Titlewave Take-away: Curriculum Tags

Learned a ton at this year's Follett Workshops, held at the Marymount International School in Rome.

Here's take-away #2 (see #1 here)

2)  Use Curriculum Tags to search for books

The problem: 
Teachers ask for books according to curriculum-area topics or pedagogical need. They may be asking for books in your library or for books to buy for their classroom. In either case, it can be tricky to find what they are hoping for.

The solution: Use "curriculum Tags" in Titlewave.

How: 
Your Follett rep can set up a teachers' account that links to your library's Titlewave account. Show teachers how to create lists, and the lists can be shared with you. Once shared, the list will match with what you already have (using Titlewise analysis). If you want to buy some, you can add them easily to your own list. 

Regardless of who buys what, you've given yourself and your teachers a powerful way to FIND the resources they need using the educational terms they use.

To search using tags: Go to Titlewave > Log in > Choose "Curriculum" on the left sidebar > Scroll and click the "Explore Tags" button.

Tags are bundled as below:
Genres 
(tags such as Action & Adventure, Drama, Parody)
Literacy, Foundational, Comprehension Skills 
(Idioms, Flashback, Consonant & Vowel Blends)
Subject and Themes 
(Canada, Careers, Censorship, Care/Kindness)
Teaching Support 
(Bilingualism, Supports Gifted, Supports Struggling Reader)
Text Features and Resources 
(Includes Maps, Reproducibles, Includes Text-Based Questions)
Text Structure 
(Cause & Effect, Problem/Solution)
Text Type 
(Narrative, Persuasive, Argumentative)

Another bonus of "Curriculum Tags": 
Books purchased through Titlewave keep their tags as part of their MARC record, so when you import the records of these books into your system, the tags will be searchable in your catalog automatically.

Let's look at a favorite tag: "Teacher Resources Available to Download"

There are tons of results for this, so here's how to build a Tag Search String:

Choose the initial tag > choose "Tag Explorer" > choose another Tag

Your results will narrow with each tag you choose:

2,500 titles...need to narrow. Choose "Tag Explorer"...

Added a tag "Juvenile Fiction" and we're down to 944...
Choose Tag Explorer to narrow again

Added "Fantasy Fiction" so now I have 14 results for J Fiction, Fantasy,
with downloadable resources.

Ok, that's fun and all, but check this out: 
Now that I have a list of fantasy titles with downloadable resources, guess what I can do? Yup - I can see which books are already in my catalog (using Titlewise analysis) and GRAB these resources from Titlewave and add them to my records using the "Digital Resources" tab in the Easy Editor or MARC.

The digital resources might be discussion guides, or worksheets, or video clips, or any kind of material that supports the text.

Whoop! Who doesn't love to see a link when browsing for books? 

How will YOU use Curriculum Tags?