Index
- July 1 is deadline to request reimbursement from adjacent counties
- Request ‘Speak Up for Your Library’ materials
- Member/Staff News
- Barb Huntington retires from DPI
- Reel to Real showings available for libraries of all types
- Confronting the Future: Strategic Visions for the 21st Century Public Library
- Continuing Education Calendar
July 1 is deadline to request reimbursement from adjacent counties
If your library served residents in adjacent counties in 2010 who live outside municipalities with libraries, you are eligible to request funds from those counties for serving those residents. Such requests for 2012 payments must be made to adjacent counties by July 1, 2011.
All of the information you need to request these payments can be found in your library's 2010 annual report. In March, Cheryl Becker compiled a spreadsheet for each library and prepared a sample statement libraries can use to request reimbursement. Both of these documents, as well as background information, can be found at www.scls.info/management/cross/index.html.
If you have questions, or discover any errors in the spreadsheet or documents you received in March, please contact Cheryl Becker.
Request ‘Speak Up for Your Library’ materials
The state budget process is nearly history, but local communities and libraries will soon have to craft budgets that incorporate the statewide changes. Proactive advocacy will be more important than ever.
To this end, “Speak Up for Your Library” materials are available at no cost to SCLS member libraries, and we encourage every library to make the sign-up cards available. By involving your library users and supporters you also strengthen the position of your library within the community. As an added value, you can get the names of all those who list your library as their home library. It’s an easy way to reach out locally when the need arises.
Expanding this list of residents willing to speak in support of libraries more important than ever. Of the list’s more than 2,200 members, however, a majority live in Dane County. To be most effective in our outreach efforts, we need to ensure that library supporters in all communities have an opportunity to speak up. That can only happen when all libraries make the cards available.
Cards can be printed on demand, and delivered to libraries in a day or two. Just contact Mark Ibach to place your request. We also encourage libraries to link from their website to the online sign-up form at www.scls.info/pr/speak_up.
As an added advocacy effort, we’d like to encourage libraries to promote the SCLS “Library Use Value Calculator,” which is an excellent opportunity for library users to attach a financial impact to their personal use of the library. We recently changed this resource so annual data updates for the calculator are performed once by SCLS staff, even if you put the calculator on your library’s website.
Member/Staff News
The grand opening of Fitchburg Public Library, 5530 Lacy Road, will be held next Wednesday, June 29, beginning at 9 a.m. Please RSVP to Director Wendy Rawson at (608) 270-4205 by Friday, June 24. You can learn more about the library at www.fitchburgcitylibrary.com.
Brendan Faherty is the new director of Mount Horeb Public Library. For the past three years, Brendan has supervised all circulation matters and staffing at MTH. He received his MLS from the UW-Madison and worked at Madison Public Library’s Sequoya Branch prior to joining MTH. Brendan said he is excited and honored by the opportunity.
WLA president-elect Ron McCabe will speak at Madison Public Library’s Hawthorne Branch (2707 E. Washington) on July 7 at 6:45 p.m. The title of his presentation is “The State Budget and Wisconsin Libraries,” during which he will discuss current library services and trends, and examine the short-term and long-term impacts of the recently adopted state budget.
Barb Huntington retires from DPI
Barb Huntington is retiring from the Department of Public Instruction. Barb, who served previously as the SCLS Youth Services Consultant, joined the DPI’s Public Library Development Team in 2000 as the Consultant for Public Library Youth and Special Services with considerable prior experience as a teacher, librarian and regional library consultant.
At the DPI, Barb has worked hard and effectively to support and improve statewide public library service to youth and to those with special needs that makes it difficult to use a library. Notably, Barb led Wisconsin’s library early learning initiative, our Hispanic Outreach Library Action Project (HOLA Project), our library adolescent literacy initiative, and our JOBS project to help libraries serve the unemployed and those seeking to improve their job skills.
She also coordinated the Wisconsin summer library program. As past president of the national Collaborative Summer Library Program organization she managed a revision of the organizations structure that allowed the collaborative to grow from 12 states to 49 states, the U.S. Territories, and military bases around the world.
Reel to Real showings available for libraries of all types
Reel to Real is a partnership of Wisconsin Public Television (WPT) and the Wisconsin Library Association to bring people together to view films and talk about the topics that touch our lives. Many are surprised to discover the abundance of thought-provoking films on WPT; films dealing with topics like race and diversity, social justice, history, the arts, education and civic engagement. These topics resonate in communities throughout Wisconsin, and they get people talking. Get them talking in your library -- with Reel to Real.
To schedule your own screening, contact Lynne Blinkenberg, WPT director of Community Engagement, at (608) 265-6331.
Confronting the Future: Strategic Visions for the 21st Century Public Library
American libraries will confront formidable challenges during the next few decades of the 21st century. Both the media and technologies they deploy will continue the digital transformation that has already eroded or swept away in years what had lasted for decades or centuries, and the rate of change does not appear to be slowing. A new ALA report discusses these challenges
The new media and technologies are enabling a steady flow of genre- and usage-changing innovations, and institutions drawing on these disruptive changes are competing with the library in its most fundamental roles. Libraries also are challenged by the financial constraints facing the agencies that support them, as well as shifts in the nature and needs of library users.
If libraries are to evolve rapidly enough to meet these challenges, they will have to make careful and difficult strategic decisions and persevere in implementing those decisions.
The new report from the ALA Office of Information Technology Policy is available on the ALA website.