HIT: CD ROM Organization

[Hilda Mah <hmlis@TELUSPLANET.NET>]

THANK YOU to everyone who replied to my query!!!!  Here are the responses I
received:

Our CD Roms are cataloged but we don't have a ton of them so it hasn't
been overwhelming.  I store them in the old disk banks from the 5 inch
floppys.  I don't give kids free reign but usually have 2 or 3 at each
computer with a disk drive so they can choose.  I am in an elementary
school at it's mostly the littles (k, 1, 2) who use them.  The older kids
I limit to research tools.
*****************************
Hi! We have two stand-alone computers dedicated to encyclopedias and word
processing. We also have 2 other stand-alone computers which can run
various other programs including some encyclopedias.. We have about 45
titles which are catalogued by subject. They can only be used in the
library, except that teachers may check them out. Additionally, we have a
CD-Rom network system running on 10 computers which has MAS, SIRS
Researcher, SIRS Renaissance, SIRS Discovered, Encyclopedia of Science and
Technology. This has been an evolving situation for us too. This library is
for both middle and high school; about 600 students in a private Christian
college-prep school in Seoul.  Good luck!
******************************
We put our CD's on the computer only to realize that they ate all the
memory.  We could type a document but could not save to hard drive or to
disk.  We had to wipe the computers clean and start fresh.  We use Windows
NT and each time a user logs on a profile is created on the hard drive.
Our
Tech person is green, she tries but just does not have sufficient time in 2
periods to set up, administer, and trouble shoot  the system.  She is the
only person in the universe who has the necessary passwords.  Our computers
have only 1G of hard drive!

I understand that some libraries have servers dedicated to CD's; that might
be the way to go...
I can't remember why towers are no longer the "in" thing...but I guess it
is
because their memory(?) is limited (?)

Students sign a charge card to use the CD's.  the CD's are stored behind
the
Loan Desk.

We started with the CD's in a binder; they have outgrown it.  We will
probably move to some sort of portable wire (?) tower but haven't decided
where it can be stored; wall space is negligible. I've seen CD's in one
school stored in a case on a pillar about 12x12, but ours are too far from
the Loans Desk to be useful. No place is convenient.

Computers eat time!  One day I had only one student in the library.  He was
trying to access his account as I was being interviewed by another teacher.
He interrupted 6 times as he went from computer to computer trying to log
on
to use a CD.  The fault was sin the system, not his methodology.

I just attended a Follett Automation Workshop... I also attended sessions
at
CSLA last November... no time to read and digest notes or handouts.

Best of luck...
****************************
The CD's are cataloged. I keep the CD's at my desk. The empty box they
came out of is next to the computer that CD can be used on. I had the
tech person spread them out so there is one "popular" CD per
computer....I taped the boxes together with clear tape. I have 4 or 5
per computer. The students can "see" what's loaded on that computer by
looking at the boxes!
****************************
Our CD_ROMS are catalogued and kept in a closet in my office. We do not
circulate them to students - only faculty
****************************
The CDs are all catalogued, are loaded on specific machines; and each
machine has a sign that shows which CDs are loaded on it.  We usually
leave the CD that is used the most - like an encyclopedia in the
machine, and if they want a different one, they ask.  CDs are kept
behind the circulation desk.
>
*****************************
We do not have an extensive CD-ROM library but we catalog them using the
normal way we catalog books

Accession Number: CD/## (books would be YY/##)
We do not give them dewey numbers but if we did we would do them the same
as
books
for the letter part of the dewey number we would probably use the title as
opposed to the publisher
(you'd end up with probably 90% of them being (MIC => Microsoft *grin*)

Our school does not do this but this is due to the lack of demand for CD
access but for ways to simplify access you could find a program that will
copy the entire CD onto the Hard Drive and then trick the program into
thinking that the HD is its CD-ROM. (FakeCD is one such program and they
are
legal assuming you own the CD you copy)

Another alternative to look into is buying a CD-ROM tower...this is a small
case that hold from about 4-20 CD-ROM drives and in each you could place
all
your CD's (This option is porbably only an idea if you have between 4-20
CD's even though drives are cheap it would be expenisve to buy say a 100 of
them) This idea also allows you to put all the CD's in another room (eg: in
your office or where the network servers are located) and still allow the
students full access, in fact this method would mean more than one student
could use a CD at one time (the first method will also allow multi-user
access)
[I assumed your school runs a network]

Mabey you could use a combination of the two methods mentioned.

*******************************
I'd love to hear what you find out.  This is my first year in this school
and the CD-ROM's are stacked in the workroom because I haven't made up my
mind exactly how to deal with them.

**************************
Sounds like a quality problem!  :)

I have our CD ROMS cataloged and shelved with the video and audio tapes.
They get almost no use at all.  You are doing something RIGHT!  :)

************************
Could you please post a Hit on this?  I'm  about to catalogue our CD-ROM
collection and would be interested in your responses.
*************************

Hilda Mah
Teacher-Librarian
Virginia Park School
Edmonton, Alberta
hmlis@telusplanet.net

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