Library Cataloguing The LS2 and Me

There is a love hate relationship between the Teacher Librarian and their cataloguing system.  In my district we used to use the L4U program which was old and antiquated, you had to do your own records for each book that you entered into the system.  The LS2 is the library cataloguing we now use at my school and in my district.Below I have talked a little about the LS2 program and what I see as some of its benefits.

The OPAC we use at this school is the LS2 system from TLC (The Library Corporation).
The student site is easy to navigate for students of all ages. The student search page has two options for students to search in. One is the basic search page that you would find in every other catalog with searching for your title, author, and subject. The second is completely student friendly that features a dog who when searching for the title, author, and subject chases a bone. I searched for novels such as The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, Dinosaurs, and J.K Rowling. I found that searching this catalogue was easy and that students wouldn’t have an issue searching as long as they were given a quick tutorial from the librarian.

My experience with the administration features of the LS2 is limited to having Teacher Librarians showing me some of the features. I was able to see the TL input a student into the system and it seemed to be easy and quite straight forward. I was also able to see him scan a new book into the catalogue. After the new book is scanned into the system the catalogue updates each night adding all of the records to the catalogue. The LS2 has only been in use in our district for the last two years. I was in a library when it was first being introduced. Most of the TL’s that I have talked to in this district like this catalogue better than the previous L4U catalogue.