This article guides librarians on how to navigate the Engage digital library, manage books easily, curate collections and support users in their e-learning journey.
Learn how to set the loan duration for your institution's digital library, set the loan durations for specific titles and configure the number books users can check out at one time. Watch the short video below.
Finding the Library:
Once you are logged into Engage, you can access the library in two ways:
From the Library Tab: Click 'Library' in the top tool bar.
From the Home Page: Scroll down to the library block and select the Browse Library button for a quick shortcut to the library.
Share this helpful article for students on your institution's blog or newsletter to help your library users navigate their new digital library with ease.
1. Library Curation
The Engage library is designed to help librarians find books for their institution and Create a custom curated collection in Engage to allow your patrons to easily find the books they require access to.
Collections Section: These are pre-selected sets of books packaged together as a collection grouped by popular topics, themes or authors. Librarians can browse through these collections to get an idea of what kind of collection can be create for their institution.
Categories Section: Browse digital books grouped together by topic or subject matter.
2. Book Discovery for Librarians
Search & Advanced Search function: Use the search bar for specific titles. Use the Advanced Search to filter by author, ISBN, language, etc.
Favourites: Are your Engage users not sure what to read? Choose from the books picked by your librarian.
- These are books specifically hand picked by the librarian for your institution.
Recommended: Find books to read that are recommended by other Engage users.
- This is a trending list of what other Engage users worldwide enjoy reading and as a librarian this can inspire you to be able to choose which books to favourite for your user to start enjoying!
3. Manually Return a Book to the library as a librarian
In cases where your institution has only one copy of a popular book that is frequently checked out, as a librarian you can manually return the book before the automated expiry date to ensure other students get a chance to check out the book. Follow the below steps:
- Go to the Library tab
- From the navigation panel on the left find the Librarian section and select Activity.
- By default you will see all the books that are on loan displayed under the On Loan tab
- From the list find the book you want to return and select the Return icon.
- From the Library tab add a book to your library’s Favourites, hover over the jacket image (i.e. the book cover) of the library title you wish to favourite and click the star on the top left corner. When the star turns yellow, the title has been favourited and will appear under the ‘Favourites’ tab for all users in your digital library.
- To find and review all the titles that you have favourited for your institution's library go to the navigation panel on the left and scroll down to the ‘Favourites’ section. As a librarian, you can ‘unfavourite’ a title by clicking the star on the top left corner of the book cover image. When the star is no longer highlighted in yellow, the book is automatically removed from your library’s Favourites.
- Librarians are encouraged to advise users to search for books by Lexile level in Engage using the advanced search feature.
Understanding other Librarian features
Library Settings
Set up the basic library settings like the the loan duration and the maximum books a user can check out.
Purchasing Settings
Set up the purchasing type and decide on who can purchase books from the library, patrons or the librarian.
Set up the library content and decide whether you want users to see and have access to only titles that are added to the Owned section or allow them to access to the full library. Refer to Configuring Library Purchasing Types in Engage.
Owned
The Owned section for Librarians in Engage will show you all of the books that have been added to your Engage library to loan out to users (both purchased and free ebooks), as well as show titles with expired library licences.
Activity
In the Activity section for Librarians in Engage, you’ll be able to view all of the books in your library that are currently checked out (you can also return them manually, if necessary), as well as the books library users are currently waiting to check out and read (i.e. the wait list).
If you want to review your hidden items, you can also do this from the tab called ‘Hidden content’.
Learn more about the Activity section for Librarians in Engage.
Library Requests
In this section librarians manage requests that are made within the library.
As a librarian:
- Go to the Librarian section on the left navigation panel on Engage.
- Select the Library Requests tab and review library book requests.
- Then select the approve or deny button, this section is only available to users with the Finance role assigned to them.
Learn more about managing library book requests.
It's a good idea to favourite each book you purchase, this builds up your institution's digital library and your users can view the books that are immediately available before requesting different books.
We recommend making collections of the books your institution owns so library users can browse books by category or subject.
Consider setting your Default landing page to launch students into your library or collections. This is a great way to help them find books with fewer steps.
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