Index
- Library Night at the Duck Pond is July 12
- June edition of ‘Talk of the Town’ now available
- Exercise your mind with state resources
- Member/Staff News
- How to get teens in the library this summer
- Legos: A new frontier for libraries
- Continuing Education Calendar
Library Night at the Duck Pond is July 12
The Madison Mallards are sponsoring the annual Library Night at the Duck Pond event on Tuesday, July 12, 2016.
Baseball is the quintessential American pastime, and the Madison Mallards are taking the love of baseball and again turning it into a vehicle to support summer reading by children.
The Mallards have supported the Summer Library Program for many years, and again this summer the organization is making game passes available to children who have reached their summer reading goal.
In addition to the game passes, the Mallards have scheduled a Library Appreciation Night on Tuesday, July 12, to celebrate the important work that public libraries do. This is an excellent opportunity to celebrate the work of your library, and bring your supporters together for an evening of fun at the Duck Pond at Madison's Warner Park.
Interested participants can purchase tickets through a special website portal set up just for libraries. Tickets are $10, which includes a Mallards baseball cap, or $20, which includes 90 minutes of all-you-can-eat ballpark food and fountain soda. To purchase tickets, visit www.MallardsGroups.com, then click “Buy Tickets” in the upper right hand corner. In the “Promotions Box,” enter Promo Code SCLS Hat or SCLS Tailgate. Follow the steps to purchase.
Mallards game passes earned by reading must be used on specific nights. The June 12 Library Appreciation Night is one of the games for which passes can be used, and on that night children will receive a free hot dog with their game pass. The other dates game passes may be used are Aug. 1 and Aug. 9.
SCLS has created a poster and press release to help you publicize the event. Tickets should be ordered through the special ticket portal by July 1.
For more information about the Summer Library Program, game passes or Library Night at the Duck Pond, contact Shawn Brommer.
June edition of ‘Talk of the Town’ now available
The June edition of "Talk of the Town" is now available. It features Guy Hankel, reference librarian at Madison Public Library, who shared information about the Yahara Music Library (yaharamusic.org). Madison has always been home to a dynamic music scene, and the Yahara Music Library celebrates that fact by creating an online library of local music to share with the community.
The July edition of “Talk of the Town” will feature Mark Ibach, SCLS Consulting Services Coordinator, talking about how public libraries are funded.
Exercise your mind with state resources
Continuing last summer's successful Super Librarian Powers (SLP) Project focusing on databases, we're going to exercise our minds while exploring our state's treasure trove of online resources.
Most every month, I meet with a group of librarians from state agencies like the State Law Library, Legislative Reference Bureau, Historical Society, Department of Transportation, Department of Justice, Employee Trust Funds, and Resources for Libraries & Lifelong Learning -- just to name a few. I learn something new at every meeting and have found a way to share that knowledge with you.
Starting Monday, June 13, we'll explore the publicly available resources for six or seven agencies in the Know More blog. Look for a new blog post every other Monday through early September. Stay tuned!
--from Jean Anderson, SCLS Continuing Education Consultant
Madison Public Library representatives were in Washington, D.C., on June 1 to receive the nation’s highest honor for community service by museums and libraries. First lady Michelle Obama presented the National Medal for Museum and Library Service to Madison Public Library and other libraries and museums from around the country, in ceremonies at the White House. Read the full article in the Wisconsin State Journal. More information also is available in the Cap Times.
The June issue of WSLL @ Your Service has been published at http://wilawlibrary.gov/newsletter/1606.html.
How to get teens in the library this summer
Innovative summer reading programs explored
Teen patrons of the Lexington (Ky.) Public Library can step inside a popular book this summer when they participate in a technological scavenger hunt called BattleKasters. Using their smartphones, readers can virtually experience Alane Adams’ book The Red Sun by visiting “beacons” -- or points on a scavenger hunt map -- around the city of Lexington, gaining virtual cards that give game advantages until completing their journey at a final location. The concept was developed by Artifact Technologies and Adams.
Colleen Hall, Lexington Public’s youth services manager, hopes that having beacons placed in the city’s retail establishments will get the whole town reading.
“We’ve been targeting the middle schools because that’s the target audience of the book,” says Hall, of outreach efforts. “But I think we’re going to get a lot of people who aren’t middle schoolers who want to do this.”
When faced with the prospect of encouraging teen participation in summer reading programs, librarians often find themselves thinking outside the box -- or the book, as it were. To spur teen summer reading, and, more broadly, summer learning, the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), in conjunction with Dollar General Corporation, offered 20 grants to libraries across the country. The Summer Resources Learning Grants of $1,000 each were awarded to organizations that developed unique programs to spark the interest of underserved teens in their regions.
Read the complete article by Bailey Brewer in the May 31, 2016, issue of American Libraries.
Legos: A new frontier for libraries
Rutgers art librarian Megan Lotts is changing the public’s perceptions of libraries -- one colorful brick at a time
Megan Lotts is not a “shushing” librarian.
In fact, the Rutgers University librarian rather delights in the noise, conversation and mess at the Lego playing station she installed in the center of the university’s Art Library: It means that people are solving problems and learning to work as a team.
Accompanied by nearly 300 pounds of the popular colorful bricks, Lotts is on the forefront of redefining the educational role that libraries can play in their communities and aggressively spreading the message. She wants people to think of libraries as places where they can connect with others and pursue nontraditional methods of learning through “makerspaces” -- creative physical outposts where those with similar interests can collaborate, invent and tackle problems with hands-on learning.
Read the complete article by Patti Verbanas on the Rutgers University website.