Destiny 17.0 Is Here....Just Wait Until You See What The NEW Interface Holds For Us, Especially Our Kids!

Our friends at Follett Learning have an exciting update!  

Destiny 17.0 is here and along with this announcement comes some super awesome changes and updates.  As shared on Follett Community, 

New features are coming your way this summer:

•  Four elementary student-friendly themes.
•  Customizable homepage options for news, links and more.
•  Easy-to-see search results and clickable links.
•  Browse by topic now supports search by sublocation

When I received this email yesterday that said, Your Destiny 17.0 Update Is Here, I went right to work in Destiny to make and see these updates and changes for myself. 

Let me show what I did and give you a little peak at what Destiny 17.0 holds for all of us, especially our kids. 

This is the NEW interface for Destiny 17.0.  Isn't it awesome!?!?!

It is super simple once you are updated to the new version within Destiny Discover.

 When you are logged in as the administrator, click on Setup in the lefthand column.

 This will take you into the Follett Digital Setup for your library.

Within Follett Digital Setup, there are several things you can do. 

First, you want to click on Versions and Themes. This is where you can choose the User Interface you want and which Roles you want it assigned to.

You want to make sure Simplified is marked for the interface that I show in this post.  This is best for grades kindergarten through 5th grade.  The Standard interface is the one that we have been using in Destiny Discover for the last several years.

Once that is marked, you can pick a Theme, which has the star around it in the screenshot above.  

There are four to choose from including....

...Space, 

 Kids Outside, 

 Aquarium and...

 Bookfair.  It is easy to set and change the backgrounds at anytime.

Next, you want to click on Featured Content.  Again, you choose which interface you want. 

For this task, I marked Simplified again, since I am working on this new look for my elementary students and teachers. 

You can drag the categories to change the order of the appearance from the Featured Content menu. You can also mark which ones you want to show as Featured Content or ribbons on the home screen.

When you click on Custom Links, this is where individual links can be added.  I have a few added for our library including Capstone's PebbleGo, EPIC! Books, and our library website and Symbaloo.

Lastly, you can click on School Logo/Graphic to add your own.  I found an image of our school mascot and logo to add.  I love that little touch and I know our kids will too.

Now with all of these things set for the new Primary Interface, let's see what it looks like.

I LOVE how it looks and can't wait for our community to see it! The bright colors and nicely organized format, will be an awesome hook and addition. 

I have organized this new interface in the same way as our previous Destiny Discover. 

At the very top, Topics can be found.

When a Topic box is clicked, all of the books come up in these nice little squares that are super appealing and easy to read. 

On the left hand side, there are several Filters that will help readers narrow down their search.

Within each book square, you will see a few helpful details including an In and Out flag, Heart, Call Number, and Hold button.

When you click on that book square, it will flip over to show more information and a change to Rate It. At the bottom, readers can click on More Details and it will...

 ...roll over to display specifics on the book within your library.  I really like how it has the nice ribbon of Related Stuff at the bottom of each.

In addition to being able to Filter titles on the left hand side, you can also use the Top Tabs to help with your search too. You will find Books, Collections, Websites and Databases. 

 There are also ribbons for Recently Added Books, 

 eBooks, 

 Audiobooks, and...

....Links, which like I shared earlier is super helpful as your patrons explore resources outside of the library collection too. 

Collections is one of my favorite ribbons because.... 

 ...when a Collection is clicked,

it opens up that specific Collection by Destiny on the next screen.  This will bring your students and teachers to so many resources that you want want to share and use within these Collections in just one click. 

As I set up the Simplified Interface today, I also shared it with my school community even though it is summer break by...

 ...adding it to our library website at vmbulldogslibrary.com.  Everyone knows they can get to Destiny even when they are at home or on the go, by clicking on the link provided here.

I know they will LOVE seeing the NEW Destiny too! 

You can sign up for this free Follett webinar, What's New In Destiny 17.0, to learn more.