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    Tellico -Organize Your Collection

    As the new school year approaches, I thought that I’d shift gears again and write about something every teacher could use, but that few do: a means to electronically manage your classroom library and other resources. Tellico is an open source application that allows users to do just this. Tellico has been developed for the K Desktop Environment for UNIX and Linux, but is also available for Microsoft Windows and runs fine in UNIX/Linux without KDE. With Tellico, users can organize books, comic books, music and other media.

    tellico,energize education
    Tellioc’s opening screen

    Upon launching Tellico, it can be seen that there are no surprises in terms of its interface. There is a menu at the top of the screen with a toolbar below this and a search tool to the right of the toolbar. Below these are three panes: one long one on the left and two panes, one on top of the other, on the right. The pane on the left lists authors for the given category. The top pane on the right lists books by the selected author and the bottom right pane provides information about the selected work, as shown in the screenshot.

    Everything that you can do with Tellico can be done through either the menu or the toolbar. For example, clicking on the New button on the toolbar provides you with a list of catalogs that can be created. Here are the types of items that Tellico can be used to organize: books, bibliographic entries, comic books, videos, music, trading cards, coins, stamps, video games, wines (probably not at school, but home?), board games, and file listings. Plus there is a generic template available for other items not included in this list.

    tellico,energize education through open source
    The Search window

    Once a type of collection has been established, most of the routine tasks can be handled using the toolbar. Tool tips provide users with more information about each button. For kicks, click on New and select New Book Collection. Now, let’s just jump in an do a search together. Clicking on the Search button opens the Internet Search window. Items can be searched by Title, Person, ISBN or Keyword. For my search, I chose HTML, XHTML & CSS by Elizabeth Castro. You may choose your own book.

    My previous experience as a copy cataloger in a local library has taught me that the ISBN is often the fastest way to search, so that is the search criteria I will use. I select ISBN from drop-down menu under Search Query and type me book’s ISBN in the Search field left of this. You can also search for multiple ISBNs by clicking the checkbox next to Multiple ISBN/USP Search to the left, just below the Search field. To the right of this, select your Search source. Options include the Library of Congress (US), Google Book Search and ISBNdb.com, among others. I chose the Library of Congress. When ready, click the Search button right of the right of the drop-down box.

    tellico,collections,energize education,christopher whittum
    My book has been found!

    Surprise! My first search produced no results. I then tried searching ISBNdb.com and found my book. The key here, folks, is to be persistent and to be prepared to alter your search criteria. Just because the item doesn’t turn up, doesn’t mean that it isn’t out there. Notice that publication and cataloging information appear in a pane at the bottom of the Search window. Click the Add Entry button and the item will be added to your new catalog. Clicking the Save button opens the Save As dialog box. Here you can name your collection and select where to save it. All collections are saved in Tellico’s native format (.tc).

    One of Tellico’s strongest features is the ability to customize fields of data for a given type of catalog. Clicking on the Fields button opens the Collection Fields window. Here fields can be removed, added or modified as users would like. Very useful for customizing your database. Another wonderful feature is the capacity to check materials out to borrowers. Simply click on the item in question, click Collection and choose Check-out… and the Loan Dialog window opens. Here you provide the borrower’s name and, optionally, a due date via the integrated calendar and you’re all set. You can even add a reminder to the aforementioned calendar.

    tellico,collection organization,energize education
    A new entry in my catalog!

    The Settings menu provides easy configuration in a number of ways. The Filter option allows for querying of your collections using a wide range of criteria. Tellico can also be used to generate bibliographies for collections, something that could be very helpful with student research projects. The Configure Tellico option allows users to configure Tellico’s general functioning, printing, templates and data sources. Librarians should note that with the yaz library installed, Tellico can access z39.50 servers and read MODS and MARC (USMARC/MARC21 and UNIMARC) formats. I have been unable to determine, either way, whether or not Tellico supports exporting to MARC format. Finally, Tellico has a wonderfully integrated help feature.

    Tellico could be just the thing you need to track classroom resources. You could even set up an old laptop in your classroom for just this purpose and have students do data entry for your books. This would be a great way to build skills such as literacy and problem-solving. Materials could even be checked out via this laptop. So, get started now and let Tellico relieve you of the stress of worrying about lent materials.

    Resources
    Tellico Download

    Tellico Handbook

    References
    Stephenson, R. (2011). Tellico [computer software]. GNU General Public License.

    Stephenson, R. (2011). The Tellico handbook. GNU General Public License. Retrieved from https://docs.kde.org/trunk4/en/extragear-office/tellico/tellico.pdf.

    Tip of the Day: Article publishined on OpenSource.com

    I am extremely excited to announce that my latest article, a tutorial entitled Learn Geometry with Dr. Geo, will be published by opensource.com.  This is the first article of this nature that I’ve written that someone else will publish.  I think that they did a wonderful job presenting the article and using my screenshots. Thanks to opensource.com for publishing this article.

    dr.geo,energize education,geometry software,energize education through open source

    It will be available here on August 22, 2016 (that’s 22 August 2016 for the 6.68 billion people not living in the United States).
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