The Library Connection
Volume 25 Number 9 September 2005
October 16 - 21 is Teen Read Week
Click here for the Fall 2005 Bookmobile Schedule
Mead Public Library in Sheboygan is offering a new service for its customers. Online newsletters are now available through BookNews. Twenty-one newsletters are currently available. They range from New NonFiction to Audio Books to Christian Fiction to Book Club Picks. Customers can browse all of them or they can sign up to receive one or more (or all) of them regularly through their email address. Each of the newsletters contains a list of suggested books, along with a book jacket photo, synopsis, reviews and a link to EasiCat.
Also available are award and best-seller booklists for both children and adults. Examples of these include: ALA Notable Books, Pulitzer Prize lists, Caldecott and Newbery lists, and the Audie, Christy, Edgar and Hugo awards. Future plans include newsletters with books suggested by Mead staff members, or geared to a particular audience.
To view the BookNews newsletters, go to Mead's website, click "What's Happening" on the left and then select "BookNews Newsletters."
Mark Zehfus, the ESLS Reference Liaison from Mead Public Library, will present the fall reference workshop on Wednesday, October 12 from 9:30 - 11:30 at Mead. It will cover two topics: First--You will learn how to evaluate those pesky Internet websites for honesty and trustworthiness, as well as good ways to spot the occasional fraud and deceitful but oh-so-clever con artist. Second--Participants will be discussing warning signs of librarian burnout and how to pull themselves or their co-workers back from the clutches of ennui, cynicism, and disenchantment. If there is time, information about useful search engines will be shared.
To register, contact Mark at Mead Public Library.
ESLS is now live with the Digital AudioBook Service. Customers in Sheboygan and Ozaukee Counties can download audio books to their home computer and transfer them to a portable listening device that uses Windows Media Player or burn the book to a CD.
To have access to the audio books, a customer must be registered in the EasiCat database. They will be asked for this information when they try to download an audio book. Library customers with high speed Internet access will find this service convenient to use. Those with dial-up access will find that it takes a very long time to download a title.
ESLS is part of the Wisconsin Public Library Consortium (WPLC), the group that purchased these audio books. WPLC has made the MARC records for the titles available also. Paul Onufrak is notified of these records and he downloads the files to EasiCat.
Customers have two options for locating the audio books. They can go to the website http://dbooks.wplc.info and check for new arrivals, see which titles are the most popular, or see which ones are currently available. A Quick Start Guide is also available for first-time users. They can also search EasiCat and type "overdrive audiobook" in the General Keyword field. The results will display all titles with a link to the title--very similar to the NetLibrary collection.
Since this is a small, but growing, collection, the WPLC is promoting this through a "soft rollout." ESLS does not plan any major announcements in the media, but rather encourages each library to promote the service directly to those customers they think would be most interested in using it.
This year's LSTA Special Needs grant included funds for the purchase of two new kits from the Bi-Folkal Company and the creation of ten additional kits in-house. Purchased were: Remembering Spring and Remembering Home. We also purchased three mini-kits: Remembering Mothers, Remembering Fathers, and Remembering Aprons. We added more items to each of the kits. Three new kits developed in-house have just been put into circulation.
Remembering Gardening contains a book on preserving food, videos on Victory Gardens of World War II and Uncommon Gardens (of Wisconsin), a CD of North American bird songs, and a bird watching trivia game. The kit also includes poems, jokes, skits, garden tools, seed packets, and examples of garden vegetables.
Remembering Inventions contains three trivia books about inventions, a video of a Wisconsin car show, four CDs of old time radio comedy favorites, and a famous inventions game. Postcards of old automobiles, quotes about computers, telephone trivia, skits, and advertising for Slinky, Cellophane, and Formica can also be found in this kit. Participants will be able to see and touch Q-tips, Scotch tape, post-it notes, Velcro, and a ballpoint pen while they discuss their memories of the first time they used any of these.
Remembering Parades has books on Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade and American circus posters, videos on Baraboo's great circus parade and remembering Fourth of July celebrations, and a CD of Sousa marches. Touch and feel items include a convertible, flags, and a clown.
Each kit also has a suggestion sheet for getting discussion started. Kits are available through interlibrary loan to anyone in Sheboygan or Ozaukee Counties who works with those who reside in nursing homes, assisted living facilities, or who participate in activities at a congregate meal site or a senior center. For a complete listing of kits and their contents, go to www.esls.lib.wi.us/kits/bifolkal/bifolkallist.html
Children's
Librarians CornerTwo Sheboygan Falls Elementary School teachers approached me about doing a shared program that will help children make the transition from the school classroom to the public library, especially in the areas of learning and retaining subjects like math and reading.
The family program will be held in the evening at Sheboygan Falls Memorial Library. The teachers will be in the lower level giving a Power Point presentation for the parents on math skills and reading and how library use can help their child retain these skills.
I will do a tour and library skills presentation to the children upstairs in the main library. I will include storytelling and book talking especially using books with math concepts. The evening will conclude with a scavenger hunt in the library.
In conclusion, the parents will join the children to browse and pick out material and everyone will be encouraged to apply for library cards.
The summer of Dragons, Dreams and Daring Deeds was an exciting one at ESLS libraries. The children's staff report that more children and young adults enrolled than ever before. And, more important, they read more. Some of the libraries track minutes read. Others track hours and some record titles. This summer 7,216 children participated in the "Read to Me" and "I Can Read by Myself" programs at the libraries and the bookmobile. Another 242 young adults joined some type of reading club at their library. The libraries that offered a reading club for adults had a total of 239 individuals registered in their programs. Several of the children's librarians offered these comments:
Cedarburg: This summer Erika Burge had great (often record!) turnouts for programs at the Cedarburg Library. One program that was a ton of fun, and attended by many more kids than she ever imagined, was their craft program the week of July 4th. They planned a craft program for the week of the Fourth due to normally low attendance because of the holiday. Much to Erika's surprise approximately 70 people turned out to turn themselves into royalty. Children made jeweled rings, crowns with (oh so much) glitter, as well as suits of armor (out of grocery bags). In addition to this, they created their very own coat of arms. Everyone who came had a great time – they are still finding glitter in the carpet!
Grafton: Judy Jones tell us that the U.S.S. Liberty Memorial Public Library in Grafton started the “Dragons, Dreams, and Daring Deeds” summer reading program with a Scholastic Book Fair and they were able to give one paperback book to each child who read for 15 hours. The library staff presented “Survivor Dragon Island”, a survivor program library style with relay games and small stunts. During the “Kids as Storytellers” story time, children presented the play “The Princess and the Dragon” using character masks. They also performed two silly skits.
Plymouth: Carol Langkabel had a fun event at their last SLP program when a young girl brought her birthday party to the library. She had been coming to the programs all summer with her sister and mother and they really enjoyed them. Her birthday was on the same day as the last program with Bob Kann. Her mother brought the eight girls to the afternoon program. Bob congratulated the birthday girl during the program and posed for a picture with the party group after the program.
Sheboygan: Aimee Steinbrucker reports that all of their statistics were up this summer--126 more children joined than last year and more completed the program. Two popular programs were Amy Wilde who applied temporary tattoos and Paul Onufrak and Drue Robertson with their group Society for Creative Anachronism.
Bookmobile: For the first year ever, Connie Meyer and Sue Potter ran bi-weekly contests for members of the I-Can-Read and Read-to-me programs and they loved it! Judging by the response, they said that the 'Name the Dragon' contest was their favorite. The dragon that they were naming was a 12 foot dragon taped to the bookmobile floor. Surprisingly, Dudley (the winning name) made it through the summer without damage. The other big hit of the summer was the weekly prize for 'Joust Readers'. They were thrilled with their prizes of candy, snacks and soda.
If you work or volunteer in family literacy or ESL programs, you may be interested in this year's Adult Literacy Conference to be held October 12-13, 2005 at the Radisson Paper Valley Hotel in Appleton. There is also a pre-conference on October 11 that offers a full day of training in the first two (of four) steps in the Bridges To Practice model. A foundation for serving the adult learner with disabilities will be established by examining the definition and characteristics of Learning Disabilities and the legal issues associated with them. In addition, collaborative approaches to effective assessment, intake, and screening models will be presented. A list of session topics, as well as housing and registration information is available online at www.wacteonline.org/
It was 15 years ago, in the summer of 1990, when the SCLS Intersystem Delivery Service began. Five systems, R&LL, and WiLS developed some delivery exchanges for the purpose of eliminating postal costs and the hassle of returning items by mail. Through a series of federal grants, inter-library cooperation, marketing efforts, service contracts, and several generations of dedicated and innovative delivery and library staff, the delivery service turned into a unique, reliable, and renowned library-owned and operated delivery service.
Eastern Shores joined in 1991 and received delivery service two days a week. Three-day service came in 1993 with the help of an LSTA grant. ESLS currently receives delivery five days a week. State and private colleges continued to join the network. A Statewide Delivery Service Advisory Committee was formed in 1999, with representatives from the different types of participating libraries.
For a complete history of the delivery service, go the SCLS Delivery Service web page at http://psw.scls.lib.wi.us/delivery/index.html Also posted there is the list of libraries that are on the delivery, delivery timetables and schedules, masters for the routing labels, and information about Wisconsin driving conditions (detours, construction, weather conditions). [This might be the time for a reminder that if the school or library is not on the SCLS list, you cannot send the item on the delivery. It must be mailed.]
The SCLS Intersystem Delivery Service and the ESLS delivery service together provide a fast, efficient, and cost-effective method for moving library materials and correspondence around the state of Wisconsin.
Editor's Note: Bob Blitzke and Bruce Smith of South Central Library Delivery Service presented at a session of the WiLS Annual ILL Meeting. Highlights of their presentation: There are 106 colleges and universities on the delivery network. 476 public libraries and branches participate through their systems. 921 schools in 152 districts receive delivery through the network. The Service employs 18 full-time drivers and 20-25 part time staff at any one time. The driver with the longest years of service has been employed for 13 years. They have very little turnover in drivers. The fleet has more than 20 vehicles. The life of each vehicle is about eight years, or approximately 400,000 miles. Their new location at 1601 Gilson Street in Madison was designed specifically for their operation. A big plus of the new site is there is no longer a need for off-site parking. This has saved much time and gas driving to and from the previous parking lots.
These two quotes from Bruce describe why all of us get the good service we do. "The route must go out" and "We must sort to transport."
Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley have demonstrated that an audio recording of someone typing on a computer keyboard can reveal with surprising accuracy exactly what they have typed. Using commercially available recording equipment, the researchers captured audio of typing and analyzed the sounds using an algorithm they developed. Because keys make different sounds, the system is able to make educated guesses about what key was pressed in what order. The application then applies some linguistic logic, including spelling and grammar checks, to refine the results. After three rounds of revisions, the application was able to identify 96 percent of the individual characters typed and 88 percent of the words. The application was effective even with background noise, such as music or cell phones ringing. Doug Tygar, UC Berkeley professor of computer science and information management and a principal investigator of the study, said the project should raise concerns about the security risks of such a technology. "If we were able to figure this out," he said, "it's likely that people with less honorable intentions can—or have—as well."
Each August, as students start to arrive, Beloit College releases the Beloit College Mindset List, which offers a world view of today's entering college students. Those who work with this generation have to keep in mind that they grew up with CNN, home computers, AIDS awareness, digital cameras, and the Bush political dynasty.
Excerpts from the list of the class of 2009, who were born in 1987 follow:
1. They don't remember when "cut and paste" involved scissors.
2. Pay-Per-View television has always been an option.
3. They learned to count with Lotus 1-2-3.
4. Voice mail has always been available.
5. They may have fallen asleep playing with their Gameboys in the crib.
6. Les Miserables has always been on stage.
7. Libraries have always been the best centers for computer technology and access to good software.
8. They do not remember "a kinder and gentler nation."
9. The TV networks have always had cable partners.
10. Digital cameras have always existed.
11. CNBC has always been on the air.
12. Jimmy Carter has always been an elder statesman.
13. They have always been challenged to distinguish between news and entertainment on cable TV.
For the complete list of 75 items on this year's Mindset List, go to: www.beloit.edu/~pubaff/mindset/
Archie McPhee, who produces the Nancy Pearl Librarian Action Figure says that’s not only one of their best selling items, it is also, surprisingly, one of their most controversial. After complaints that the figure presented a stereotype of the librarian as dowdy and stern, they created a new DELUXE version to address some of the concerns. Her outfit is now a rich burgundy color and she comes with a diverse selection of books and a reference computer. She does, however, still shush. You can see her at http://www.mcphee.com/amusements/current/11548.html
