email the scanned files to scisnsw@det.nsw.edu.au

Resources such as guided readers, CDs, DVDs, multipart kits, games, and realia must be physically sent into us for cataloguing as publisher details often do not provide the level of detail required for accurate inclusion on the national SCIS database.

Further information

• Resources returned with the SCIS number are annotated in pencil on the flyleaf or title page of books.
• SCIS numbers can help in searching for an item when an ISBN is not present in retrieving a MARC records from SCISDATA.

To clarify any of these matters or to check the progress of your resources please contact us.

Troubleshooting