T he The School Library Systems Association of New York State launched SCORE, the SLS Consortium of Online Resources for Education, in collaboration with Chakra Communications.

The School Library Systems Association is a consortium of state-funded programs sponsored by each BOCES or 'Big 5' city school district.

They provide vital library and information resources to public and nonpublic schools throughout the state.

Chakra developed the online application to assist the School Library Systems Association in their goal to improve access for members on available products and trials for each school year, allow vendors to review and submit RFQ information securely online and allow reporting of member usage by vendor and product.

Each member system operates under a state approved plan of service to provide:

• Leadership and training through professional development activities
• Assistance with resource-sharing among its member school libraries
• Access and training in technology for information literacy skills
• Assistance and direction with cooperative collection development of school library materials
• Leadership in meeting information needs of special client groups
• Information on regional library issues with public, academic and special libraries

SCORE is seen as a vital next step as the organization looks for new ways to use and improve the cost-effective use of technology and the Internet to create savings to school libraries when purchasing online resources.

Chakra is proud to assist The School Library Systems Association of New York and its members as they work to achieve their goals.

SCORE is partially funded through the joint sponsored effort of the LSTA grant program entitled: School Librarians As 21st Century Leaders and a collaboration of all 41 School Library Systems in New York State with support from the Federal Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) funds, awarded to the New York State Library by the Federal Institute of Museum and Library Services.