Index
- Meet the SCLS Consultant Team: Shawn Brommer
- Member/Staff News
- Second OverDrive support course to begin June 23
- SCLS library trustees invited to Aug. 28 program
- New titles added to SCLS Professional Collection
- American Library Association supports makerspaces in libraries
- Unique opportunity to host Shakespeare's 1623 'First Folio' in traveling exhibition
- Continuing Education Calendar
Meet the SCLS Consultant Team: Shawn Brommer
Editor’s Note: This is the fourth article re-introducing the SCLS Consultant Staff. This article features Shawn Brommer, the Youth Services and Outreach Consultant at SCLS.
Shawn has been with SCLS since 2001. Initially hired as the Youth Services and Special Needs Consultant, her job title quickly changed to Youth Services and Outreach Consultant to reflect the changing needs of communities served by SCLS member libraries. Shawn is primarily responsible for helping member library staff serve youth and families, diverse populations, and patrons with special needs. Shawn is a grant writer and in her time at SCLS she has secured nearly $850,000 in grant funds for SCLS member libraries. Shawn helps libraries develop early, family and adult literacy programs and create welcoming environments for library patrons and staff. With a background in sociology, she pays attention to trends and changing community needs and enjoys helping libraries build programs, services and collections that support evolving communities and emerging patron needs.
Shawn started her public library career nearly 25 years ago as a library page in the reference department at the La Crosse Public Library. She was the children’s librarian at the North Community Branch Library in La Crosse before moving downriver to Memphis, TN, where she was a children’s librarian at the Cherokee Branch Library. Shawn spent five years in New York’s Finger Lakes region serving as the Youth Services Consultant for the Southern Tier Library System in Corning, NY, before moving back home to Wisconsin in April 2001. She has retrieved thousands of back issues of (paper!) periodicals; shelved miles of books; built and maintained collections; conducted hundreds of youth and family programs; and is a frequent presenter at state and national library conferences. She has served on national book award committees, such as the Randolph Caldecott , Mildred L. Batchelder, Charlotte Zolotow and the May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture Committees, and has proudly chaired children’s book award committees for the Wisconsin and New York Library Associations and the South Asia National Outreach Consortium. She recently was elected to the 2016 John Newbery Award committee. Shawn believes that quality children’s literature and library programs for youth are essential elements for healthy, engaged, and rewarding lives.
Shawn is committed to public libraries. A witness to profound changes in public library service, Shawn is thrilled to be involved in the evolution of public libraries into hubs of community innovation. Shawn is especially interested in helping library staff create services and public programs that support their organizations’ missions and strives to help individuals discover inherent leadership qualities. In the past few years Shawn has presented programs on organizational health and outcome-based planning methods and is proud to be a part of the SCLS Library Innovation Subcommittee.
A graduate of UW-SLIS, Shawn is married to her library school sweetheart, is the proud mom of two young daughters, and, when not reading books for youth or knitting, she grows birdhouse gourds and heirloom pole beans in her family’s tiny garden.
Lindsey Ganz is the new director at Poynette Public Library, effective June 16. She is a special education teacher at Poynette High School and has been a library assistant at Poynette Public Library for the past three years. Ganz replaces Kris Daugherty, who is retiring after having served as director since 2008. Daugherty said, “Lindsey is part of the wonderful, friendly service that we offer. I think she’s the perfect choice for taking the library into the next phase.” Read more in the Poynette Press.
A year after Anne Horjus completed “Sleep,” he never dreamed he’d be at the Kennedy Center. A librarian in Baraboo, Horjus is also the illustrator of the 2013 children’s book “Sleep,” based on a poem with the same title by Charles Anthony Silvestri. Silvestri wrote the words for a piece by his friend, the Grammy Award-winning choral composer Eric Whitacre. Read more in the Wisconsin State Journal.
Second OverDrive support course to begin June 23
SCLS libraries are now receiving OverDrive email support requests from their patrons. When a patron visits the Help page in Wisconsin’s Digital Library and chooses Support, they are taken to a WPLC Support Form. Their request is directed to you, their local public library.
WiLS has created a five-week OverDrive Support Course that will help library staff troubleshoot common support issues with OverDrive. Jean Anderson, SCLS Continuing Education Consultant, will be offering this course for a second time starting June 23 and running through July 25. Jean estimates that you’ll spend about 30 minutes each week on the course, although your experience may vary based on your level of expertise with OverDrive. Jean highly recommends that at least one person from each library participate in the course, and more are always welcome.
The course is limited to 25 participants and registration is open now. If the course doesn’t fit your schedule, the documentation will be posted on the Training & Documentation section of WPLC web site and we’ll run the course again in the fall.
For more information, contact Jean Anderson.
SCLS library trustees invited to Aug. 28 program
The South Central Library System (SCLS) Board of Trustees has scheduled a special Aug. 28 program titled “How to improve Library Visibility in Your Community.” It is open to all library trustees serving SCLS member libraries.
Public libraries bring value to our communities through educational programs, and free access to a wealth of resources including books, media computer technology, and expertise of our library staff. Libraries also provide public space for people to gather for learning, community projects, and contemplation. Yet public officials continue to ask if the public library has a future “now that everything is available on the Internet.”
Library trustees must be proactive in telling their story to those who can help keep our libraries strong and vibrant for our communities. This workshop will cover topics such as:
- Improving your visibility in the community
- Being an effective advocate for your library in your community
- Influencing your primary donors: municipal, town, and village officials who fund your library
Presenter Kathy Pletcher serves as Chair of Wisconsin Library Trustees and Friends (WLTF), is President of the Brown County Library Board, is a trustee of the Nicolet Federated Library System, and is co-chair of the Wisconsin Library Association’s Library Development and Legislation (LD&L) Committee.
To register for this special program, visit the SCLS Continuing Education Calendar. There is no cost to attend, and the program will run from 2-4 p.m. at the SCLS Headquarters, 4610 S. Biltmore Lane, Madison.
New titles added to SCLS Professional Collection
The following titles have been added to the SCLS Professional Collection, which is available to staff at member libraries.
- Transforming our Image, Building our Brand by Valerie J. Groww
- Cooking Up a Storytime: Mix & Match Menus for Easy Programming by Susan Anderson-Newham
- Legal Reference for Librarians: How and Where to Find the Answers by Paul D. Healey
- A year in the Story Room: Ready-to-Use Programs for Children by Dawn R. Roginski
- After-School Clubs for Kids by Lisa M. Shaia
- Makerspaces: Top Trailblazing Projects by Caitlin A. Bagley
- Management Basics for Information Professionals, 3rd ed., by G. Edward Evans and Camila A. Alire
- Folktales Aloud: Practical Advice for Playful Storytelling by Janice M. Del Negro
- Let’s Start the Music: Programming for Primary Grades by Amy Brown
- Getting Started with Evaluation by Peter Hernon; Robert E. Dugan and Joseph R. Matthews
- Exploring Environmental Science with Children & Teens by Eileen G. Harrington
- Poetry Aloud Here 2: Sharing Poetry with Children by Sylvia M. Vardell
- Streaming Video Resources for Teaching, Learning, and Research by Julie A. DeCesare
- Electronic Resource Management Systems: a Workflow Approach by Elsa Anderson
American Library Association supports makerspaces in libraries
Libraries of all types (academic, public, school, and special) are increasingly transforming their library spaces, resources and programming to offer makerspaces that provide opportunities for library patrons to engage with others in hands-on learning and creation.
Reflecting this rising interest in the making movement, the White House plans to host its first Maker Faire later this year.
The American Library Association would like to show library support for making in our communities. You and your institution may already be answering President Obama’s call for, “an all-hands-on-deck approach to science, technology, engineering, and math…to make sure that all of us as a country are lifting up these subjects for the respect that they deserve.”
Makerspaces in libraries allow everyone to develop critical thinking and problem solving skills; they facilitate opportunities for collaboration and community engagement that will aid in entrepreneurial thinking as well as the next generation of STEM jobs. They provide access to tools (from books to 3D printers) and, most importantly, “access to each other.” Library makerspaces are powerful informal learning spaces that give local community members the ability to create, hack, and make their future.
American Library Association President Barbara
Stripling has noted the value of makerspaces in libraries, saying, “It’s enabling libraries to transform their relationship with communities and to empower community members of all ages to be creators of information, not just consumers.”
If you would like to express your library’s support for makerspaces in libraries, please email Lauren Britton, who is serving as the American Library Association’s representative for this effort. Time is running out and ALA would love to have your library represented.
For more ways to get involved, visit www.whitehouse.gov/webform/white-house-makerfaire-interest-form.
Unique opportunity to host Shakespeare's 1623 'First Folio' in traveling exhibition
The American Library Association (ALA) Public Programs Office, in collaboration with the Folger Shakespeare Library and Cincinnati Museum Center (CMC), invites applications for the traveling exhibition Shakespeare and His First Folio.
The exhibition -- part of the international events planned for 2016 in observance of the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death -- will bring the 1623 original edition of the playwright’s first published collection to 53 sites: one site in all 50 United States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Each location will host the exhibition for four weeks.
The opportunity is open to public, academic and special libraries, small museums, historical societies and other cultural venues. Online applications must be submitted to ALA by Sept. 5, 2014.
Shakespeare and His First Folio is made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the human endeavor.
Published just seven years after his death, Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies -- now known as the “First Folio” -- saved for posterity 18 of Shakespeare’s 38 plays, including "The Tempest," "Macbeth," "Twelfth Night" and "As You Like It." Multiple copies of this original edition, each accompanied by six interpretive panels, will tour the nation as the exhibition Shakespeare and His First Folio, providing hundreds of thousands of visitors with a rare opportunity to view this important book in their own community.
Each host institution must have a suitable space in which to display the First Folio and exhibition and must meet environmental and security requirements. Selected sites will be asked to plan several related programs, including an opening event and programs for schoolteachers and families. The tour will launch in January 2016 and continue through the calendar year.