News from NEFLIN Members

ASK a Librarian Genealogy Chat

ASK a Librarian, offered to Floridians as a live virtual reference service, is now providing online assistance for those questions and answers about your family tree customers just can’t seem to find anywhere else.

“This was just another way for us to offer credible answers and information to the public,” said Laura Minor, Senior Librarian in Genealogy at the Jacksonville Public Library.

Customers can chat between 2-4 p.m. on Tuesday through Thursday with one of the Jacksonville Public Library’s professionally trained librarians. Librarians who have genealogy expertise will be available to assist with genealogy questions, as well as any other information requests.

“ASK a Librarian is just a more efficient, time-saving method of getting questions answered by certified professionals. It’s free, and we want the public to know they can get the help and advice they’re looking for,” Minor said.

Radical Women in Gainesville

The Radical Women in Gainesville online digital collection and exhibit officially opened March 1 in celebration of Women’s History Month.

Radical Women in Gainesville documents the valiant history of feminists who helped reform the conservative Gainesville college town in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. The collection is comprised of photos, oral histories, self-published newsprints, newsletters, brochures, notes from feminist organizations and other original documents.

Radical Women in Gainesville is a developing collection and exhibit site that memorializes the work of local radical feminists while preserving historical documents for future generations to access for research and empowerment. The collection continues to grow as local women contribute their personal collections to the repository. Future collections will be developed to include radical women throughout Florida.

For more information contact the University of Florida Digital Library Center at 352-273-2900.

JPL Staffer Wins Service Award

Solomon Oliver, Jacksonville Public Library former volunteer and now part-time employee is the 2008 recipient of the Julie Klauber Award. Oliver is being recognized for his time spent working closely with KLAS (Keystone Library Automation System), the catalog and circulation system for talking books.

Oliver works in the Talking Book/Special Needs Library of the Jacksonville Public Library. The Talking Books/Special Needs Library provides recorded books, descriptive videos and public computers for visually impaired and physically disabled customers and video relay services for deaf customers. Oliver said he was called to the library because it was a good place to be and when they told him help was needed in special needs he knew it would be a good fit.