Let Your Catalog Do the Work For You!

1
Let Your Catalog Do the Work For You!
2
How Your PAC May Help

• Some Library Systems provide features that make
  searching by Lexile Levels easy for parents and
  children and very importantly easy for you as
  the librarian.
• Lets look at an example.

3
TLC Libraries

• For Virginia Libraries who are customers
• of TLC (The Library Corporation) the
• Reading Programs PAC feature, may be your
  Lexile Best Friend.

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How Does This Work?

• TLC can help you establish Lexiles as a
  Reading Program (your catalog may already be
  setup with this function.)
• Parents and children can then easily search by
  Lexile Level.
• The next few slides include screen shots to
  illustrate this TLC feature from the users
  perspective.

5
In the Pac, the patron chooses the Reading
Programs tab as illustrated below
6
The patron enters a Lexile Level, for example,
0660 and clicks search. Note that the contain
search parameter is the default.
7
Voila a search for Lexile Level 0660 titles is
generated.
8
As you can see below, the patron can now place
holds immediately or save selections to a list.
9
Here is a look at the list that magically
generates.
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How does the library staff make this happen?

• Simply enter the Lexile information in the 526
  field of the catalog record.
• We recommend using the wonderful list of
  suggested books that Enid provided on the Wiki.
• The next screen shows how easy this was to do.

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The Lexile Level in the Catalog Record
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What About New Book Releases?

• Many catalog records for new books already
  contain the Lexile level, so by leaving in the
  526 field, new books that are added to the local
  librarys catalog are automatically searchable by
  Lexile Level in the Reading Programs feature.

13
Check with Your Vendor!

• If you are a TLC customer, check with them if you
  need help.
• If you are not a TLC customer, check with your
  vendor to see if there is a similar PAC feature
  that will help your Lexile searchers.
• Good luck in finding ways to make your PAC do the
  work for you!