How to Use Destiny

1. How to Use Destiny • This presentation is designed to cover the basics of Destiny, the RUSD library system. In order to use it effectively, you will need to be logged into a computer at school, or connected to the internet off campus. • Find Destiny at http://library.redlandsusd.net

2. The Destiny portal Basics Guest use “Breadcrumbs” Logging in Using Searches Basic Visual Power Managing Reviews My Info Holding Titles at Cope at another RUSD school Creating & Using Lists Wish Lists Resource Lists Creating Refining Selecting titles Working with lists Citations Bibliographies Table of Contents

3. From Cope’s School Fusion website, click “Library,” then “Look for Books.”

4. Click “Login” if you want to do more than search. You can start searching for a book by entering what it is you want to find in the “Find” box and then clicking on the appropriate buttons: Keyword--search the entire record for the word or phrase. Title--search all or part of the title: e.g., “Potter.” Author--search for books that an author has written: e.g., “Meyer.” Subject--look for books in a particular field of study: e.g., “whales.” Series--find all of the titles in a set: e.g., “Lord of the Rings.” See “How do I . . .?” for more information or examples of “Power” or “Visual” searching. Note that clicking on the buttons on the left will change Destiny’s languages to either French or Spanish, but WILL NOT change the language of the title information Destiny displays.

5. A word about “Breadcrumbs” and website navigation. Do NOT use the “Back” button. Using the menu bar on the left will take you all the way back to step one. Destiny is picky. If you want to get the most from it, you have to play by ITS rules: Instead, follow the “breadcrumbs.” The advantage of doing so is that Destiny will “remember” all of the things you have done along the way. It may not remember if you use the back button.

6. petersal011591 12036 Your user name and password are the same as the ones you use to login to the library computers and the School Fusion website.

7. Once logged in, your name appears in the upper right-hand corner of the window, and your school’s name and logo appear in the upper-left. You also can access some links to other websites, and can click on the tabs for “Catalog,” to search, or on “My Info” to see what you have checked out, overdue, or on hold. Finally, you can use the “Help” button in the upper right-hand corner if you are unsure of what to do or how to do it while using Destiny.

8. Clicking on “My Info” shows your checkout history. This student has a library book . . . four textbooks, with one overdue . . . and a pending hold.

9. If you have questions about searching, such as how to use “wildcards” or punctuation, click on the question mark next to “How do I . . . “ For more information on an available function, click on the question mark icons. Use “My Searches” if you want to go back to a search you did before. Clicking on the “Catalog” tab brings up the search screen. Play around with the “Basic,” “Power,” and “Visual” searches to see other ways to search. Note that the results that the “My Searches” window displays are tied to the types of searches you have done. If you want to see what “Visual” searches you have done previously, for example, be sure to click the “Visual Search” tab before you click “My Searches.”

10. Sometimes, you may not have a specific book in mind. When that happens, do a “Visual Search.” Here are 70 books on “History” & “Exploration” that are a good place to start.

11. In this example, entering part of a title with an asterisk (*) will find anything beginning with “Tokyo M” Clicking on “Title” will get us the results we want. Let’s find a book by Title. . . .

12. The “Search Titles” screen shows: The Title The Cover Clicking on “Details” will get you more information about a title. The Call Number, Author, Publisher and Year Published You can sort by “Relevance” (i.e., how closely the information in the book’s record matches your search terms), “Title,” or many other criteria. Sorting by “Status” will list books with available copies first. How many copies are available

13. Use the menu bar to get more information about the book . . . Use the green arrows above to move to other titles before or after this one in the previous list. Let’s look at some of these. . . . You can also see reviews of books . . . get copy information . . . and place a book on hold. Clicking on “Find It” will get you lists of books by the same author or in the same subject area.

14. “Publication Info” is where you can find the number of pages a book has. “Additional Info” often gives you information about the title, artwork, and other miscellaneous information. It also may give you the reading level and interest level of a book.

15. Clicking on the cover may get you more information about the book.

16. You can return to your previous Destiny window by clicking this tab. Use the tabs on the left to read a summary, reviews, or an excerpt. When you click on a book’s cover in the “Search Results” window, you will be taken to another website. Another tab (or maybe another window, depending on your browser) will open.

17. When you see search results, you may see a title with a star-rating. From the “Details” window, you can read any student reviews. Remember, all reviews have to be approved by a library staff member . . . and don’t forget that YOUR name will be on the review. You may only review a book ONCE . . . so think your reviews through, and make them count.

18. Let’s add a simple review in the “Reviews” window. Destiny has “spell-check”; the squiggly red line tells you Destiny needs you to be sure the word is spelled correctly. Check your postings BEFORE you click “Save.” Would a 3-star rating be “the best”? “Mouse-over” the stars to set a rating. Write your review. Remember, your review will have your name on it AND it will have to be approved by a library staff member before it will post.

19. Let’s put a book on “Hold” that is already checked out to another student. When you put an item on hold, you will see this message. We do not have enough staff to guarantee that we will be able to find books for you that are on the library shelves. If you place a “Hold” on a book that is not checked out to another student, the “Hold” may be ignored. You should come into the library and find books like these, yourself. But what if a book isn’t AT the Cope library?

20. Always start by searching . . . in the Cope library. When this screen appears, it means Cope’s library doesn’t have the book. To look outside our school, click “Refine your search.”

21. Try your search again, but this time look at other sites in RUSD. Let’s see what we get if we search for a Title in “All Middle Schools.”

22. MUCH better. Twenty-nine titles. Let’s get the second one by clicking on “Details.”

23. This screen is the same one we’ve seen before . . . BUT there are no titles at Cope. . . . You can check the status of your Hold by clicking on the “My Info” tab. Clicking on “Hold It!” will send your request to the Cope library staff. Once we approve it, the request will go to another school and soon your book will be here. We will notify you when it arrives.

24. If you believe a title that we do not have is one we should have, click “Add to Wish List.” Once you have entered as much information as you know, click Save. On this screen, you only need to put in the title, but the more information you can provide, the more likely library staff can find information on the book you think we should have. International Standard Book Numbers are like book “fingerprints.” There is only one that matches a particular version of a book. If you enter a book’s ISBN, it will assure we look for the correct book. Library staff will get a message containing your information. We will look into your request, and while we can’t buy every book that is suggested, you may soon see your requested book here at Cope. Remember, when you add a title to a Wish List, your name will be part of the request, so choose your words carefully if you add a reason we should purchase a copy!

25. Clicking on “Resource Lists” in the “My Info” window will allow you to view and create your own lists. “My Personal List” is the default. “Add List” will let you create other lists. Click “View” to see what is in the list . . . or the pencil-and-paper icon to edit the list’s name and description. Items in “My List” are PRIVATE. “Public” lists are available for anyone to see. For example, your teacher may set up a list of historical fiction for classes to use.

26. A “Power Search” will make setting up this list a lot faster. Before you create a list, have a plan. Suppose you are writing a paper for English class about the Holocaust. In the first search line, we set the limiters to “Subject” (because we only want to search that part of the record), and “This exact phrase” (because we want only records that contain the subject, “Historical Fiction.”) In the second and third search lines, the limiters are set to “Keyword” and “Any of these words”—If the terms appear anywhere in a historical fiction book, you want them. Note that AND is set below the first search term, but that OR is set under the second. Do you understand what difference using “And” or “Or” makes when you search? Finally, you may want to use NOT to further limit your search. For example, “Historical Fiction” AND “Holocaust” NOT “German*” will narrow the search to historical fiction books about the holocaust that do not include references to Germany or Germans. Let’s look for titles with similar themes by using a combination of search terms: historical fiction When you click on “Search,” here is what Destiny finds: german* holocaust

27. There are 90 books that meet our requirements. Clicking “Add to this list” will add the book to “My Personal List.” “In This List” means you have added the title. You can also click “Add Page” to add all 25 copies listed on the screen. Let’s jump ahead a bit. . . .

28. How did you get here? Remember the “breadcrumbs”? Clicking on “Remove” will remove the title from your list, only (NOT from Destiny). Clicking on “Citation,” will let you see the MLA information for the book. If some is missing, you can add to it. It will only add to the list, not to the actual record in Destiny. Now that you are back in “My Personal List,” you can work with all the books you have selected. One more thing about using citations . . .

29. At the bottom of any resource list, click “Create,” and choose either “Citation List” or “Bibliography.”

30. Choosing “Citation List” produces an MLA formatted list of books in another tab or window. Selecting “Bibliography” will give you other results. (These options should make your teachers happy.)

31. Finally, should you have further questions, remember that you can always click on the “Help” button in the upper-right corner of almost any page in Destiny. Their help is FAR more detailed than this presentation would even try to be. You may need Acrobat Reader to access some of the help pages. If you do not already have it on your computer, you can download the free version at http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html