How to catalogue an Ohio school library
Know what is on your shelves before you plan the collection. TitleEntry builds the catalogue for you.
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In Ohio, a school board may establish and maintain school libraries under Section 3375.14 of the Revised Code, and the state’s 2021 Library Guidelines for Librarians ask each library to have a collection development plan covering how materials are selected, evaluated, acquired and maintained. The law leaves the decision to the board, and the guidelines describe practice, so the catalogue is usually the school’s own responsibility. See also the US school library inventory guide.
An Ohio school library catalogue in four steps
Scan what is on the shelves
Scan barcodes with a phone camera or USB scanner, or photograph a shelf and let the AI shelf scanner read the spines. Every book goes into one list with its cover and details, ready to review before you plan the collection.
Tag each book with its shelf
Name each shelf or collection before you scan it, so every book is recorded against where it sits. Moving a book to another shelf later is one edit, not a re-scan.
Review the collection
Each book carries its publication year, language and genre where a book database supplies one, so you can see what the collection holds before deciding what to add, keep or withdraw. Genre stays empty when no source has one; you can set it yourself.
Export the record
Export the catalogue to Excel to share with your librarian team or district. It opens in Excel or Google Sheets.
Other state guides: New York, Texas and Florida. For all countries, see school library inventory. Read more about the AI bookshelf scanner and ISBN scanning.
What Ohio law and guidelines say
Section 3375.14 of the Ohio Revised Code says the board of education of a city, exempted village or local school district may provide for the establishment, control and maintenance of school libraries. The word is may, so a library is the board’s choice, which is why many Ohio school libraries depend on one or two staff. The 2021 Library Guidelines for Librarians, which replaced guidelines from 2003, ask for a collection development plan with policies and procedures for selecting, evaluating, acquiring and maintaining materials. A catalogue gives you the facts to plan from.
Library media specialists
Ohio library media specialists hold a valid Ohio teaching licence with a library/media qualification, and the Ohio Educational Library Media Association has an evaluation rubric for them based on the same guidelines. Taking stock of the shelves is slow work for a small team. TitleEntry does the scanning so that time goes to teaching and reading.
Honest about what TitleEntry is and is not
TitleEntry is a cataloguing and export tool. It is not a library management system: no circulation, no student accounts, no overdue tracking and no OPAC. See our guide to book cataloguing software for how the options compare.
If your district already runs a library system, use the export to check it against the shelves. If it has none, TitleEntry builds the catalogue from the books themselves. It does not write your collection development plan; it gives you an accurate list of the collection to write it from.
Frequently asked questions
Ohio Revised Code Section 3375.14 says a board of education may provide for the establishment, control and maintenance of school libraries. It uses the word may, so having a library is left to the board. Check the current code and your district for any local requirement.
They are guidelines published in 2021 by the Ohio Department of Education, developed with the Ohio Educational Library Media Association, in separate versions for librarians and learners. They replaced guidelines from 2003. The librarian guidelines ask for a collection development plan with policies and procedures for selecting, evaluating, acquiring and maintaining materials.
Scan every book with a phone camera or USB scanner and photograph shelves of books without barcodes so the AI shelf scanner reads the spines. Name each shelf first so every book is recorded against its location, then export the list.
No. It catalogues and exports, with no circulation, student accounts or overdue tracking. If your district already has a library system, use the export to check it against the shelves. If not, the catalogue can be your record.
Get in touch and we will talk through your collections and set you up.