Index
- Library awards presented at Cornerstone Reception
- Application for Digitizing Local History Collections
- Member/Staff News
- Hey, can you stop what you're doing and proofread this for me?
- PLSR recordings available from WLA session
- How bad is the opioid epidemic in my county?
- Continuing Education Calendar
Library awards presented at Cornerstone Reception
The 2017 SCLS Foundation Cornerstone Award Reception was held last Thursday, Nov. 2, in McFarland, and the library award recipients are listed below. The 2017 Cornerstone Award recipient was Larry J. Martin.
Super Awesome Library Award: Lester Public Library of Rome -- Libraries come in all shapes and sizes, and each serves its community in unique ways. Lester Public Library of Rome is the 2017 recipient of the South Central Library System (SCLS) Foundation’s “Super Awesome Library Award.” Pictured left to right are Pam Hyland, trustee; Jeanne Osgood, Board President; Renee Daley, Assistant Director; Lore Ingram, Director; Ron & Fern Fregien, Master Gardeners; Katie Wittbrodt, Friends Treasurer; and Sarah Ness, Library Assistant.
After about a decade of planning and fundraising, the Lester Public Library of Rome was able to add a 4,025 sq. foot addition to the 2,500 sq. foot library. “There were volunteers who made themselves available to move shelving, books, cabinets, and other library materials into the new addition in January” said Library Director Lore Ingram. “There was no money for landscaping, so Friends of the Library requested and received a grant from Incourage Foundation to finish some projects. Master Gardeners planted, hauled wheelbarrows of compost and wood chips, and worked hard to get the outside landscaping done in time for the Ribbon Cutting Ceremony in June. Prairie Nursery donated some plants to help finish some of the demonstration garden areas the Master Gardener Volunteers were creating. The cooperation of all of these groups was awesome!” Ingram added that Town of Rome maintenance staff were also instrumental in the waning days of the project to help get the landscaping work completed.
According to Ingram, the staff at the Lester Public Library of Rome has done a “super awesome” job creating expanded programming for patrons of all ages. There is a large children’s area that has Lego and train tables for children to play with, as well as an expanded book section. Staff has recruited Town of Rome Police Officers to offer a week-long “Read With An Officer” program for children, and staff created a “Drop, Roll, and Read” program with Fire Department Volunteers. Children even got to sit in a patrol car and examine a Fire Truck during these programs. The Summer Reading Program had 70 children register, and the reading minutes more than doubled during the summer reading challenge. At the end of the program, participating children were able to “pie” the staff.
With the new program room, residents now have a space they can reserve for meetings and events, and Ingram said the Rome Community loves the newly expanded library.
Program Wizard Award: Stoughton Public Library -- Harry Potter and the imaginary wizarding world continue to enthrall readers of all ages, and Stoughton Public Library capitalized on that interest by hosting Harry Potter escape room sessions for teens this past summer. For this program, Stoughton Public Library has been selected to receive the 2017 South Central Library System (SCLS) Foundation’s “Program Wizard Award.” Pictured left to right are Klare Girgen, library staff; Richard MacDonald, Library Director; Cynthia Schlegel; Sandra Black, trustee; Amy Hynek, library staff; Petra Horst, Board President; and Heather Danielson, trustee.
“Stoughton Public Library put on a Harry Potter themed trivia escape room, and it was so popular we had to add two more sessions!” said staff member Sarah Bukrey in her nomination of the library and Cynthia Schlegel. “It was so timely. The amazing props that Cynthia brought in and the planning done for all the trivia was fantastic. What a great thing for the teens/tweens of our city.”
According to the nomination from staff member Amanda Bosky, Cynthia spent an extensive amount of time crafting props and puzzles for the teens to work through collaboratively. “The teens had a wonderful time making “potions,” playing tunes on a recorder to "unlock" a door, and emptying the Pensieve to find a key at the bottom,” Bosky said. “Not only was Cynthia a master prop-maker, she also hosted the program with her typical warmth, kindness and patience as the teens tore around the room working on puzzles together. She went above and beyond, agreeing to host the program three times so 36 teens would be able to enjoy the program.”
The Carnegie Room of the library was transformed into a Harry Potter World that included: Harry's owl Hedwig in his cage, buttons and information on Harry's club S.P.E.W. (Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare), several plants from Professor's Sprout's Herbology class, Professor Umbridge's office with kittens and tea, the Great Hall complete with Sorting Hat and falling letters (mail brought by owls), 'The Invisible Book of Invisibility', and a library—of course!
Giddy Up Partner Award: Sun Prairie Public Library & Sun Prairie Media Center -- Partnering with community organizations and agencies is common practice for public libraries, and on Nov. 2 the Sun Prairie Public Library and Sun Prairie Media Center will be recognized by the South Central Library System (SCLS) Foundation as recipients of the 2017 “Giddy Up Partner Award.” Pictured left to right are Svetha Hetzler, Director; Jeff Robbins, Director of the Sun Prairie Media Center; Steev Baker Head of Access and Circulation Services; Shawna Koszegi, library staff; and Rex Owens, trustee.
The Sun Prairie Public Library and the Sun Prairie Media Center have been working together to bring creative programming to residents over the past few years. “In 2017, we created several recordings, including a whimsical feature on Sun Prairie's "Georgia Cow'Keeffe", one of the cows from the Wisconsin Cow Parade,” said Library Director Svetha Hetzler. During the summer and spring, the cow resides outdoors in Cannery Square, but during the winter months the cow moves indoors and greets patrons in the library entrance.
“This feature included interviews with patrons and staff, asking them what they like most about the cow,” Hetzler said. “In addition, the media center attends library events, including our Foundation's fundraising events to interview patrons about how the library has transformed their lives.”
This year the library and media center created a focused plan for collaboration that will be mutually beneficial to both city departments, accordingly to Hetzler. “The media center is looking to increase community engaged programming, and the public library will provide a monthly radio show and a quarterly television show called ‘Connect @ Your Library’.”
In turn, Hetzler explained that library staff members will be able to use the media center's equipment for bi-weekly PSA recordings to bring awareness to events at the library. This fall, the staff at the media center began providing "Media Maker Labs" for library patrons. Separate workshops will be held for children and adults so that participants can learn the art and skills needed for radio, podcasting, and filming. The single class workshops give patrons a taste of creating media and the opportunity to decide if they'd like to pursue full-length workshops at the media center or volunteer their services at the media center.
“This partnership really helps highlight the services and resources of the library, while at the same time making available to the community the expertise and resources of the Sun Prairie Media Center,” Hetzler said. “It’s a win-win for both of us.”
Outstanding Library Volunteer Award: Beth Persche, Baraboo Public Library -- In recognition of her efforts in support of Baraboo Public Library, Beth Persche (at right, center) has been named the inaugural recipient of the Outstanding Library Volunteer Award from the South Central Library System Foundation. Pictured left to right are Mary Grant, Board President; Barbara Lund, library staff; Beth Persche; Meg Allen, Director; and Lena Nissley, library volunteer.
“The Baraboo Public Library is indeed fortunate to have had the support of many dedicated volunteers over the years,” said Meg Allen, library director. “Among those individuals, Beth Persche stands out as someone, through the generous gifts of her time, talents, and passion for public libraries, who has made a dramatic and positive impact on the services, facilities, and visibility of the Baraboo Public Library.”
Beth served as a Trustee on the Library Board from December 2004 to January 2010, and in 2008 she chaired the committee charged with hiring an architect to begin the library renovation and addition project. During the design process in 2009, in addition to fulfilling her responsibilities as Building Committee Chair and Board member, she also attended nearly every meeting held between the library staff and the library building consultant during program development. According to Allen, Beth felt it was absolutely critical to the success of the project that she have a deeper understanding of staff needs for the new space.
In 2014 Beth volunteered to be part of the creative team charged with planning and presenting the library’s first-ever fundraising gala, A Novel Evening. Stunning decorations made from re-purposed books captured the imaginations of the guests and set the mood for an unforgettable evening. This event was pivotal in the effort to help our community see the Baraboo Public Library in a new light.
When the Friends of the Library were in need of new officers, Beth was asked to volunteer and became President in 2015. Under her leadership the Friends treasury has grown from $7,000 in 2014 to an annual operating budget in 2017 of about $15,000 with an additional $15,000 in reserves. Instrumental in this success has been her leadership in instituting an annual membership mailing conducted in the fall of each year.
In the fall of 2016 Beth served as a member of the steering group that crafted the process followed by the citizen committee that studied the past work on the building project as well as serving on the committee itself. The final report from this group has been the key to obtaining a renewed commitment from the Baraboo Common Council and a place holding dollar amount in the 5-year City of Baraboo Capital Plan of $10 million.
In the spring of 2017 Beth served on the work group that selected furniture, carpet and paint to refresh the Adult Department reading room, providing needed electrical updates and enhancing the furnishings to highlight the historic details of the space. She worked tirelessly, experimenting with paint samples and helping clean and dust wooden shelving and trim when the work began.
Also this spring, for the first time the library was a stop on the downtown Baraboo Spring Wine Walk. The Friends sponsored the event, and under Beth’s leadership they pulled out all the stops with clever, imaginative decorations and door prizes all made from re-purposed books, delicious home-made appetizers to accompany the wine, and volunteers to staff the event. Everyone was delighted including a major donor who announced that the library was her favorite stop! The Wine Walk brought regular patrons through our door, but also many folks who hadn’t visited the library in years or ever. Once again, Beth’s efforts opened eyes to what the public library has to offer.
“I am deeply grateful both personally and professionally for all that Beth Persche has done to support the Baraboo Public Library through the years,” Allen said. “The impact she has had on raising the profile of the library in the community with her imaginative vision for events like A Novel Evening and the spring Wine Walk is impossible to quantify, and in my opinion priceless. Her financial contribution through leadership of the Friends is easy to quantify and no less staggering. The Baraboo Public Library is poised to begin a new chapter and Beth’s contributions have been essential to making it happen.”
Application for Digitizing Local History Collections
South Central Library System (SCLS) member libraries may request assistance with projects to digitize their local history collections by completing the Application for Digitizing Local History Collections.
The application form includes details on the services that may be provided by SCLS. An outcome of the digitization projects that SCLS assists with is that the digitized collections will be made publicly accessible online through public discovery portals operated by Recollection Wisconsin and the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA).
If you have any questions, please contact Tamara Ramski, SCLS Digitization Assistant, LTE at [email protected] or (608) 242-4866.
Please submit the application by Wednesday, November 15, 2017.
Rose Ziech, SCLS Web Services Consultant, and her husband Paul are the proud parents of a baby girl, Etta Marie, born Wednesday, Oct. 18. Mother and baby are doing well.
The November issue of WSLL @ Your Service is now online. As always, your comments are welcome. Please direct them to the editor, Carol Hassler. In this issue: Browse Topics Quickly with LegalTrac's Topic Finder; New Books; Tech Tip; Library News; and November Snapshot.
Hey, can you stop what you're doing and proofread this for me?
About two months ago or so an ad popped up while I was watching a YouTube video about Grammarly. The ad indicated it can check your spelling and grammar for free! I feel like I’m always asking someone (way smarter than me)to check my work for mistakes, and when I saw this ad I thought I would give it a try to see how well it worked. This article is going to be all me and Grammarly, so be kind in the comments if you find any mistakes, please.
You can download Grammarly from there website for free. They have a version for Microsoft Office and for web browsers. I downloaded both options just to try out. If you happen to write a lot more than I do and would like a more robust version, they do offer a subscription version.
I wrote this in Word with Grammarly turned off until this point. I intentionally misspelled a couple words, which I fixed that both Microsoft Office Spell Checker and Grammarly caught. I also left out a comma (not intentional) between mistakes and please at the end of the first paragraph that Grammarly said should be there.
I’m also getting an alert from Grammarly that it see’s five more mistakes that the Premium version will fix. Not today it won’t! Those are for you to find!
--by Craig Ellefson for TechBits
PLSR recordings available from WLA sessions
Thanks to everyone that was able to attend the Workgroup sessions at WLA at the Kalahari. There were many people that went multiple sessions and some even made it to all seven! The workgroups deeply appreciate the community’s interest and dedication to staying informed and offering their feedback. The comments and questions were incredibly thoughtful and helpful.
Of course, it was not possible for everyone in the library community to attend any or all of the sessions. Therefore, with the help of Mark Ibach of the South Central Library System, each session was video recorded. These recordings, along with session PowerPoints and one-page overviews are now available on the PLSR website, all on a single page, as well as on each workgroup page.
The questions asked and the feedback given during the sessions will help the workgroups as they finalize their work. If you have feedback or questions about particular workgroup ideas, you can use the contact form to communicate with specific workgroups. You are also encouraged to share your thoughts with the Steering Committee, who can be reached through the contact form as well.
We also heard that it would be helpful to know what questions have already been asked (and possibly answered). So, we’ve created a new feature on the PLSR site that will share questions that have been asked of the workgroups, Steering Committee, and project managers. The list is not comprehensive but does contain the more recent and most frequently asked questions.
How bad is the opioid epidemic in my county?
The Opioid crisis has been declared a public health emergency. As a parent, I wanted to find data on how serious the Opioid epidemic is in Green County where we live. It turns out that the Wisconsin Interactive Statistics on Health (WISH) recently published a new Opioid Module dhs.wisconsin.gov/wish/opioid/index.htm on Wisconsin drug overdose mortality and morbidity that includes county data.
Developed by the Wisconsin Office of Health Informatics and the Injury Prevention program, the Opioid Module includes two query options:
- Hospital encounters query(dhs.wisconsin.gov/wish/opioid/hospital-encounters.htm): Opioid-related inpatient hospital stays and emergency department visits among Wisconsin residents from 2005-2016.
- Drug overdose deaths query (dhs.wisconsin.gov/wish/opioid/mortality.htm): Poisoning deaths from 2000-2016.
- For each module, you first select the type of data you are interested in including:
- Type and characteristics of measure (e.g., number of deaths involving prescription opioids)
- Geographic area (NOTE: multiple counties can be selected)
- Time period (years, quarters)
- Age, sex, race, and ethnicity.
You then define the row and column output you want to see. Here is a Jing video of a sample query I ran for Opioid-Related Hospital Encounters in Green County: screencast.com/t/LlCn2sVPigAp. When the values are less than 5, they show up as an “X” to comply with Wisconsin vital records data privacy guidelines. Unfortunately, there is not a direct export to excel but copy/paste works with some reformatting.
Be sure to check out the other WISH modules on births, deaths, cancer, FoodShare usage, and more: dhs.wisconsin.gov/stats/index.htm.
--by Jody Hoesly, SCLS Data Services Consultant, for TechBits