OPAC

  The OPAC that our district uses is Destiny and reading other people's messages, I think that the Richmond district definitely has different systems to catalog books than other districts.

We have library administrators who work at a central location who catalog all of our new resources if they are not already in our system. When you go into the back office as a TL (elementary) in Richmond, you do not have access to many of the features discussed in the lesson. I am not sure what that level would be, but I am certainly not able to add my own MARC records (maybe other TLs are and I am just very unaware...). In the back office I am able to manage patrons, start an inventory, manage my calendar and hours and access my job manager.

As for the access students get, I have always thought that Destiny is very usable. My only complaint is that if you do not type the title/author correctly it will not come up with any results. For younger students, ESL students and students who struggle with spelling this could be a problem. Visually though, Destiny is great. The main search page has many search options like keyword, title, subject, author...I also love the visual tab which I am constantly trying to get other teachers and students to use for research, magazines and tumblebooks.