TUTORIALS

DESTINY Visual Search:

Localizing Your Search Icons



By Jennifer Starcevic

Library Technician

MEI Elementary School

November 19, 2010





• A couple tips before you start:

o To make the screen appear larger or smaller, hold down the CTRL key and scroll back and forth on your mouse.

o When asking the system to save or delete on Destiny, your next step might be on a hidden part of the screen. Scroll up or down to find it.




Visual search is an empowering way for younger students to find books that they are looking for in your Library Catalogue. Make it more useful for your students by adding subjects and icons you determine* to meet the specific demands at your school. It’s also a great way to incorporate ‘categories’ and ‘resource list’ which are less apparent using basic search.

Let’s Start!

In PART 1, we’re going to simply add a search to an already existing folder. After we’re finished doing that, we’ll go through some more complicated steps in making a folder that allows you to add subfolders to it in PART 2.

To make a basic search under an already existing folder:

1. Log in and select the TAB “Catalog”.

2. Next select the TAB to the left side called “Search setup”.




3. The next screen will look like this (see below). From here you can decide what you want to work on. For an example, I am going to add the term OCEAN ANIMALS under the subject heading ANIMALS. You’ll notice that there are no magnifying glass icons or folder icons next to the search headings. We’ll come to that later when we go more in depth with the subfolders.



4. Put your mouse over the icon with the magnifying glass. When you hover over it with the mouse, it will tip you that it will “Add a search or URL to Animals”. Click on it.



5. This is the next screen for adding a search or URL to a heading:


6. Next enter the information you want.



7. Select SAVE and the system will take you to the next screen. Notice where your subject came up.



8. Try a search using visual search and this new subject you made. Is it bringing up the types of books you’d like it to give you hits on? I noticed in my search, it was bringing up Teacher reference, videos and Big Books. These are all items which students are blocked from signing out of the library. Let’s EDIT our new subject to limit the types of books coming up to just ones that students can sign out. A new icon is needed for ocean animals but we’ll edit this part first.


9. Click on the EDIT icon next to your new subject.

10. Scroll down to CIRC TYPES at the bottom and click on UPDATE.

11. When you’re done selecting or de-selecting your circ types, click OK.

12. Make sure you SAVE again.


13. Now, go ahead back into catalogue and have a look at what your search brings up.



14. Now we get to the creative part. I need a new icon for my new subject heading OCEAN ANIMALS. Go to where it says “Change Image”. This is where you can enter a location for the system to download a picture/image/icon from. When you click on the little question mark, the system will give you a little window to remind you about what types of files can work.


15. I’m going to have a look in DESTINY GRAPHICS to see if there is a suitable icon. Click “help” adjacent to the “Logout” button in the top right of your screen.


16. Your system will take you to this homepage. In the search field to the left, type in “graphics”.

17. What you’re looking for in the search results are the ones marked “Destiny graphics 1”, “Destiny graphics 2”, and “Destiny graphics 3”.

18. Click on the one marked “Destiny graphics 1”. (It will actually also include the other 2.)



19. Search for a suitable icon. When you find it, follow the directions below:



“Graphics for Destiny

We have provided almost 400 images for you to use in Destiny. These are suitable for almost any purpose, such as Visual Search buttons, equipment images, or asset images.

To download a graphic, right-click (CTRL-click on a Macintosh) on the image you want, then choose "Save Picture As" (using Internet Explorer), or "Save Image As" (using Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox). Save it to any convenient location.

Note: Depending on the speed of your network and your workstation, these make take a few minutes to appear.”

20. You may wish to make a new file folder (you can put it on the desktop temporarily) marked with the label: Destiny Graphics so you can save ones there that you like.

21. Once you’ve saved an image, go back to your edit mode on search set up and use the browse feature to find this picture on your computer. Save. No go and have a look at how it turns out on the search screen.

22. *Note: Once you change the image, from what the system seems to allow at this point, you won’t be able to get the default image back unless you have it saved as an icon in your picture file folder. Another way to get the default image back is to simply delete your heading and make it again.

23. If you don’t find any suitable icons, try using clip art in Microsoft Powerpoint (or the free downloadable clip art on the internet- although I find those usually come with some type of malware). When you find a clip art that you like in PP, insert it into a blank slide, go to SAVE and Send. Choose to save as a different file type. Give it a name and choose to save your file as a JPG instead of a doc or docx. Ask it to save the jpg setting to the “current slide only.” Save it to your file folder that you’ve set aside for DESTINY GRAPHICS or make a subfolder marked CLIP ART.

24. Here are the directions for inserting clip art into a PowerPoint presentation and saving it as a jpg:

25. Open a new presentation and select a blank slide. Delete the default slide that appeared when you opened the program.


26. Now, click on the INSERT tab. Click on CLIP ART. Enter your search terms.




27. Look through the hits to see if there are any suitable images. When you find one, double click on it or use the little arrow to insert it into the document.



28. Resize the object to fill up as much of the page as it fits. When resizing, use one of the corner dots to pull and drag with your mouse. You can stretch it a little horizontally without distorting the image too much when it shows up on the visual search screen. Don’t miss this step, or else your icon will be too small to see on the search screen. *Destiny graphics that you find on their website will be automatically sized by Destiny to fit nicely on your visual search screen. Others you have to manually do it.



29. Now that you have a large image, save the document as a jpg by choosing “save as”. Choose “other formats.”



30. Click on a place where you want all your Destiny pictures/graphics/icons saved. I chose to use the desktop. Click on it and open a new file folder by “right clicking” with your mouse. Look for “new” and choose “folder.



31. Choose a name for the file folder. I chose DESTINY GRAPHICS.



32. Double click on the file folder to open it. The system should say there is nothing in the folder by saying “no items match your search”. Don’t miss this step or it will just save it on your desktop by itself.

33. Now enter a title that you want to give your picture where it says “file name”. Under save as type, search for JPEG.




34. Click on save so it will prompt you to choose all slides or “current slide only”. Choose “current slide only”. Now it is ready to find later when you are using the “browse” feature while in the edit screen in search set up.




35. Another place to get images is www.wordsift.com. This handy website will even take whole paragraph and try to match images to the words. It is used to find images for blog postings for when you want to find a picture to make your blog interesting and you need it fast. If you use any of these images for your visual search icons, try to put a reference to its source in your file name.

*In Visual Search, I like being able to make subject headings using in the keywords/terms that the students are asking for them. For instance, Ocean Animals is how the kids ask for those books in our library, not the standardized term “Marine animals”. –j.

I hope you’ve found this tutorial helpful.

If you have any questions, please contact me by email jstarcevic@meisoc.com.