DISCUS - South Carolina's Virtual Library is celebrating a ten year milestone as the provider of quality electronic library resources to the citizens of South Carolina.
This special anniversary edition of the DISCUS Monitor (reproduced here on our Web site) takes a look at the people, the events and the journey that have guided the development of the DISCUS program from its inception till the present day.
April 1, 2009 - Staff of both the DISCUS and SchoolRooms programs of the South Carolina State Library were pleased to attend the 2009 annual conference of the South Carolina Association of School Librarians (SCASL) in Greenville. The conference took place on March 11-13 with a theme of "Greetings from SCASL 2.0: Experience the Journey @ Your Library."
State Library staff greeted many media specialists at the exhibit booth and also during the three concurrent sessions that featured DISCUS and SchoolRooms updates and information. Those who stopped by the booth were asked to provide written feedback about their use of DISCUS and also had an opportunity to subscribe to electronic newsletters for both programs. Two names were selected from the completed forms via a random drawing to receive DISCUS and SchoolRooms mugs filled with promotional materials and candy. The lucky mug winners are Teresa Carlson, media specialist at Rock Hill High School, and Teresa Gray, media specialist at Greenville County School District's League Academy.
This past fall, Ms. Carol Ross, Library Media Specialist at Mayo High School for Math, Science and Technology, asked one of Mayo's media production students, Ken Traynham, to create a video to enhance her information literacy skills instruction. As a result, Ken created this clever, humorous and informative video - How To Use DISCUS.
Carol uses this video to introduce DISCUS to her students in the High School 101 classes. It briefly demonstrates how to research current events as well as history, science and literary topics. This is a great example of peer to peer instruction. Kudos to both Ken Traynham and Carol Ross for creating this delightful tutorial!! Please take a few minutes to check it out and have your students view it as well.
December 19, 2008 - The DISCUS program will begin 2009 with an exciting new partnership with Britannica Digital Learning to provide a new suite of encyclopedia products for South Carolinians. The Britannica package includes three online encyclopedias for students and adults: Britannica Elementary Encycyclopedia, Compton's by Britannica and Encyclopaedia Britannica.
November 14, 2008 - The DISCUS program held a prize drawing to show appreciation for those who stopped by the South Carolina State Library exhibit booth during the EdTech conference held in Myrtle Beach on November 5-7.
