The Schools Catalogue Information Service (SCIS) was established in 1984
to support library staff in organising and accessing educational resources.
Now operated by Education Services Australia, a not-for-profit, ministerially
owned company, SCIS has recently celebrated four decades of service.
Today, it is used in nearly 80 percent of Australian schools, around 40 percent
of schools in New Zealand, and over 1,000 schools in the United Kingdom, with more
than 10,000 schools worldwide accessing its services annually.
SCIS’s 40th anniversary provides an opportunity to reflect on the role cataloguing support has played in empowering school libraries to teach information literacy.
Two pivotal figures in SCIS’s journey provide valuable insights into its history: Doug Down,
whose work helped lay the foundation for SCIS through government proposals in the 1970s, and Lance Deveson, whose work with SCIS in the 1990s helped bring significant advancements in digital cataloguing. Together, their perspectives paint a picture of why strong library services within schools remain essential to effective teaching and learning.
Part one: a new chapter for school libraries
Although SCIS was formed in 1984, its roots stretch back to the late 1960s, where a growing movement highlighting the lack of library services in Australian schools coincided with a change in the way education was approached. The concept of 'information literacy' emerged, focusing on teaching students to find, evaluate
and use information critically. This resulted in an educational shift from traditional didactic
teaching methods towards empowering students as active participants in their own learning. Educators became more focused on teaching students research skills that foster lifelong learning and problem-solving capabilities (Nimon, 2004).
Naturally, teaching methods intent on fostering critical thinking and independent inquiry demand an abundance of information to be explored. As a result, there was a surge in demand for resourcing for school libraries and their collections along with the need for skilled librarians to help cultivate students' information literacy.
During this era, Doug Down was working in school libraries before his 1972 appointment as a lecturer at the Melbourne Teachers College, one of Australia’s leading training institutions for school librarians at the time. As he tells it, state education departments were beginning to establish library branches that “... were giving advice to, and sometimes providing services to school libraries, such as cataloguing records for
new resources that had been bought.”
Outsourced cataloguing services were immediately integral to the operation of school
libraries where teaching, not administrative work, was the focus for librarians managing
them. Down emphasises this, noting,
“It provided the opportunity for teacher librarians in schools not to devote half of their time to processing items that came into the library, but to doing the teaching that was required to develop their (students’) resourcefulness.”
While these early services made an impact, they were duplicated across different areas of the country, leading to cost inefficiencies that were quickly recognised after the Whitlam government's 1972 election. Down, assisting his colleague Wesley Young, helped conduct studies commissioned by the government, which laid the groundwork for a national cataloguing service.
The studies showed how a national approach would bring a multitude of time and cost
savings, both within schools and government departments, as well as better information
integrity within school libraries.
After years of planning and preparation, The Australian Schools Catalogue Information
Service (ASCIS) was formed in 1984. This service would later be renamed the Schools Catalogue Information Service (SCIS) when New Zealand joined in the 1990s.
Part two: a new frontier for library technology
As we moved into the early 90s, Lance Deveson, a former student of Doug Down, was working as a teacher librarian. When he landed a job in the library at Golden Point Primary School in his hometown of Ballarat, he convinced the school to purchase a computer to assist with his cataloguing.
It was then that his interest in library technology was sparked. Deveson reminisces, “I thought I was very cool, because I was automating my library.” From there, Deveson completed a computer studies program at Ballarat University and found himself working at SCIS in the early 1990s, a time of rapid technological change.
“We started to think about how we could move school libraries on a bit,” he says, “because the demand for information was stronger, and schools needed it faster.”
At that point, school library staff relied on microfiche–small, transparent sheets of film
containing miniature images of documents for catalogue records from SCIS. To find
cataloguing information, staff would magnify and scroll through these images on a special reader with a screen, and then manually copy out the details onto a catalogue card.
This time-consuming process had to be completed before books could be borrowed,
causing delays in getting new titles to eager students. As Deveson tells it, despite the
economies already achieved by the creation of a national cataloguing service, library staff still needed about one day a week to manage their catalogues. What's more, primary school librarians, usually working solo, often had to rely on parent volunteers to complete cataloguing work.
Deveson was part of the team that introduced SCIS on Disc, a biannual, disc copy of the entire SCIS database that was sent out to schools. This allowed library staff to simply insert the disc into a computer and instantly search for cataloguing information, replacing laborious microfiche scrolling.
Revolutionary though this change was, perhaps the most significant innovation of the 1990s was to come. Deveson was part of the SCIS team who worked with US company Endeavour Software and Australian company Ferntree Software, to develop a software module called Voyager, that allowed SCIS to catalogue directly into an online database, which school librarians could then download from.
Online cataloguing brought enormous efficiencies for schools and completed the
transition to fully digital catalogues. Incredibly Deveson notes, that the software module SCIS developed with Endeavour is used by the US Library of Congress to this day.
Part three: a new age of information
Australia’s pioneering approach to a national cataloguing service for schools stands as a
global benchmark, demonstrating leadership in supporting education through library
services. Yet, with the rise of internet search engines and generative AI tools like Google
and ChatGPT, the role of school libraries as the primary gateway to information is increasingly questioned.
Their enduring value, however, lies in the purpose that sparked their growth more
than 50 years ago: developing students’ information literacy. Today, information is more central to learning than ever before, and the quality of content students encounter during their formative years shapes the adults they become. School libraries, along with their staff and catalogues, act as essential filters between students and the noise of online misinformation.
Access to curated, high-quality resources—books, websites, apps, eBooks, and
audiobooks—paired with the expertise of library staff, plays a pivotal role in shaping informed, critical thinkers. Within the safe and structured environment of a library catalogue, students can gain consistent exposure to credible, well-vetted information. Over time, this exposure helps build an internalised awareness for recognising what quality information looks and feels like, an important foundation for developing information literacy skills.
Catalogues are essential tools in this, acting as both a map of and a guide to reliable
information for educational communities, alongside the library staff who curate them.
Reflecting on 40 years of a national cataloguing service, it becomes evident how library
services have supported schools in navigating the evolving landscape of information access and literacy.
As methods of teaching information literacy continue to adapt in the digital age, core
touchstones of our schools such as well resourced school libraries, skilled library staff,
and diverse catalogues remain as relevant as ever. They help equip students to become adults who are adept at critically engaging with the information rich world around them.
References
Nimon, M. (2004). School libraries in Australia. The Australian Library Journal, 53(1), 71– 80. https://doi.org/10.1080/00049670.2004.10721614
Curriculum Corporation. (1985). Annual report 1984–85.
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