Index
- Sign up now for ALA Conference bus
- Member/Staff News
- SCLS Board Member Biography
- 2014 LSTA grant application form now available
- Scholarships available for 2013 Association for Rural and Small Libraries conference
- Continuing Education Calendar
Sign up now for ALA Conference bus
SCLS has chartered a bus to ALA in Chicago on Saturday, June 29, and there is still time to register. Join us for a one-day excursion to the McCormick Place in Chicago for the exhibits of the American Library Association Annual Conference.
The bus will leave at 6:30 a.m. from East Towne Mall in Madison. The exhibits are open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and exhibit passes cost $35 (attendees are responsible for obtaining their own exhibit passes). DEMCO is offering free ALA Exhibits passes through its website. We will leave McCormick Place at 5:30 p.m. for our return trip.
The cost for the bus transportation is $30, and checks should be made payable to SCLS and sent to Heidi Moe at SCLS. If you prefer for your library to be billed, please let Jean Anderson know.
Bruce Smith, SCLS Delivery Coordinator, will be leaving SCLS effective June 28 to begin a new position with Wisconsin Library Service (WiLS), where he will serve as Community Liaison and Service Specialist. Bruce has been with SCLS for 17 years, serving as the Delivery Coordinator for the past seven years.
The June issue of WSLL @ Your Service has been published at http://wilawlibrary.gov/newsletter/1306.html.
The following staff from SCLS member libraries have been selected for the inaugural Youth Services Development Institute, a professional development and networking opportunity for librarians who serve babies, children, and teens in small to medium public libraries in Wisconsin. The Institute targets librarians who have no graduate level education in librarianship and/or work in rural library communities. Amy Larson (Sauk City Public Library) and Laura Rose (Marshall Community Library),
This is a new regular feature of Online Update to help acquaint member libraries with members of the SCLS Board of Trustees.
Susan G. Martin -- I didn’t exactly ‘volunteer’ to serve on this Board -- or on the Columbia County Library Board. My predecessor on these two boards was a man of whom I was very fond and of whom I have spoken several times: Dr. J. Robert Curtis. As Dr. Curtis approached the age of 90, he was slowing down -- just a bit, but he was cognizant of his age and that he wasn’t comfortable making the long trip to Madison. He asked to be replaced, and I believe he requested that I be appointed in his place. I could never say ‘No’ to Dr. Curtis. But it’s been a great experience for me, and I appreciate the role of libraries even more today than I did as a non-stop-reading child!
I was born in Wauwatosa to a Milwaukee-native businessman and a Rio born-and-bred mother, who met at college. Mother taught in Fall River after graduation -- English, Latin, served as the librarian and even helped coach the boys’ basketball team. Mother was younger than some of her students (many boys returned to get high school diplomas after their jobs dried up in the early days of the depression), but she never had any disciplinary trouble with them; she later learned that her height, red hair and left-handed batting stance kept them in line!
By the way, mom was able to act as the high school’s librarian because she had attended a summer library school at the University of Wisconsin -- not because she really aspired to be a librarian -- only because she had heard that summer school in Madison was a blast! Some things never change -- that was over 85 years ago!
I have an older sister -- 7 years older, and of course, I wanted to be just like Jean. Mom read books, Jean read books and I wanted to read books, too. Dad wasn’t a big reader, but he read me a bedtime story every night until I was almost in junior high! I was fortunate to be in the Wauwatosa School System because beginning in the 1930s, the city had a 4-year-old kindergarten program. And all of the elementary schools (as well as the junior high and high school) had their own libraries. To me, libraries were magical places, and the librarians were the nicest, sweetest adults in the school! (No tests, no homework, no report cards or parent-teacher conferences.) I was a good student, but my teachers were frustrated because I hated the required artwork and was much happier at my desk with a book! I would reluctantly do my 15 minutes of work on the classroom’s mural, but watched the clock carefully and at 14 ½ minutes, I dusted off my hands with a big smile and returned to my desk.
By the time I was in ninth grade, I had mapped out my future -- I wanted to be in business like my dad. He ran an ice cream factory, and he took me to work with him on weekends. I loved to sit at the old switchboard and play with the PBX plugs (poor Charlotte had a mess on her hands come Monday morning!), but the most fun was scooting across the wooden plank floor on the wheeled secretarial chair (which had no arms in those days!)
When I went to college, everyone expected that I would major in education (after all, both my mother and my sister were educators) but I knew I did not have the patience that teaching requires. So I majored in sociology and psychology, took nearly enough English credits for a triple major, graduated in three years and snared my dream job! Thanks to my contributions to the college publications and those English courses I was hired by Northwestern Mutual Life (NML) Insurance Company to edit an employee magazine. I married, and in those days at NML, one’s pregnancy had to be hidden -- the ‘rule’ was that a woman had to quit her job when she was three months pregnant. I held out for six months! That was not my last act of rebellion!
After the death of my 17-month-old daughter, I was fortunate to join The American Appraisal Company, also in Milwaukee, and that position was even more fulfilling. I was the Assistant Personnel Director, supervised three departments (filing, transcription, and the switchboard) and travelled to offices in Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, etc., to hire personnel. After seven years and five (male) bosses -- all of whom I was expected to train, I was recruited by a major mid-western financial services company and jumped ship. The last question I asked before accepting their job offer was “Will I ever have to move?” The answer satisfied me -- “No, we like to keep a well-trained woman in place to train the ‘new personnel manager when he comes in.’ Four years later I was on my way -- with my then 9 year old daughter – to a new assignment in Ohio. I was the first mother the company had promoted and transferred to a new location.
While in Ohio I picked up a husband (six years after a Milwaukee divorce) but that marriage caused great consternation in the corporate ranks -- we were both employed by the same company, and had been married for six months before the union was discovered! We had defied the corporate rules!
There were threats, but the department heads with whom I worked (all men!) were vocal in their support, and my husband, whose job was in the field of law, enlisted attorneys who were anxious to take on our case should either of us be fired.
Instead, I was promoted to a Home Office position in Illinois and while my husband was not promised a job, he was promised interviews. As a result, he was offered and accepted a wonderful opportunity in the risk management field, and our little family -- including a 9 year old daughter -- returned to the heartland I loved, just one border from my beloved Wisconsin! We moved North after both of us had retired (he 5 years before me—darn it!!)
It took a few years, but Chris converted from being a Buckeye to a Badger -- from a Brown to a Packer -- and like most converts is avid!
Both of us are constant readers -- we love the Barnes and Noble, 1/2 Price Book and Frugal Muse gift cards we are given for Christmas or birthdays. I am a devoted library user -- Chris is not. He cannot bear to give up a book!
Recent ‘good reads’: “Letters to Children” from Beatrix Potter (collected by Judy Taylor), “Sarah’s Key” (Tatiana de Rosnay), “The World as We Know It” (Joseph Monninger) or most anything by Diana Gabaldon. You shouldn’t miss “The Art of Racing in the Rain” by Garth Stein. “The Light Between the Oceans” (M.L. Stedman) is a conundrum that will engender many discussions with others who have read the book. I just finished the latest Jeffrey Archer book: “Best Kept Secret,” but the plethora of characters confused me, and the ending left me befuddled. The ending would leave most readers panting for the next book in the series, but it made me angry!
Skills: organization, detail-oriented, writing (re-wrote all of the county’s policies and procedures -- 4 employee annuals and an Operations Manual for Management), leadership (elected to the county’s Executive Committee after one term on the Board, and elected vice-chair after my second term and served as Chair during my third term) messaging/speaking, persuasion, analyzing data and developing/presenting management training programs.
It would surprise you to know that: I crossed the Pecos River on a zip line, and most likely I am the only person you will ever know who was a tour guide on the ill-fated Edmund Fitzgerald.
2014 LSTA grant application form now available
The 2014 Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) grant application online form is now open on the LSTA website. LSTA applications for six competitive and three of the four non-competitive grant categories are due by 4:30 p.m. on September 13, 2013.
Competitive grant categories are:
- Digital Creation Technology,
- Digitization of Library Historical Material,
- Accessibility Projects,
- Early Literacy Projects,
- Literacy Projects, and
- Merging Integrated Library Systems.
The non-competitive grant categories are:
- Merging Public Library Systems,
- Public Library System Technology,
- Delivery, and
- Digital Content Buying Pool.
The Digital Content Buying Pool application form will be made available to the public library systems at a later date.
For more information contact Terrie Howe at (608) 266-2413.
--from Channel Weekly (Vol. 15, No. 32 – June 6, 2013)
Scholarships available for 2013 Association for Rural and Small Libraries conference
There are four scholarships (grants) available to attend this year's Association of Rural and Small Libraries (ARSL) Conference (ARSL) in Omaha, Nebraska, Sept. 26-28, 2013. Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) funds totaling $750 per recipient will reimburse eligible costs such as conference registration, membership, travel, and lodging. It is up to the recipient to make all travel arrangements.
The application is posted on the DPI’s Public Library Development website under “Recent Updates.” The deadline to apply is July 15, 2013. A written evaluation must be completed by Feb. 15, 2014.
Priority will be given to scholarship applicants who:
- work in a Wisconsin small or rural public library (less than 12,000 population);
- never have attended a previous ARSL Conference;
- are willing to network and share information with WI colleagues;
- agree to participate in a webinar to share what you learned with the library community; and
- attain their supervisor's approval for the application
For more information, contact Terrie Howe at (608) 266-2413.
--from Channel Weekly (Vol. 15, No. 32 – June 6, 2013)