The Library Connection
Volume 24 Number 3 March / April 2004
Catherine Hansen, adult services coordinator at the F.L. Weyenberg Library of Mequon-Thiensville has been appointed to a three-year term on the Council of Library and Network Development (COLAND). Catherine, a native of Wisconsin, was employed at the University of Rochester in New York and at the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater prior to joining the Weyenberg staff two years ago as a reference librarian.
COLAND was created in 1979 to provide advice to the State Superintendent of Public Instruction to ensure that all state citizens have access to library and information services. Council findings are communicated as advisory recommendations to the state superintendent, governor, and Legislature. The 19-member council functions as a forum through which librarians and members of the public identify, study, and collect public testimony on issues affecting Wisconsin libraries and other information services. Ten members are from the library community and nine are public members with a demonstrated interest in libraries or other types of information services.
Catherine decided to submit her resume after reading an e-mail that the council was looking for new members. She looks at the appointment as an opportunity to become involved in the Wisconsin library community.
The Children's Department of the Cedarburg Public Library recently received a generous donation from the Cedarburg Junior Woman's Club to purchase materials to help support the curriculum of the local elementary schools. The group raised the money at a charity auction. Each year the group selects one organization in each of three areas—seniors, children, and the community in general—to be the recipients of the funds. Children's Librarian Erika Burge and Library Director Mary Marquardt spoke to the Junior Woman's Club last year and explained the need for additional materials and how they would use the money if selected. Erika is now busy selecting materials in the areas of Cultures of the World, Medieval World/Middle Ages, Colonial Period, Canadian Provinces, Biomes, Biographies, Ancient Egypt, and Science Fair Projects.
http://www.cedarburgreads.org/
Cedarburg is the latest community to join the "One Book, One Community" program that started in Seattle in 1996. Cedarburg Reads was initiated by Dr. Richard Cass, Chairman of the English Department at Cedarburg High School. More than a dozen local organizations, including the Cedarburg Public Library, have joined together to provide four months of events focusing on the Pulitzer prize-winning drama "Our Town" by Thornton Wilder.
The first event is a discussion of the recently published book "Cedarburg: A History Set in Stone" by local author Ryan Gierach at the Performing Arts Center on the morning of April 22. The Cedarburg Public Library will host the same presentation in the evening on that day. Neighborhood and community book discussions will continue through August. Also planned are discussions of the play and the book, a showing of the movie and a production of the play, a community gym sock hop, marriage reaffirmations at local churches, and a slide show and walking tour of Cedarburg history.
Organizers of the program hope to cultivate a culture of reading and discussion by bringing people together around one great literary work.
The Ozaukee County Library Planning Committee held their organizational meeting in March. The committee elected Elizabeth Brelsford as Chair and Jack Eckert as Secretary. David Weinhold, ESLS Director, was appointed Recording Secretary. The committee agreed to examine the following issues during the year: Bookmobile service, Reimbursement level and/or additional funding for libraries, County library tax exemption criteria, Standards for establishing new libraries, Joint library arrangements for the nonlibraried areas, Consolidated county library service, and County district libraries. The Committee also would like to seek a joint meeting with the Sheboygan County Library Planning Committee. This committee has not yet been appointed. In addition to the officers, committee members include Richard Rupert, Cathy Urness, and Marie Zirbes. The committee must review and revise the current plan for county library service and make recommendations to the county board by the end of 2004.
At least two staff members from each of the thirteen public libraries, the bookmobile, and Lakeland College received training on the new Horizon software during March. Horizon is the software used by Eastern Shores shared online catalog. The librarian from Lakeland's Japan campus was also present. Paul Onufrak, Automation Librarian, conducted the training on the new login procedures, circulation, and serials. Alison Hoffman, Cataloging Librarian, presented the sessions on searching and cataloging. During the 15 sessions, 83 staff members participated in the circulation training and 43 in the cataloging training.
Mike Cross, Director, Public Library Development Team, at DLTCL has received word from the state Attorney General that the compact disc distribution to public libraries will proceed. Deliveries to libraries will be in June. The CDs are the result of the settlement of a lawsuit brought against a number of music companies and retailers. All 13 libraries in ESLS will be receiving CDs as part of this settlement. 105,577 CDs will be distributed to Wisconsin pubic libraries on the basis of estimated library service area population. ES libraries are scheduled to receive 3,820 compact discs.
Children who participate in the summer library programs at Eastern Shores libraries and the bookmobile will benefit from a recent gift from the Kohler Company. Earlier this year, Nancy Van Voorhis, director of the Elkhart Lake Public Library, wrote a letter to the company's Corporate Giving Section explaining that, due to decreasing state aids, the library system could no longer provide funds to member libraries for their summer library programs.
Kohler Company responded with a $750 donation to the library system. The funds will be distributed equally among the 13 libraries and the bookmobile to be used to enhance their summer programs for children in the area. Eastern Shore libraries certainly appreciate the support of the Kohler Company as they encourage their young customers to "Discover New Trails @ Your Library" during 2004.
Besides the articles, this monthly online newsletter includes links to 275 library and information-related journals, magazines and newsletters (both print and electronic). It's free, but you have to register and use a password. Check it out at http://www.informedlibrarian.com.
The Department of Public Instruction is pleased to announce the addition of two new resources to the BadgerLink site.
LitFINDER incorporates three resources: Poem Finder, Story Finder, and Essay/Speech/Play Finder. Each resource provides a search interface to thousands of full-text documents, literary excerpts and citations.
TeachingBooks generates enthusiasm for books and reading by providing easy access to authors, illustrators and exceptional book resources all in one place. Included are original, in-studio movies of authors and illustrators, thousands of book guides with activities for the library and classroom, and hundreds of audio excerpts of book readings for grades PreK-12. TeachingBooks requires that you sign-up for a user profile, which essentially involves registering your email address and choosing a password for log-in. From the TeachingBooks homepage, simply click the purple "sign in" button in the upper right-hand corner, and on the sign-in page, click the link for new subscribers and provide the requested information.
Once you're signed in, you'll see a yellow button in the upper right labeled "Your Subscription Info." If you click on that button, you'll find a section called "TeachingBooks for Students" which will provide you with a single password that all your pupils may use for remote access to the site. You'll also find a helpful .PDF file with information for students which you may print and distribute. This handout includes all the information students will need to access the site outside of school.
The Department of Education has awarded a $34.6 million contract to build a new database system for ERIC, the world's largest education database. ERIC dates back to 1966 and provides access to educational content for educators, researchers, and the general public. The new system, to be built by Computer Sciences Corporation of Rockville, Md., will be designed to provide fast, direct, online access to ERIC's more than one million bibliographic records. Users will be able to search on a single Web site for journal articles, abstracts of documents, and, where possible, the full text of articles. The site will also include links to commercial sites where users can purchase full texts.
This year's WLA Conference in Lake Geneva will again feature a Silent Auction sponsored by the WLA Foundation. The committee needs donations for the event. Some suggestions are:
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Fine arts, including jewelry, paintings, sculpture, pottery. |
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Products or services that a library or librarians would find useful (story hour, consulting) |
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Entertainment packages (e.g., theater tickets, tickets to sporting events, golf packages) |
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Hotel packages (e.g., weekend getaways with one or more meals included) |
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Gift baskets |
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Trips inside or outside Wisconsin |
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Personal services (gardening, gourmet dinner for 6) |
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Collectibles, antiques and memorabilia |
Your name would be listed on the bid sheet and you would be recognized in WLA publicity and publications. Items must have a value of $50 or higher. They are tax-deductible as a charitable contribution at their actual value. Once contributed, they are owned by the WLA Foundation.
Contributions must be delivered to the WLA office by October 8, 2004. Contact Alice Sedgwick, ssedgwic@execpc.com, or the WLA office if you have questions.
I Love Libraries and I Vote WLA's new election year campaign "I Love Libraries and I Vote" was designed to encourage library users to vote and remind those running for public office that many voters care deeply about libraries of all kinds. A survey sponsored by the Wisconsin Public Library Consortium showed that library users are more likely to vote than non library users. Low-cost buttons and decals with the slogan are available from WLA's website at www.wla.lib.wi.us/legis/lovelibs
Statewide summer library programs began in Wisconsin in 1970. The first programs were coordinated by Marian Edsall, director of the Cooperative Library Information Program (CLIP), with the help of Elizabeth Burr, children's library consultant, Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. Since 1975, Summer Library Programs have been coordinated by the division in close cooperation with youth services librarians across the state. In 2001, we joined the Collaborative Summer Library Program.
In 1975, I was hired at the W. J. Niederkorn Library to work the circulation desk on a part time basis and do occasional storytimes. Two years later, it was the "Summer of the Whangdoodle". I did my first school visit for the summer program. Julie Andrews Edwards had written the book, The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles, which was very popular at the time. The whangdoodle is a fictitious invisible creature. I went to the schools with a stiff leash and children talked to it, petted it and fed it imaginary food. For the past twenty-six years, we have visited schools and done summer programs. During the years, we have gone as super librarian, cape and all, and Merlin the magician. The Merlin costume worked well for Halloween and Harry Potter night as well. Each year we found crazy hats to wear and fun shoes. One year I wore a gorilla costume that was very warm. Another year I roller skated through the schools. One school is old with three floors, no elevator and marble floors. The year I rode a scooter, I was banned from riding it in the halls because it was against the rules and had to carry it from class to class. Some children have called me the library lady and others the library clown.
This year I had planned to wear zipoff pants, hiking boots, a safari hat, take a water bottle and binoculars. Instead of discovering new trails at the library, I am going to set out to discover my own new trails. As of April 1, no fooling, I will be retired. It has been quite a trip at the library, another idea for a summer library theme.
The library recently had a request by one of our YA patrons to start an Anime Book Club. A book club that is attracting boys and girls, which was a pleasant surprise since (as we all know too well) there seems to be more girl friendly programs out there and the question always arises, "What about the boys?"
For those who need a refresher, Anime are Japanese cartoons (anime for "animation"). This art form is almost immediately recognizable by its superior artistic quality and by the somewhat mannered artistic conventions anime artists employ, such as the preference for child like large eyes. It was in fact, the art work in the "Sailor Moon" stories that first sparked our patron's interest in these graphic novels. Anime also provides a unique window to the Japanese culture including the rich Japanese traditions of Shinto and the martial arts.
Japanese comics are called manga. Many anime series got their start as popular manga.
The Anime Club meets here at the library once a month. At this time they meet on a weeknight for about an hour and a half. The meeting began with first viewing an anime movie. They then looked through some books and magazines and proceeded with a book discussion on the series and their favorite characters. They made posters together, one of which was raffled off at the end of the meeting. Approximately 15-20 young people in grades 5 through 8 attended and it seems to be growing!
The kids did bring their own art supplies. The library did supply the snacks for the first meeting and a variety of graphic novels to check out. An excellent resource book to answer any questions for the curious is: Anime Explosion! The WHAT? WHY? And WOW of Japanese Animation by Patrick Drazen. The book also contains various websites. Here is a website you can try: AAW: Index of Anime Reviews at http://animeworld.com/reviews/
The late author Theodore Geisel, known to children and libarians as Dr. Seuss, was honored posthumously on March 11th with the 2,249th star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame. In addition to his children's stories, he won Oscars for the documentaries Hitles Lives and Design for Death. He also created a cartoon called Gerald McBoing-Boing, which won him another Oscar in 1951. He would have been 100 this year.
The Spooner Memorial Library, along with Northern Waters Library System will once again be sponsoring the Northwest Children's Book Conference on September 23 & 24 at the Schwan's Retreat and Conference Center in Trego, WI.
The workshops for the full conference offer 5.5 CEUs. The conference is designed primarily for librarians, elementary and middle school teachers, parents and day care workers. The primary focus is children's literature and programs, which enhance reading experiences. CCBC will also be giving a presentation on the Best of Children's Literature in 2004.
The Northern Waters website at www.nwls.lib.wi.us/ncbc contains all the current applications and information. If you want to see what happened at the 2003 event, go to www.nwls.lib.wi.us/specialevents/ncbc2003/index.html
Simon & Schuster welcomes librarians to the Spikerwick Chronicles by putting together an activiy kit. In the Activity kit you will find the In Pursuit of Spiderwick game, riddles, wood elf mask, trading cards and drawing activities all ready to photocopy off. There is even a suggested event schedule.
Check it out at their website at http://simonsays.com then click on Simonsayskids.com then choose Spiderwick Chronicles. On the left side you will click on Activity kit.
Suggestions from Pubyac for cheap paperbacks to buy, other than the Scholastic clearance catalog, for a Teen Read summer program. Here they are:
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Half Price Books - look for one of these stores. |
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Use books donated to the library or that are in your library's book sale. |
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The project is open to any library. Nine libraries in Wisconsin are currently signed up. Public, private, institutional, special collections, educational, foreign or domestic. The goal is for libraries to generate much needed funds to continue serving the "better good." The project is not open to commercial book sellers.
Libraries can now sell their better books on the web. These may be books that have been donated to the library, duplicate copies, monographs or surplus materials. They try to discourage the sale of ex-libris books, since most serious book buyers don't want to own books that look like they were permanently borrowed from their local library. The project is a "win-win". Libraries raise much-needed funds and book buyers get great books at great prices.
Once member libraries are logged in, they have access to many features, including tips on how to evaluate, price and sell out-of-print and rare books. There is a chat room, an events calendar, newsletter, book definitions and much more. There is a video library with real media video clips, showing different facets of training sessions. Most importantly, there are very easy-to-use data processing screens. If you are a library or Friends group, please take a couple of moments to sign up.You will be impressed.
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Use your letterhead and a word processor for the note. Do not use store-bought thank-you notes. |
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Address the note to a particular person who has helped you. Use his or her formal name and title on the address line. |
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If you are on a familiar basis with the person, use an informal greeting (Dear Bob), but use the person's formal name (Dear Mr. Jones) in other instances. |
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The first few lines should explain who you are and what the note is about. Refer to the service or favor that resulted in this thank-you note. |
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Use professional language and a personal, breezy touch. |
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Keep the note as brief as possible while maintaining a tone of friendliness. |
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Close with your formal name and title on the signature line. Sign the note by hand with your full name unless you know the person well. Then just use your first name. |
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If you have no prior relationship with the person you are thanking, enclose your business card. |
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Use the recipient's formal name and title when you address the envelope. |
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Flowers or another thank-you gift can be appropriate if someone has really gone out of his or her way for you.
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Start From the End — decide what the result should be. List points you would like to make, review them, and remove any that do not support the main idea.
Get to the Point Early — state the main cause in the first paragraph.
Put Yourself in Your Reader's Place — treat others they way you would like to be treated. Be pleasant and try to turn negative statements into positive ones.
Say it Plainly — write as you talk. Stilted phrases like "enclosed herewith" are not natural. Check any sentence that is longer than two typed lines—perhaps you need to rewrite that one.
Clear the Deadwood — simplify your reader's job. If the word, sentence, or paragraph does not contribute, cut it. Adjectives can sap strength from your words.
Use Active Verbs — passive voice is weak and confusing. A reader can sense your evasiveness if you write in the passive voice.
Be Human — your letter should read like a conversation. Address your reader by name and use pronouns like I, we, and you whenever you can.
Never Write in Anger — figure out how to handle problems in an upbeat manner. Anger evaporates; a letter does not.
End With an Action Step — suggest the reader's (or your) next move. Close with a simple "Sincerely" and your signature.
Be Professional — a bad presentation can hurt the most well-written letters. Use a clean, logical format—your message could get lost in a crowded or over-designed page.
The National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS) published a strategic business plan in December 2003 that explains the progress and outlook for the transition to digital systems for its talking books. It is likely that today's cassette player will be replaced by a digital playback machine. The advantages to a digital playback machine is that it is smaller, lighter, more efficient, and better sounding.
Patron services would continue to be conducted through network libraries, but means of circulation will change. Very popular books (approximately 20% of the catalog) would be mass-produced and the rest would be duplicated on request at special production centers for circulation to individuals. This would mean two different modes of circulation, resulting on an operational strategy called the "hybrid" model. A comparison to the current production and distribution costs shows the hybrid model to be both efficient and cost effective.
The transition to digital talking books will be gradual, with little or no disruption in service. Cassette books and machines will continue through 2007. Between 2008 and 2012 digital books and machines will replace the older technology. 50,000 digital players will be distributed in the fall of 2008.
The Strategic Business Plan is online at www.loc.gov/nls/businessplan2003.html The appendices to this document include a specification for the design of the digital talking book player and a list of the first 1,000 titles to be converted from analog to digital media.
WLA has launched an election-year campaign to encourage support for libraries among elected officials. Librarians who want to improve their marketing skills may be interested in borrowing "The Visible Librarian, Asserting Your Value with Marketing and Advocacy," a recent acquisition of the Reference and Loan Library. According to the Foreword, the book covers "real-world stuff" that can be easily implemented. Among topics covered are the five essential parts of a press release; how your website can be a better publicity vehicle; and how to defend against "It's all on the Internet." The book may be borrowed through established interlibrary loan channels.
Every day, children see and hear dozens of messages urging them to spend money, but many grow up learning very little about saving. To counter that trend, Wisconsin banks are teaming up with libraries to help students build good financial habits from an early age.
The 8th Annual National Teach Children to Save Day is April 22. In recognition of this event, banks across Wisconsin will promote Reading Raises Interest, a campaign designed to teach children about money basics through reading. Using a kit from the Wisconsin Bankers Association (WBA), bank volunteers will read an age-specific, educational children's book and follow up with relevant questions.
WBA encourages banks to collaborate with community libraries and school media centers to organize story times and displays of financial education books. Banks may also choose to donate books or money to purchase books so that students may continue to read and learn.
A regularly updated list of participating banks may be found at http://www.wisbank.com. To receive a list of financial education books compiled by WBA, please contact Becky Nelson at (608) 441-1237 or benelson@wisbank.com
ALA's OLOS (Office for Literacy and Outreach Services) has created a new web page called "What's Happening in Outreach@ Your Library" at www.ala.org/olos/. The site highlights examples of technology programs, services offered outside the library, advocacy efforts, staff development and training, and public programs. The site includes a way for librarians to submit their own programs and activities for inclusion on the site. Local libraries and systems are encouraged to submit information for inclusion on this site.
En los Estados Unidos existen mas bibliotecas publicas que restaurants McDonald's -- un total de 16,220 incluyendo las sucursales. (There are more public libraries than McDonald's in the U.S. - a total of 16,220, including branches.)
This is just one of many fun and interesting facts included in the American Library Association's (ALA) popular, wallet-sized Quotable Facts About America's Libraries. Available for the first time in Spanish from the ALA Public Information Office, the piece was compiled with assistance from the ALA Office for Research & Statistics, the ALA Washington Office and the Library Research Service at Colorado State Library.
To purchase Quotable Facts please contact the ALA Public Information Office at 800-545-2433, ext. 5041 or send an email to: pio@ala.org . They also are available for free downloading in PDF format from the ALA Website. Click on Issues and Advocacy from the ALA homepage, then Resources/Advocacy Publications.