The Library Connection
Volume 25 Number 6 June 2005
Click here for the Summer 2005 Bookmobile Schedule
Eastern Shores will begin participation in the OverDrive audio book project on August 1. ESLS is part of the Wisconsin Public Library Consortium (WPLC), the group of libraries and library systems who are coordinating this project.
WPLC has scheduled training for all staff members from those libraries who will be joining the project this year. The training uses online web sharing and telephone conferencing. It is not necessary to pre-register if you wish to participate at your library. ESLS will send the URL and the telephone numbers to the libraries prior to the training sessions.
Staff at some libraries have expressed concern about tying up a library's single phone line for a lengthy period of time or that they may not be able to devote their full attention to the training. Therefore, we have reserved our meeting for the sessions, allowing staff to come to the ESLS office and participate in the training session as a group.
Sessions are scheduled for: Wednesday, July 20 at 1:00 p.m.; Wednesday, July 27 at 9:00 a.m.; and Wednesday, August 3 at 9:00 a.m. and again at 1:00 p.m. The sessions are repeats (plan to attend one only) and will last for 1 1/2 hours.
Pre-registration is not necessary if you plan to attend at your library. Paper registration forms were sent on the van.
To learn more about OverDrive and its services, see www.overdrive.com/
Warren Stumpe has been appointed to the Eastern Shores Library Board as the Ozaukee County Board representative. He will complete the term of Richard Karshna, who is no longer a member of the county board. Warren represents the city of Mequon on the county board. We welcome Warren to the ESLS Board!
Eastern Shores Library System was invited to participate in the Ozaukee County Senior Conference at the Grafton High School this month. Seniors from around the county had the opportunity to attend three different sessions during the day, as well as have lunch and hear a keynote presenter. Sessions ranged from local history to massage to learning about Medicare and reflexology to learning about wood carving. Ann Krueger from ESLS and Gail Skiff from Cedarburg Public Library told participants that there is "Something for Everyone at Your Library!"
Ann's presentation was about the services offered by ESLS, while Gail's talk centered around using EasiCat and locating web sites that seniors would find interesting.
The 2005, all-revised 4th edition of the Position Classifications for Wisconsin Public Libraries is now available.
The book was prepared by Patricia Laughlin and Barbara Roark and revised by the Personnel and Professional Concerns Committee of WAPL. It includes dozens of job descriptions for positions in all sizes of libraries and all library positions, including new additions such as Public Information Coordinator, Computer Technician, and Storyteller.
This document has been reviewed by Marion Olson, the Labor Relations Coordinator at Michael, Best & Friedrich Law Firm in Milwaukee. It comes in a three-hole punch format for easy reference and copying, and includes a computer disk with PDF files.
Order forms are available on the WLA website. ESLS libraries can contact Paula to borrow the system's copy.
The largest flagpole in North America (338 ft., to be exact) is visible from the ESLS parking lot. A 7200-square-foot flag will be hoisted up the pole on July 1 during a dedication ceremony. Each star in the flag is three feet high and each stripe is 4 1/2 feet wide. The pole, at Acuity Insurance, replaces the 200-foot pole and 2,800-square-foot flag that was toppled by 40 mph winds last December 31. See the article about the flag in the June 27 Sheboygan Press or go to www.acuity.com and click on the flag on the right side of the screen.
Children's
Librarians CornerLast summer our Children's Dept. decided to try a not so new idea but new to us, traveling bear and bag kits. We proceeded to create "Paws for Reading" Kits. Each kit contains one stuffed bear, one cloth bag, sewn by one of our crafty employees, with an outside pocket containing two self-addressed, stamped postcards.
The travel bear kits are displayed with a sign inviting the children to check out a bear in the bag and some library books to take on vacation with them. We were fortunate to have quite a few postcards with a photo of our library on them. We did put postage on the self addressed postcards for the convenience of our parents. The children and/or parents then send us the highlights of their special trip with their library bear!
We display the returned postcards at the library throughout the summer months. Everyone enjoys reading the postcards and the children enjoy seeing that their postcard made it back to the library.
Anyone may check out a bag. We had a few children who didn't travel during the summer months send us back the postcard sharing a special summer experience or day they had with their bear. The "Paws for Reading Kits" circulate for one month and we have six circulating kits. This could be an idea for next year's summer theme of "Paws, Claws, Scales & Tales".
During this busy month in the heart of our hectic summer reading programs please remember to thank your co-workers for all of their help. Special thanks to Paula and Ann. Have a great summer!
The Children's Literature Network posts a list of birthdays of authors of children's books each month. Use this to set up a display complete with birthday decorations. Children will be excited to discover that they share a birth date with a famous author.
The popular periodical, Críticas, from LJ is moving to an online format! Beginning July 1, a free monthly online issue will be available. There will still be two print issues in June and October. The format for both will be more up to date with less lag between new titles and reviews. Additionally the online site will offer archives of previous issues.
If you’d like to be the first to know when the website goes live please send an email with your name, address and library affiliation! It couldn’t be easier to stay on top of new Spanish publishers and titles!
If you need some custom coupons printed for your SLP (or any other library event), be sure to check out DLTK's web site. There are two sizes of coupons that you can make. For each size you can choose from a variety of themes (including dragons and dinosaurs) and then enter and format the text for your coupons.
While you are there, also check out the bookmarks, calendars, themed writing paper, gift tags, and doorknob hangers that you can make with very little time and effort.
National KidsDay (NKD) is August 7, 2005. NKD is a day set aside each year to celebrate America’s children through the gift of meaningful time with parents. The Boys and Girls Clubs of America are leading the National KidsDay effort. They are interested in working with public libraries to participate in this celebration by distributing their complimentary Making Memories Guide. In addition, libraries are encouraged to incorporate programming around National KidsDay.
The mission of the Day is about galvanizing national attention on the importance of spending meaningful time with children, something libraries do so well all year long. Further information is available on the Boys and Girls Clubs web site at http://www.kidsday.net/
To order a complimentary Making Memories Guide, please contact Linda Mays in the ALSC office at 800-545-2433 x1398 or at lmays@ala.org to order more; or download a pdf from the KidsDay site.
Business Meetings! No one really likes them, but they are inevitable for all organizations today, including the non-profit organizations. When you are at the reference desk and get questions from frustrated managers about how to make their meetings more productive and also more interesting, don't forget to suggest the variety of materials available on netLibrary.
A keyword search "Business Meetings" brings up 6 titles--3 are listed below.
Death by Meeting: A Leadership Fable--About Solving the Most Painful Problem in Business by Patrick Lencioni was published by John Wiley & Sons in 2004. The author begins with a fable about a business that had problems and needed to take a creative and systematic approach to solving the problems. He then goes into the paradox of meetings--they are critical but also painful--sometimes seemingly pointless. He then discusses the major problems of meetings--their lack of drama and lack of contextual structure. He suggests having more (yes, more!) meetings but making them more focused to specific issues--not a general catch-all "staff meeting", which often leaves everyone frustrated and unsatisfied.
The Manager's Guide to Effective Meetings by Barbara J. Streibel steps the reader through preparing for a meeting, starting and conducting it, and how to close the meeting and what is involved in following up. The last chapter deals with "virtual" meetings, which are becoming more and more widely used today.
The Business Meetings Sourcebook: A Practical Guide to Better Meetings and Shared Decision Making" by Eli Mina discusses various models for having a team participate in the decision-making process. The second part of the book includes eleven chapters on making meeting work. The meeting troubleshooting guide talks about diagnosing the meeting ailments, and then gives suggestions for curing each one of the ailments--facilitation, agenda, etiquette, are a few of the ailments. Two case studies round out the book.
Don't forget that in addition to doing a keyword search to locate the original list of titles, you can also search the content of each ebook. They are available to your customers twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week from the library or at home, school, or place of business.
Tighten up your writing by eliminating the following words and phrases from all documents:
As to whether. The single word whether will suffice
Basically, essentially, totally. These words rarely add anything to a sentence. Take them out of your sentence and you'll almost always improve it.
Due to the fact that. Using that phrase is sure sign that your sentence is in trouble. Did you mean because? Due to is acceptable only after linking a verb. Example: The project's failure was due to a financial miscalculation.
Each and every. Use one or the other. Not both.
Etc. It's better to provide one more example than to use that abbteviatin. Using "etc." suggests that you would have written more but chose not to.
Firstly, secondly, thirdly. Those words are often used incorrectly to number items. Instead, use first, second, third. Example: First, we must consider the economy.
Especially vs. specially. Both words can mean "particularly." However, specially is more commonly used to mean "for a particular purpose." Especially is the word to use when you mean "to an outstanding extent," "mainly" or "unusually." Examples: "Equipped with low lighting, the office was specially designed for her needs." "He made an especially thought provoking point."
The Spring newsletter of the Wisconsin Regional Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped reports that there is a web site that lists all programs on local broadcast and pay television with a daily schedule of programs in DVS. The web address is http://www.tv-now.com/dvs/index.html The schedule is arranged by day and lists the show title, the episode title, the channel, the time, and a short description of the program.
Wikipedia (the free Internet encyclopedia) describes DVS as the Descriptive Video Service created by WGBH-TV in Boston to provide video description for the visually impaired so they can better understand what is happening on the video portion of a program. This, especially combined with at least a low level of vision (i.e. not fully blind), greatly improves the experience and makes it much more valuable to these "viewers".
Many of the programs listed on the schedule are PBS, but the major networks and TNT and the Turner Classic Movies channel are included as well.
