Index
- Technology Committee approves Office 365 for SCLS email
- Member/Staff News
- Make advocacy part of your daily work
- Pew charts the motivations of ‘Library Lovers and Distant Admirers’
- IMLS preview of 2011 national public library survey released
- Continuing Education Calendar
Technology Committee approves Office 365 for SCLS email
The Technology Committee met March 12 and approved the proposal (pptx) to move from SCLS-hosted email to Microsoft's cloud-based Office 365 for email and calendaring.
All libraries with @scls.lib.wi.us addresses will be affected, so there are probably many questions -- "What's the timeline? What do I have to do? How will I learn about the features? When will my library transition? What if we're using Gmail instead of Thunderbird?"
More information can be found about the project in this Office 365 overview (pdf). Here are some quick highlights:
- The O365 project is HUGE.
- Everyone with a @scls.lib.wi.us will get a new address.
- SCLS staff are developing timelines.
- Our initial O365 rollout will include email, calendar, and contacts features.
- Old Thunderbird email will not be brought into O365, but will be accessible for some amount of time while the transition occurs.
- There will be a period where both @scls.lib.wi.us email and new email will both be accessible while libraries switch over to their new email addresses.
Libraries can take some action now while SCLS staff are finalizing the details and timelines.
- Read the O365 Overview and pay close attention to the "Next Steps" section at the end.
- Join us for a webinar on April 8 at 10 a.m. to see what the O365 interface has to offer.
- Join us for Tech Day on April 29 -- in addition to lots of fun techie topics, there will be O365 demos in the afternoon.
Directors can fill out the O365 form for their library to opt in, opt out, or let us know if they have questions.
The Baraboo Public Library youth services department was awarded a $2,000 Dia mini-grant from the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) funded through the Dollar General Literacy Foundation. Only 15 libraries in the nation received this honor in 2014. Through this mini-grant the library will offer a five-day multicultural storytelling camp for students in grades 3-8 during spring break. The camp will culminate in a community storytelling festival on April 1 featuring the campers. The Dia mini-grants are designed to encourage libraries to celebrate El día de los niños/El día de los libros (Children's Day/Book Day). The celebration emphasizes the importance of advocating literacy for children of all linguistic and cultural backgrounds.
In case you missed it, there was a webinar recap of the recent PLA Conference. Hosted March 19 by Jean Anderson, SCLS, and Jamie Matczak, NFLS, special guests included: Jen Thiele, Director of the Marinette County Library System; Peg Burington, Director of the Waupaca Area Public Library; Leah Fritsche, Director of the Deerfield Public Library; and Lara Lakari, Children's Librarian for the Marinette County Library System. These Wisconsin librarians discussed their favorite sessions at the PLA Conference in Indianapolis, so you can get a mini recap of the conference without leaving your office! The webinar recording is available on the SCLS Continuing Education Program Blog.
Make advocacy part of your daily work
We are nearly three months into a new calendar year, and many libraries are already starting to think about next year’s budget process. Part of that process should be a renewed effort toward library advocacy.
Proactive advocacy remains vital, and getting an early start will be a key component of achieving more positive budget outcomes. Libraries are only one of the many public services competing for a finite pool of tax dollars, and to do so effectively you should turn to the most convincing spokespeople for your library's programs and resources -- those you serve on a daily basis.
Their stories and support are powerful, but using those positive feelings to benefit the library does not happen automatically. You’ve done the hard work because they already value the library and the services and resources it provides. Now you need to get them to take the next step and voice that support publicly. That is Advocacy!
If you’d like help creating a library advocacy plan, as well as advocacy messages and materials to be used in your community, contact Mark Ibach and schedule a time to have him visit your library. More information about developing an advocacy plan is also available at www.scls.info/pr/advocacy/. If you’d like your Library Board to learn more about the importance of Advocacy, Mark is available to conduct a 45-minute session about some basics of doing grass-roots advocacy.
Another important advocacy tool libraries can use is the “Speak Up for Your Library” card project, which is available at no cost to SCLS member libraries. By involving your library users and supporters you strengthen the position of your library within the community because you can get the email lists of all those who indicate your library as their home library. It’s an easy way to reach out locally to build support for your library. We also encourage libraries to link from their website to the online sign-up form at www.scls.info/pr/speak_up. All you have to do is return the cards, or have people sign up on our website, and we take care of the rest. When you need the list of emails, just contact Mark Ibach.
As an added advocacy effort, libraries can link to the SCLS “Library Use Value Calculator,” which is an excellent opportunity for library users to attach a financial impact to their personal library use. Annual data updates for the calculator are performed by SCLS staff, even if you put the calculator on your library’s website. That ensures that the return on investment data is always current and accurate, and it make it an easier tool to use.
Pew charts the motivations of ‘Library Lovers and Distant Admirers’
In a new report issued March 13, the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project has explored the motivations behind the relationships that American adults have with their public libraries.
Rather than describe the basic library usage of various groups, the report, titled “From Distant Admirers to Library Lovers -- and Beyond,” examines what traits go along with different levels of engagement with libraries and the library habits and views people have in common.
The results are based on a nationally representative survey of 6,224 Americans ages 16 and older, Pew reveals, “a sample that is roughly three times larger than that of previous surveys in this research series.
More about the new survey is available in American Libraries.
IMLS preview of 2011 national public library survey released
In 2011, the 8,956 public libraries in the United States served 299.9 million people or 95.3 percent of the U.S. population.
The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) has released a preview of the Public Libraries in the United States Survey for 2011 at http://tinyurl.com/qa6e26s. In its 24th year, the Public Library Survey (PLS) gathers data from more than 98 percent of public libraries across the country.
These high-level overviews of FY 2011 data are available on the IMLS website:
- National Fact Sheet -- http://tinyurl.com/n9njwd5
- Supplementary Tables -- http://tinyurl.com/pd8vh3r
- State Profiles -- http://tinyurl.com/qjq64sf (Wisconsin's page is online at http://tinyurl.com/pq6kqot)
- Data files -- http://tinyurl.com/oze9d3b
Highlights include:
- Visits and Program Attendance
- There were 1.53 billion in-person visits to public libraries, the equivalent to more than 4.2 million visits each day (not including virtual visits).
- Attendance at public library programs increased for the eighth year with 89 million people attending 3.81 million programs.
- Books and Collections
- Public libraries circulated 2.44 billion materials, or 8.1 items circulated per person.
- While books continue to comprise the majority of the nation's public library collection holdings, collections are shifting from print books to non-print and digital materials.
- Public Access Computers
- There were 261,413 public access Internet computers available at U.S. public libraries
- There were 341.5 million usage sessions on public access Internet computers at public libraries.
- Financial Health
- More than $11.4 billion was invested in public libraries.
- Public libraries spent $10.7 billion in operating expenditures.
The Wisconsin Public Library Service Data for 2012 is available in Excel files at http://pld.dpi.wi.gov/pld_dm-lib-stat for State and Systems, Counties, Public Libraries, and Public Libraries by System and County.
-- from Channel Weekly (Vol. 16, No. 22 -- March 13, 2014)