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SUNLINK @ Present (Summer 2007) The SUNLINK project is very close to its original goal of including all Florida’s public school records in the state database. The January 2007 update contains records from 2,757 K-12 public schools from all 67 Florida school districts. In addition, the database includes 26,545 cataloged educational web sites, 436,150 book cover images, 500 images from the Florida Memory Project, and almost 2,000 files of streaming video from Annenberg Media. The database is remastered annually in August and updated mid-year in January. Records for streaming video, websites, and print and nonprint resources are included in the database in MARC format (MAchine Readable Cataloging), a standard in all library automation projects and products. These records can be searched in various ways: by author, title, subject, keyword, location, format, language, date, reading level, interest level, ISBN, LCCN, reading program features, keyword of any Sunshine State Standard or any combination of these. Support for Student Achievement. An important goal of the SUNLINK project is to support Florida’s efforts for improved student reading abilities and student achievement in all areas. SUNLINK promotes the reading features of the database to parents and teachers through publications and training. Reading grade levels and interest levels are added to the database, as are specific levels for reading motivation programs widely used in Florida schools.
The project supports the Florida Research Process Model (FINDS) and information literacy, including Florida’s information literacy strand in the Sunshine State Standards for Language Arts. SUNLINK offers links to online tools to support the FINDS model, student research organizers for elementary and middle school students, a mini-poster, a pocket pal document for students and teachers, and graphics for local use. SUNLINK houses the FINDS toolkit site for school library media specialists, shares information about information fluency efforts through SUNLINK Announcements, and offers training in using SUNLINK in information literacy instruction. Just Read, Florida! and other state and federal reading initiatives are supported by: • SUNLINK’s motivational book cover images in two sizes; • Professionally selected curriculum-related websites in the SUNLINK database searchable by audience level; • SUNLINK presentations at the reading related conferences; • Visibility in the Florida Online Reading Professional Development (FOR-PD) course through collaborative efforts with that project; • Availability of reading and book related links for students, parents, teachers, administrators and library media specialists on the SUNLINK portal pages and in the SUNLINK Link of the Week database; • Availability of the SUNLINK Bibliography Builder feature which assists teachers and students in producing reading lists; • A search interface designed for students enabling them to locate materials wherever they may be in the school, district, region or state and to have the materials borrowed by the SUNLINK school library media specialist through interlibrary loan; • Support for FAME’s statewide reading programs, Sunshine State Young Readers Award and Florida Teens Read!; • Promoting high quality materials and up-to-date resources through collection development efforts
| Florida Media Quarterly | Fall 2007 | Page 18 |