Index
- Teen Read Week 2008 promotional materials available
- 2009 CE Survey responses due Sept. 19
- Member/Staff News
- LearningExpress Library PowerPoint, script now available online
- The new face of LitFinder now available through BadgerLink
- ALA documents highlight vital role of public libraries in our society
- BadgerLink users now can search multiple vendor databases simultaneously
- The truth is out there -- we are not alone!
- Libraries encouraged to participate in ‘Letters About Literature’
- Continuing Education Calendar
Teen Read Week 2008 promotional materials available
Celebrating the theme "Books With Bite @ your library," promotional materials for Teen Read Week 2008 (Oct. 12-18) are available on the SCLS website at www.scls.info/pr/trw/.
You know the excitement of reading with young children, and the value they take from the programs you offer. But what about the older children and teens in your community? Do you focus as much continued encouragement on this group of library patrons? In an effort to encourage reading among teens, the American Library Association each year sponsors Teen Read Week. This year’s theme provides another opportunity to draw teens into your library and provide programming that addresses their specific needs and interests.
To help you promote the observance, SCLS has prepared a sample press release, letters to the editor from teens or parents, professional resource materials, a book list, PSA scripts, and programming ideas. We also have an 8.5x11 observance poster, a blank 8.5x11 poster that you can run through your library’s printer to create your own messages, and bookmarks.
These items are available free of charge, and you may order them by contacting Mark Ibach.
2009 CE Survey responses due Sept. 19
Planning for the 2009 SCLS continuing education program is underway. Here are a few of the programs in the works:
- Annual Report workshop
- Summer Library Program workshop
- CCBC Best Books programs
- Teen Symposium focusing on adolescent literacy
- Strategic Planning workshop
- Legal Resources workshop
- Brain Snacks (topics to be determined, so please share your ideas)
- Play Dates (technology topics to be determined)
- Technology Day (still working out the details)
- Health Information workshops
Since our CE program is designed to meet your needs, we need your help to plan the rest of the 2009 program. Please take a few minutes to fill out the 2009 Continuing Education Survey. After you complete the survey, encourage others at your library to complete it. We want feedback from as many library staff members as possible. Please complete the survey by Sept. 19, 2008.
For more information about the SCLS continuing education program contact Jean Anderson, or visit the CE website.
Bob Blitzke, who retired at the end of 2007 after 27 years as the Delivery Services Coordinator for the South Central Library System, has been selected to receive the 2008 WLA Special Service Award. In their nomination letter, Phyllis Davis, Bruce Smith, and Peter Hamon wrote: “Bob’s vision to begin the statewide delivery network in 1991 as a cost effective shipping alternative to libraries’ use of the U.S. Postal Service was followed by his tireless effort to partner with public library systems and libraries of all types to create a daily statewide library delivery service.” The award will be presented during the WLA conference Nov. 4-7 in Middleton.
The August 2008 LINK Library Statistics Summary is posted at http://automation.scls.lib.wi.us/reports/circulation/circindex.html.
This is a reminder that you can view the LINK Update blog at http://scls.typepad.com/link/. If you don't remember the username and password to access this page, it can be found at http://automation.scls.lib.wi.us/announce.html.
In preparation for the move to its new building, the Sequoya Branch of the Madison Public Library will close at 5 p.m. on Oct. 4. While an opening date for the new branch has not been established, it will be sometime in November.
The September issue of WSLL @ Your Service has been published at http://wsll.state.wi.us/newsletter/0809.html.
LearningExpress Library PowerPoint, script now available online
Whether library users are an elementary or middle school student interested in skills improvement, a high school student preparing for an advanced placement test or the ACT or SAT, or an adult preparing to take any number of professional exams, LearningExpress Library will be of interest to them.
To help member libraries promote this resource within their communities, SCLS has a number of promotional materials that are available free of charge, and we’ve just added PowerPoint slides and script that you can use to conduct presentations. These can be downloaded from www.scls.info/pr/lel/.
Feel free to customize the PowerPoint or script to meet your needs. To order any of the promotional materials, contact Mark Ibach and let him know how many of each you need.
The new face of LitFinder now available through BadgerLink
The new database platform for the LitFinder products (available through BadgerLink) provides as rich an experience as ever for this constantly growing collection of poetry, short fiction, novels, plays, speeches, essays. Current subscribers and new customers can expect these updates and more.
- Search within results allows users to narrow their results even further by Person, Title, Subject and more
- Simplified searching from the very start with a clearly labeled search bar that provides a number of sensible search paths to the content
- A considerable upgrade to the indexing within LitFinder that not only increases the precision and recall over the legacy version but allows it to "speak" to other literature databases for one-time searching and long-lasting discovery
- Tabbed results take the guesswork out of looking for related content like biographies, critical essays and topic or work overviews -- a rich collection of secondary materials within both LitFinder products
In addition to the major functional upgrades, thousands of new works have been added with this new release, from writers like Adrienne Rich, Maxine Kumin, Mahmoud Darwish and William Faulkner. Major collections have also been added to LitFinder for this release, including the complete works of Charles Dickens, Voltaire, Honore de Balzac, James Whitcomb Riley, and others.
ALA documents highlight vital role of public libraries in our society
Editor’s Note: The following is an email sent recently to all SCLS directors, and we thought it warranted repeating here in Online Update.
In preparation for my Library Board meeting next Tuesday I've been updating NGL's Collection Development policy. In the process of doing that, I've spent some time today with the ALA Bill of Rights, Freedom to Read Statement, Freedom to View, etc.
I'm sure all of our collection development policies reference these ALA statements. But I know that I get so involved with the day-to-day running of my library that I haven't read these documents in a loooong time. I'm only looking at them now because they're included in the appendices of one of my library's policies and I needed to get them in an electronic form that I can e-mail to my Board members.
Do you remember that great old TV show, Green Acres? When the main character, Oliver Wendell Douglas would start going on about the importance of the common man and the American way of life? And how there would be patriotic music playing underneath?
As I was reading these documents, I felt just like that. It may seem trite or naive to say this, but as I read the ALA Bill of Rights, Freedom to Read, etc. I was very proud to be a librarian living in America.
No matter what your politics, I urge you to take a look at these documents. The last few sentences of ALA's Freedom to Read Statement really hit home for me:
“We do not state these propositions in the comfortable belief that what people read is unimportant. We believe rather that what people read is deeply important; that ideas can be dangerous; but that the suppression of ideas is fatal to a democratic society. Freedom itself is a dangerous way of life, but it is ours.”
-- from Denise Anton Wright, Director, New Glarus Public Library
BadgerLink users now can search multiple vendor databases simultaneously
You may be aware that a recent enhancement allows BadgerLink users to search multiple vendor databases at one time by entering search terms in a single search box from the BadgerLink website. Users will be able to search EBSCO, ProQuest, and Gale LitFinder databases simultaneously in this way.
After a search, a single list of full citations will be displayed on the right side of the results page presented by vendor and interface. Results will be listed in the order as each are returned from the vendor’s server. Once a citation is selected, users will be taken to the vendor’s interface for the full text of the article.
Alternatively, by clicking on “Advance Search” on the BadgerLink page, users can select or deselect specific databases. Because of the number of databases being searched, response time may be longer, depending on the type of internet connection.
The truth is out there -- we are not alone!
An Aug. 28, 2008, post on the blog “Library Garden” refers to an article in The New York Times about the ease of using the Internet to find answers to 'life's little insoluble conundrums', and laments the curiously absent recognition of the important information role libraries and librarians play.
The blog writer calls on all librarians and information professionals to let reporters know what their library can do for them and their readers.
This is a situation you all face, so check out the blog to read the entire post.
Libraries encouraged to participate in ‘Letters About Literature’
The Center for the Book in the Library of Congress is inviting libraries to participate in this year's Letters About Literature (LAL) writing contest, open to young readers in grades 4 through 12. LAL is a reading promotion program of the Center through which young readers simply write a personal letter to an author of their choice, stating in that letter how the author's work changed the reader's view of his/her world.
Last year about 60,000 letters were submitted from across the country, and in association with state affiliates LAL awarded thousands of dollars in state-level prizes. Additionally, LAL selected six national winners and 12 national honorable mention winners who received not only a cash prize but also earned for their school or community library LAL reading promotion grants valued at thousands of dollars.
To learn more about LAL, visit www.lettersaboutliterature.org or www.loc.gov/letters/. At these sites you can download the how-to-enter guidelines as well as the contest's official rules.