Accessit Library has been working with schools and libraries for more than 20 years and is continuing its mission of taking the library beyond books and into the modern era.

As schools continue to reimagine what they need from a system designed to catalogue and track important resources, Accessit Library continues to develop and ensure that we support the wider school. So, what are we seeing happening out there?

Literacy is being linked with the whole curriculum

First and foremost, students need to be able to read and access library resources that help them connect with all their subjects – not just English. The scope is going beyond books and that’s been an ongoing trend as eBooks, audiobooks, ClickView, and other integrations grow in popularity.

Literacy journeys often start with a passion, and by having one hub of resources that also allows dedicated spaces for subjects or topics (in Accessit’s case Topic Dashboards) then students can delve deep into their passion subject and grow their literacy skills without realising that’s what they’re doing.

Schools want one place to track resources

Similarly, school leaders need a place to catalogue and track school resources beyond books. These might include cameras, Chromebooks, drones, instruments, and even sports equipment and uniforms.

Schools are increasingly asking what else they can store, catalogue and track within Accessit rather than paying for different inventory software or hoping they don’t crash the spreadsheet they’re trying to use now.

Flooding, fires and earthquakes

More and more school boards and insurance companies are needing to know what the value of a school’s assets are, especially with those one-in-100-year floods becoming a yearly event!

As weather events cause havoc, more schools are using Accessit Library as the place to track resources, so, if the worst does happen, they have a reliable inventory, value and often an image of what was lost or damaged. We never thought we would be friends with insurance companies the way we are now!

School archives are cool again

With the additional focus on school archives these days, we’re seeing schools converting their newsletters and yearbooks into Accessit resources as indexed PDFs – meaning they will be searchable and accessible for years to come.

Plus, like uniforms and instruments, school trophies are being added to collections, including photos and the list of previous winners in the record to preserve a school’s history. When a child gets to school they can search a parent’s name and see how they really were the best left handed trumpet player in the school back in the day!

For the team here, we’re glad that Accessit Library has become an even better solution; our software makes the library’s learning resources accessible to students at school or from home and for the school, Accessit is the one place to track and manage all a school’s resources.

Becoming resource hubs

Our hearts lie in the library, but we’re seeing libraries truly embracing becoming the resource hubs for the school, and it makes us proud to see the arms of the library and our Kiwi-made software embracing the wider school.

Interested in tracking more? Get a free, no-obligation demonstration from one of our experts, and if you’re already an Accessit customer but want to keep your library and archives separate, we can arrange that for you, too.

Article by AJ Johnston, Accessit.

For more go to accessitlibrary.com or call 0800 542 727.

INTERFACE March 2024