TechBits

SCLS and member library responsibilities

The information below is being posted on behalf of the SCLS Technology Planning Committee. You may see it in many places in the next few days,  so sorry for the cross-posting, but we want to make sure you get a chance to contribute your thoughts!  Our hope is that all of you will take the time to read these documents and respond here on the TechBits blog or by email to Tana Elias.

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The SCLS Technology Planning Committee spent the last year studying how technology is chosen, deployed and managed among our member libraries.  We hosted focus groups and surveys, gathered the data, and researched how other libraries and organizations that rely on technology make decisions.  For information about the Technology Planning Committee, see the Technology Planning Process blog.

In response to the feedback gathered by the committee, SCLS has made some changes, listed in this post and more changes are forthcoming, including a discussion of alternatives to current LINK governance.

The Technology Planning Committee also created some important "responsibilities" to assist in communication between SCLS technology staff and member libraries.  Communication and expectations for technology staff were issues mentioned over and over in the focus groups and surveys. Two documents were created:

• Technology Responsibilities of Member Libraries
• SCLS Technology Staff Strategies

One document focuses on responsibilities of SCLS staff, and the other focuses on responsibilities of member libraries.  The information in these documents is distilled from common themes the committee found in transcripts from focus groups and written comments in surveys.

Please take five or ten minutes to read both short documents.  If you would like to respond, or ask questions,  please do so by sending them directly to Tana Elias or posting them to the this blog post. These two documents will be presented to PLAC (Public Library Advisory Council) on Thursday, March 5, and will be discussed in groups at the SCLS annual meeting on April 17.

Thanks for taking a few minutes of your busy work day to reflect on the important technology services that increasingly affect library service at all levels.  We look forward to continuing the discussion.

Tana Elias,
SCLS Technology Planning Committee member and Web Resources Coordinator for Madison Public Library

Thank you to all our commenters!

The lucky winner of the Creative MuVo v100 MP3 player is.... (drumroll, please)

Kristine Millard of Lodi Women's Club Public Library!

A BIG thanks to everyone who entered our contest and left us comments!

We've enjoyed hearing about your experiences, ideas, and questions about technology, and your suggestions have been very helpful as we think about what topics to include in TechBits. We hope to cover as many of your questions as we can in upcoming posts.

We appreciate your participation and input, so please continue to comment and give feedback on our posts. We're excited about where this is going and want to make the topics we write about as useful as we can!

Wrangling Software Licenses

Hi, I'm Cindy and I am the Systems Support Specialist at SCLS Automation.  I began at Automation back in 1992 as an operator on the Geac system. I've worked a number of different positions here since then and now supervise the help desk and the operators.  I also worked in the administration office for Madison Public Library for three years. 

Everyone should have heard that it’s important to keep your license information and software installation disks where you can find them easily.  With boxed software, it’s pretty easy to store the disk, license code and current installation information all inside the box. But with more and more software coming with just a license sheet and a disk or even a license sheet and a download, how do you keep all of that together?

A step up from the old “put it all in a box/drawer” solution is to actually use a 3-ring binder to store the license documents and disks.  The license documents can either be 3 hole punched and put directly into the binder or, better yet, can be slipped into protector sheets.  Protector sheets can also hold a sheet of paper with the number and location of current installations and any other thin documentation that may have come with the software. 

There are also disk holders for three ring binders.  These come in a variety of sizes, from single disk pouches that can be adhered to the protector sheet of the license document to 8 CD/DVD binder sheets.  This way you can have your license document and your disks together in one convenient place that takes up less space and not have to search for it or dig through a box trying to match one with the other.

While I’m not advocating a specific vendor or brand, here are some examples of the CD holders:

Single CD holder
http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/214391/Fellowes-Self-Adhesive-CD-Holder-Pack/

Small CD binder sheet
http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/133835/Fellowes-Loose-Leaf-Binder-Sheets-For/

Large CD binder sheet
http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/544087/Fellowes-Loose-Leaf-Binder-Sheets-For/

Tech Training Opportunities for Staff - OverDrive

You may have heard about this training opportunity elsewhere, but if not, here is a reminder:

Patron Assistance on OverDrive, Tuesday, March 3, 9:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.

This workshop is for library staff (not patrons) and is a great follow up to the introductory workshop, Digital Library 101. Staff should have a basic understanding of how to use the OverDrive service (such as how to place a hold, how to check out, how to log into your account) in preparation for taking the Patron Assistance training. The OverDrive trainer will share troubleshooting techniques for common problems.

A computer with Internet access and a telephone are all that are required to participate. No registration is necessary.

Because this session is intended only for library staff, I won't post the details here. If you are interested, look for an email from Jean Anderson, the Continuing Education coordinator. She'll be sending the details to scls-announce.