Index
- Rio Community Library & Everett Roehl Marshfield Public Library join LINKcat
- Promotional Materials for Wisconsin’s’ Digital Library Printed and Shipped Free
- Member/Staff News
- U.S. Surgeon General Releases New Community Toolkit for Addressing Health Misinformation
- ALA Invites Libraries to Apply for Let’s Talk About It: Women’s Suffrage Humanities Discussion Project
- ARSL Announces Penguin Random House Grants for Small & Rural Libraries
- StarNet News
- Continuing Education Calendar
Rio Community Library & Everett Roehl Marshfield Public Library join LINKcat
The Rio Community Library and the Everett Roehl Marshfield Public Library joined the South Central Library System (SCLS) LINKcat shared ILS in 2021. This was the culmination of months of work involving SCLS ILS and Technology staff, library staff, and staff from the LINKcat ILS vendor (LibLime).
Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) grant funds were used to offset the costs of the data migration, software subscription fees, startup supplies such as barcodes, printers and scanners, as well as post-migration data cleanup. The grant also funded an RFID tagging conversion project for both libraries. SCLS supports a 7-year initiative to support the conversion to RFID of materials for the purposes of increasing the efficiency of resource sharing.
SCLS ILS staff were on site to assist during the day of Go Live at each library. The Rio Community Library went live on June 21, 2021 and brought over 19,000 items to LINKcat. The Everett Roehl Marshfield Public Library went live on Sept. 13, 2021 and brought over 139,000 items.
Both libraries immediately experienced high numbers of holds on their Holds Queue report as patrons discovered unique titles in their collections. In October, Rio borrowed 1,321 items from other LINKcat libraries and loaned 901 items, and Marshfield borrowed 1,966 items from other LINKcat libraries and loaned 6,904 items.
Promotional Materials for Wisconsin’s’ Digital Library Printed and Shipped Free
We are excited to share that printed promotional materials for Wisconsin’s Digital Library are now available to you with free printing and shipping! Thanks to the hard work of the Wisconsin Public Library Consortium (WPLC) Social Media Committee, and the printing services of the Outagamie Waupaca Library System (OWLS), there are a variety of flyers and posters available, designed to be displayed at local businesses and in waiting rooms of all kinds. Business cards for Wisconsin’s Digital Library are also available!
To order printed materials, please use this order form.
In addition, the digital files for all these designs are available via the WPLC website for you to print out for whatever purposes you need.
Please note, OWLS offices will be moving after the new year and printing services will be unavailable for a brief time during that move.
Please contact [email protected] with any questions.
U.S. Surgeon General Releases New Community Toolkit for Addressing Health Misinformation
Toolkit offers specific guidance to individuals, health care professionals and administrators, teachers, librarians, and faith leaders to understand, identify, and stop the spread of health misinformation
As a new phase of the COVID-19 vaccination campaign begins for children ages 5 to 11 years old, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy released a Community Toolkit for Addressing Health Misinformation (PDF) to help Americans navigate the serious threat of health misinformation, especially online. Earlier this year, Dr. Murthy issued the first Surgeon General’s Advisory of this administration warning people about the urgent threat of health misinformation and calling for a whole-of-society approach to address it.
“With the authorization of COVID-19 vaccines for children 5 to11 years old, it is more important than ever that families have access to accurate, science-based information. Health misinformation is spreading fast and far online and throughout our communities,” said Dr. Murthy. “The good news is that we all have the power to help stop the spread of health misinformation during this pandemic and beyond. That’s where this toolkit comes in—to provide Americans with resources to help limit and reduce this threat to public health.”
The Surgeon General’s Community Toolkit for Addressing Health Misinformation provides specific guidance to individuals, health care professionals and administrators, teachers, school administrators, librarians, and faith leaders to understand, identify, and stop the spread of health misinformation in their communities. The toolkit comes at a critical time when Americans are learning more about the role technology companies play in the spread of health misinformation.
Resources in the Community Toolkit include:
- A Health Misinformation Checklist to help evaluate the accuracy of health-related content;
- Tips on how individuals can talk to loved ones about health misinformation;
- An outline of common types of misinformation and disinformation tactics; and
- Reflections and examples of times individuals may have encountered misinformation.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, health misinformation and disinformation (misinformation that is spread intentionally to serve a malicious purpose) have threatened the U.S. response to COVID-19 and continue to prevent Americans from getting vaccinated, prolonging the pandemic and putting lives at risk.
In response, the Surgeon General issued the first advisory of this Administration in July on Health Misinformation, laying out how the nation can confront health misinformation by helping individuals, families, and communities better identify and limit its spread. The advisory also outlines several ways institutions in education, media, medicine, research, and government stakeholders can approach this issue. It underscores the urgent need for technology and social media companies to address the way misinformation and disinformation spread on their platforms, threatening people's health. The full Surgeon General’s Advisory can be found here.
The Community Toolkit for Addressing Health Misinformation can be found here (PDF).
ALA Invites Libraries to Apply for Let’s Talk About It: Women’s Suffrage Humanities Discussion Project
The American Library Association (ALA) announced a new grant for libraries designed to spark conversations about American history and culture through an examination of the women’s suffrage movement.
Through Let’s Talk About It (LTAI): Women’s Suffrage, participants will read a series of books curated by humanities scholars and discuss the people and events from this often under-taught part of U.S. history.
Twenty-five libraries will be selected to receive a $1,000 stipend to support programming costs, 10 copies of five themed books, access to programming guides and support materials, virtual training on the LTAI model, a suite of online resources and more.
Applications will be accepted from through Dec. 1, 2021. Library workers can apply online at ala.org/ltai.
Originally launched by ALA for libraries in 1982, Let’s Talk About It is a reading and discussion program that involves groups of people reading a series of books selected by national project scholars and discussing them in the context of an overarching theme. The format for a Let’s Talk About It program involves a ten-week series. Every two weeks, a discussion group meets with a local humanities scholar to discuss one of the five books in the theme.
The following books have been selected by the LTAI: Women’s Suffrage project scholars:
- The Woman’s Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote by Elaine Weiss
- Women Making History: The 19th Amendment Book, essays compiled by the National Park Service
- Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All by Martha S. Jones
- Ida B. the Queen: The Extraordinary Life and Legacy of Ida B. Wells by Michelle Duster
- The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow
To qualify for this grant, the applying institution must be a library (public, tribal, school, academic, or special) residing in the U.S. or U.S. territories.
LTAI: Women’s Suffrage is supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). To explore resources from past LTAI themes, visit the project website.
ARSL Announces Penguin Random House Grants for Small & Rural Libraries
Through the generosity of Penguin Random House, the Association for Rural and Small Libraries (ARSL) recently announced the establishment of a new grant opportunity for small and rural libraries nationwide!
Not all applications will be selected for funding. If selected, grants will be awarded for up to $2,500.
This is a rolling grant application, with batches of applications going under review every eight weeks beginning Dec. 17, 2021. Applications will be accepted until all available grant funds are distributed. Please visit the website for a list of grant application deadlines.
This program will award grants to libraries that demonstrate a true need. Grants are not limited to literacy and may be used for everything from library programming and books to resources like hotspots that help community members access important information. In-kind donations will also be considered.
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Beanstack Challenge Starts Dec. 1—StarNet recently announced a new Beanstack challenge open to all libraries in the U.S.! Beanstack is a reading and activities app that your patrons can use to participate in challenges.
The NASA@ My Library challenge celebrates the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, which is currently scheduled for the month of December 2021.
Throughout the challenge, readers will have access to virtual NASA@ My Library and NASA resources to gain new skills and explore educational and career pathways in Earth and Space Science. Participants will have a chance to win a collection of programming materials.
The Deadline to sign up is Nov. 30, 2021, and the challenge will run from Dec. 1-31, 2021. Sign up now!
NASA@ My Library is supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under grant No. NNX16AE30A. The work was also assisted and supported by the Space Science Institute, which was the recipient of the grant. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of NASA or the Space Science Institute.