Great Leaders Among Us!

Cynthia Jordan of University of North Florida and a NEFLIN Board Member has been accepted into the Peabody Professional Institute for Academic Library Leadership to be held at Vanderbilt University's Peabody College in July 2008. Participation in Peabody Professional Institutes is competitive and is determined through a review process. The Institute focuses on the higher education context in which libraries exist. The institute explores new roles for libraries that may emerge from that context to support the goals and priorities of the parent institution. Participants identify ways to position their libraries to be agents for change within their institutions, in order to strengthen support for the library’s services and resources. The institute is highly participative and tailored to the interests of those selected as summer fellows. Cynthia was a member of the first Sunshine State Library Leadership Institute in 2004/2005.

Kathy Graw, Youth Services Coordinator at Jacksonville Public Library has completed the Urban Libraries Council Executive Leadership Institute. Selection for the ULC Institute was competitive and required attendance at several sessions in Baltimore and completion of a project. Kathy's sponsor was Carolyn Sheehee Williams, Deputy Director at JPL and her project was on Early Childhood Literacy.

Link Love

A little "link love" as we head towards the weekend:

The Florida Library Association will be opening its new office next week in Lake City. (Nice to see the association will continue to have its headquarters in the NEFLIN area). FLA’s new Executive Director, Faye Roberts, will share a building with the Bank of America and provides offices for Faye and Kelly Green, FLA’s new half-time administrative assistant/bookkeeper.

St. Johns County Public Library passed on a link to their Library Thing Local account. Staff can easily add upcoming events. A neat, free PR tool. Thanks, Jae.

Library Garden recently linked to an interesting blog where each week staff from this public library takes an item from their reference collection and have librarians on staff vote to keep it or let it go. "Budgets are tight and we are trying to determine the best use of our funds. The entries and work we are doing is serious, but the comments often stray to the humorous."

I use technology, but I am not that passionate about it. It's a tool. I love it when it works, etc. However, I do find that I am passionate about one thing...Firefox. A web browser alternative to Internet Explorer. Much of this stems from an incident a few years back when a virus ate my computer thanks to Internet Explorer. When searching out an alternative I came to love the speed, look, feel, adds-on, customization available, and so forth of Firefox. The Swiss Army Librarian has a nice read entitled Using Firefox on Our Public Computers. Good stuff!

Gee willikers! Check out this swell 1950s-style educational film that gives you the A-B-Cs of having a jim-dandy time at ALA Annual Conference. It's packed with so many super tips that every Billy and Sue out there will exclaim, "Golly! Can we watch it again?"

Cleaning House for the Summer

My folders of strange things to share were getting a bit full so I figured I would (share that is) -

10 Obscure Google Search Tricks has some great hints (some of you probably already know all these hints but I learned a thing or two. Also discovered that Lifehacker.com (Tech tricks, tips and downloads for getting things done) could teach me a lot...

LC and Flickr - in January the Library of Congress launched a collection of photos which have no known copyright restrictions on Flickr to increase public access to their collections. I keep hearing about this at meetings and finally went to check it out. Pretty cool! LC is encouraging the public to comment and tag the photos and it was fascinating to read some of the comments.

Free Stuff from Pricey Database Vendors from ResourceShelf.com lists useful freebies from a variety of well known vendors.

Who's Your Favorite Fictional Librarian? I think I have my summer reading list from this list of fictional librarians. Take a look -

On the more serious side, for those of you who are interested in stats, check out Statistics Resources. It's a list of almost 100 sources to all types of stats sources on a variety of topics.

USF Seeking Alumni Information

University of South Florida School of Library & Information Science is gathering information about their students and alumni for the School’s upcoming re-accreditation. If you have received an award, published an article, book etc., or made a presentation any time between 2003 to the present, please forward that information to Andrea LaRochelle, Communications and Marketing Officer.

Nominate a Library Champion

The NEFLIN Library Champion Award recognizes an elected or appointed official serving at any level of government who has demonstrated exceptional support for libraries. Nominations may be made by any staff member in a NEFLIN library. The deadline to apply is Wednesday, June 25, 2008.

The 2008 Library Champion Award will be presented at the NEFLIN Annual Meeting on Friday, September 12th.

Are You Ready for a Hurricane?

Many thanks to Kara McClurken, Preservation Services Librarian at Solinet, for this guest post.

What are you going to do for National Hurricane Preparedness Week? How about signing up to be a disaster volunteer?

After the 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons, SOLINET realized that we needed a better way to communicate and assist our members affected by major disasters. So, we came up with two new services that I’d like to share with you this week, since May 25-31st is National Hurricane Preparedness Week.

1. Our disaster volunteer database: In many ways, all disasters are local. When a major disaster strikes a region, one of the difficulties is that those who want to help don’t always have a place to stay while assisting. SOLINET has created a disaster volunteer database that will help match institutions needing help with volunteers who live far enough away from the site of the disaster that their institutions were protected, but close enough that they don’t have to find a place to sleep at the end of night.

But in order for our database to be effective, we need volunteers like YOU to sign up so that we know who to contact when a disaster strikes. You don’t need any experience to volunteer. You just need to be willing to help a peer institution and have the ability to take direction. The more people we have in the database, the more quickly we can help those affected by disasters. So, sign up to be a disaster volunteer today. Stephanie at NEFLIN signed up. So can you!

SOLINET also wanted to find a way for institutions affected by a region-wide disaster to be able to contact each other and concerned colleagues in the event of an evacuation. So we created a “Disaster wiki.” Individuals and institutions can turn to SOLINET’s disaster wiki to post information about themselves, their institution, and contact information if they are forced to leave the area.

This blog posting is the first in a series that SOLINET staff will do for NEFLIN during the hurricane season. If you have ideas/questions for future postings, please let me know.

The Accidental Technology Trainer - Recap

I got to attend a great workshop yesterday by Stephanie Gerding, author of The Accidental Technology Trainer. Stephanie had lots of neat ideas and did a great job of modeling what she was teaching throughout her session. Some of what I came away with -

For everyone who feels like it's wasting time to go around the room and have people introduce themselves, there's a method to the madness. Stephanie explained that this is most useful in longer classes (you wouldn't want to do this in a short session) and that it serves several purposes. It breaks the barriers and gets people to talk and it helps the trainer identify various skill levels of the participants and assess the needs/wants of the group.

Key skills needed by a technology trainer - approachability, social skills, self-confidence (just remember the audience wants you to succeed), subject knowledge, patience, flexibility, planning, facilitation, communications, respect, control, coffee (energy), delivery, undo (willingness to make mistakes), and PLAY!

Neat way to get people to feel comfortable in a computer class is to establish "Rules for Computer Class"

1. Ask the stupid questions (everyone else is wondering the same thing). Later the idea to give dum dum lollipops to people who ask 'stupid' questions.
2. Make mistakes - that's how you learn
3. Cheat - talk to your neighbor, look at their screen

Be the guide on the side, not the sage on the stage.

Strategies for Active Learning from Mel Silberman's Training the Active Training Way

1. engage your participants from the start
2. be a brain-friendly presenter
3. encourage lively and focused discussion
4. urge participants to ask questions
5. let participants learn from each other
6. enhance learning by experience and doing
7. blend in technology wisely
8. make the end unforgettable

Activities to increase learning and retention

• polling - especially good for online classes (Stephanie used polling throughout)
• pair share or learning partners
• action plans
• question sharing
• snowball fight - this was especially fun. Everyone writes their question or idea on a sheet of paper, ball it up, and then throw them around room for a while. At the end, various questions/ideas get shared and discussed. Great after lunch activity!
  
• scavenger hunt - best search idea - painting dogs toenails
  
• top 10 lists - what you want to know, what you learned, etc.
  
• chocolate hugs (if your get stuck) and kisses (for right answers)
• jeopardy (and other variations on game shows)
• Bingo - start class with everyone having a bingo card that has terms you'll be mentioning throughout the session. As they hear/see the word they mark it. First one to bingo gets a prize. I googled make your own bingo cards since I was curious and found http://www.teach-nology.com/web_tools/materials/bingo/, there were lots of options
  
• Crossword puzzles
• Who wants to be a millionaire

• frogstar.com for sounds to add to presentations

Handouts - to use them or not? Consensus was if you have them you should talk about them. Most people aren't using as many as they used to, making basic handouts with key points. Stephanie suggested if you're teaching something that requires participants to create a username/password you should include a place on the handout for them to write it down.

Don't want to give out copies of your powerpoint on disk? Upload it to slideshare.net. This is definitely going to require some investigation on my point. They have a World's Best Presentation Contest that's worth checking out.

Stephanie gave out a great Workshop Plan template. Key to me was not to try to cover more then 3 learning objectives in an hour session - that would give you 15 minutes for each topic plus 15 minutes for intro and ending and Q&A.

Cool Things Other People Are Doing

• Princeton Public Library -
• Tuesday Technology Talks (see page 21 of their newsletter for other ideas)
  
• Fun with Flickr
• Fantastic Freebies for Everyone
  
• 23 Things - a program developed to help staff learn more about new technologies (watch for NEFLIN to replicate this program in the fall)
  
• ImaginOn.org
• Geek Out, Don't Freak Out! - a series of classes to help patrons learn to use their technology gadgets
• Teen Volunteers - on call to help in the library and as class assistants. Offer classes for seniors with teens providing one-on-one help.

Other stuff that came up throughout the day (and I wasn't the only one plugging the great resources from NEFLIN) -

• The NEFLIN Staff Development and Technology Interest Groups & Wikis are both great places to share ideas and ask questions.
  
• Get Quick Reference Guides from NEFLIN - an easy way to provide handouts either in classes or during one-on-one training.
• Don't forget you need to evaluate your training. Use one of NEFLIN's survey options - either borrow the NEFLIN survey workstation or set up an online survey using TouchPoll Web. Both are free to NEFLIN members and allow unlimited evaluations and responses. If you aren't sure what to ask, Google and get some ideas (or ask NEFLIN to send you samples of surveys other libraries have done).
  
• Several people in the workshop don't have good classroom facilities or projectors to use during training. Don't forget you can borrow a projector from NEFLIN for your next training session.
• Stephanie had a neat set of slides she ran before the workshop started and during breaks. It was a set of quotes about technology training.
  
• Don't forget about using maintainIT and WebJunction instead of recreating the wheel. LOTS of resources are available from these two resources.

News from NEFLIN Members

Marion County Opens Two New Buildings!

Congratulations to Marion County Public Library on the completion of two new libraries. The Dunnellon Public Library opened on May 19 and the Belleview Public Library will open on June 2 following a grand opening celebration on May 31. At 16,000 sq ft, the new buildings are more then 4 times the size of the original libraries. Both libraries have large community meeting rooms, computer labs, children's programming room, a special teen area, and front porches with rocking chairs donated by local groups.

Bradford County Public Library Begins Literacy Program

Bradford County Public Library will begin offering access to Reading Horizons, a self-paced interactive phonics software program. This program is being offered in cooperation with Bradford County Schools, Santa Fe Community College and the Bradford County Literacy Group.

Friends of the Alachua County Library Raise $145K in 5 Days!

Within the first 8 minutes, over 700 people poured into the building for the twice a year book sale. A corps of 300+ volunteers streamlines the book buying process, sorting through the 300,000+ donations and separating them into 70 categories. The Friends of the Library primary objective is to provide funds to the Alachua County Library District for services not otherwise covered in the Library’s annual budget, including providing scholarship dollars to library employees. It is estimated that over 100 library employees have benefited from the scholarship program. For 2007-08, support will total approximately $23,000.

2008 National Voter Registration Act Workshops

Public libraries are required to have voter registration forms available and offer assistance in filling out the forms. There is also a requirement to take completed voter registration forms from citizens. The completed forms are then forwarded to the local Supervisor of Elections’ office.

The Florida Department of State, Division of Elections is pleased to present the 2008 National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) Workshops at the following locations throughout Florida. These workshops are open to all of the supervisors of elections and their staff, public assistance offices, offices serving persons with disabilities, centers for independent living, public libraries, universities, community colleges, driver license offices, and the public. These workshops will cover The National Voter Registration Act of 1993.

• Friday, May 30 in Lynn Haven
• Friday, June 6 in Inverness
• Tuesday, June 17 in Sarasota
• Wednesday, June 25 in Jacksonville

For more information or to register for one of these workshops

Additional information about the national and state law

Free Archival Education Workshops

Don't miss these archival education workshops available free of charge to staff working in Florida's libraries, museums, archives, and other cultural heritage organizations. Students and interns in Florida also are eligible for free workshop registration. These workshops are co-sponsored by the Florida Center for Library Automation, and many partners including Florida International University, the University of Florida, the University of Miami, the University of Central Florida, Florida State University, St. Petersburg College, the University of West Florida, and others.

Participants in each workshop will be encouraged to create and share collection finding aids via the Web and via the statewide Archives Florida database hosted by the Florida Center for Library Automation.

INTRODUCTION TO ENCODED ARCHIVAL DESCRIPTION

Florida International University (Miami, FL) June 13, 2008
Florida State University (Tallahassee, FL) June 20, 2008

This one-day workshop will provide participants with an introduction to the Encoded Archival Description (EAD) standard, and includes hands-on exercises with typical tools, templates and workflows that trainees might use to create and share encoded finding aids (inventories) describing their organization's rare and special collections. Those who complete the workshop should be familiar enough with EAD to create encoded finding aids and understand their options for sharing and delivering archival information online. This workshop is most appropriate for those who are comfortable working with desktop computers, common text editing software such as Windows NotePad, common Web browsers like Internet Explorer or Firefox, and who have some familiarity with arranging and describing archival collections, museum collections, or similar materials.

STYLESHEETS FOR EAD - DELIVERING YOUR FINDING AIDS ON THE WEB

University of Miami (Coral Gables, FL) July 10-11, 2008
University of Central Florida (Orlando, FL) July 14-15, 2008

Taught by the Society of American Archivists instructors, this two-day workshop provides an introduction to style sheets, in particular the XSLT programming language, as they are used to format archival finding aids for the Web. If you have an understanding of the EAD element set and the HTML encoding scheme, you're ready to take the next big step and create or modify style sheets. Upon completing this workshop, participants will have a fundamental understanding of the XSLT stylesheet language and concepts, and will have produced a stylesheet and reviewed how it affects the display of an EAD-encoded archival finding aid.

INTRO TO ARCHON ARCHIVES MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE

St. Petersburg College, Sept. 25-26, 2008

This two-day workshop, taught by the creators of the Open-Source "Archon" archives management software, will explain the possible uses and customizations of the software and its multiple, optional modules. Participants will use the Archon software to create collection descriptions, and will learn how to export and share collection descriptions created in Archon into other formats such as MARC and EAD.

REGISTRATION:
Registrations will be accepted and confirmed on a first-come, first-served basis. Please email Chuck Thomas specifying your full name, job title, organization you work for, full work mailing address, telephone number, email address, and which date/location of this workshop you wish to attend. You will be notified by email about registration confirmation.

Attendance is limited to a maximum of 20 participants for each workshop,
Registration will be limited to a maximum of 2 participants from any organization.
Workshop registration is free for those working in Florida.
Participants will be responsible for paying for their own lunch.

Solinet Launches New Website

Solinet launched their new website on Monday. They're plugging it as a new site that is more user-friendly and offers more self-service features.

Some of the cool things I found -

• Tips & Tricks for Library Staff Days
• a searchable catalog of classes being offered. (Tip - before paying $200+ for a Solinet class, check with Patty to see if NEFLIN can offer the class for free.)
  
• a job bank where you can post a job or search for a job (I'm not looking)

Submit a Proposal for FLA

The Florida Library Association is accepting proposals for the 2009 Annual Conference: Libraries... Connecting People, Information & Knowledge to be held at the Doubletree Hotel at the Entrance to Universal Orlando May 5-8, 2009.

This is a great opportunity to talk about great programs, ideas, initiatives underway at your library.

Deadline to apply: Monday, August 25, 2008

Free Training for Gale Databases

Ask and ye shall receive. When discussing plans for our LSTA grant projects, the CE Committee and the Technology Interest Group both thought it would be great if Gale, who has the expertise, would create tutorials for how to use the products available through the Florida Electronic Library. Surprise, surprise, Gale recently announced that they have created a series of step-by-step tours for their major databases, with audio, that will allow you to easily get training on key features and interfaces. Simply click on any of the links below and the tour will load, taking you through a full product demo. Since these are full tours (every feature of the product), they take about 15-20 minutes.

Gale is in the process of creating a series of snippet tours that will allow users to better understand certain features (i.e., how to create an RSS feed.) Stay tuned...

Feel free to add these links to any part of your website:

• Biography Resource Center
• Discovering Collection
• Eighteenth Century Collections Online
• Health & Wellness Resource Center - available through the Florida Electronic Library
  
• InfoTrac Junior Edition - K12- available through the Florida Electronic Library
• InfoTrac Student Edition - K12 - available through the Florida Electronic Library
• Junior Reference Collection - available through the Florida Electronic Library
• Kids InfoBits - available through the Florida Electronic Library
• Making of Modern Law
• Nursing Resource Center
• Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center
• PowerSearch - available through the Florida Electronic Library
• Science Resource Center
• Testing & Education Reference Center
• What Do I Read Next? - available through the Florida Electronic Library

Quit Paying for Survey Monkey

Take advantage of an enhancement to one of our favorite member services - TouchPoll Web.

Have you always wanted to survey all of your registered borrowers but couldn't afford the cost on Survey Monkey? Do you want to blast a survey out to all the students to learn what they think of the library but your administration says "no way, we can't afford it"?

An elementary school uses it for Sunshine State Reader voting. NEFLIN used it to find out what members think of the blog. A library is using it to evaluate public computer training. Libraries have used to survey employee satisfaction, for system-wide hours changes, and for user satisfaction surveys. If you can think of it, we can help you make it happen.

We are pleased to be able to offer members unlimited free online surveys.

Simply contact NEFLIN (904-278-5620) to begin the process.

Is there a Target store near you?

I am always on the lookout for additional funds, and the site Grants for Libraries does a good job of keeping me informed.

An interesting program I read about on this site is that Target is providing Local Store Grants. Here is the scoop.

Eligibility: Schools, Public Libraries, or 501(c)(3) organizations located in communities where Target does business.

Average grant amount $1,000 - $3,000, though you can request any amount.

Grant Category: Early Childhood Reading
Target funds programs that foster a love of reading and encourage young children, birth through age nine, to read together with their family (e.g., library storytimes, family reading nights, or after school reading programs).

P.S. Stephanie Gerding of the "Grants for Libraries" site will be here next week at NEFLIN! She not only wrote a book on Grants for Libraries: A How-To-Do-It Manual, she also wrote and teaches on the subject, The Accidental Technology Trainer.

Virtual Book Discussion

The Florida Chapter of SLA (Special Libraries Association) is doing something unique...they have taken their book discussion online.

As a Florida SLA member I received an e-mail inviting me to help choose the book from among these three titles:

• Rethinking Information Work by G. Kim Dority
• Libraries and Google by William Miller and Rita M. Pellen
• The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick) by Seth Godin

I ranked the three titles and submitted my choices.

After a few days I received an e-mail that "The Dip" by Seth Godin was chosen by the group. We received a link to a website where, after May 20, we can begin to post our thoughts on this book.

Could you see this as something you can do with your staff or patrons?

Leadership Institute Deadline Approaching

Do you feel like you're ready to take the next step towards leading our profession into the future? Do you know someone who is? The Leadership Institute might just offer the little push to move them forward.

Applications are now being accepted for the 2008-09 Sunshine State Library Leadership Institute to be held in Gainesville and Manatee County. Twenty participants will be selected to attend the ten sessions. Complete information and the application are available online. Deadline to apply is Friday, June 6, 2008.

Questions? Talk to a current or past participant. Call Stephanie at NEFLIN. Contact Jill Canono at the State Library & Archives.

Too Cool for School

Neat ideas from the latest paper issue of T.H.E. Journal (which is available free) -

• Free Social Media Tools for Educators - offers options for media sharing, learning communities and wikis.
• Open source content for schools - free resources, including a reference to Free-Reading, a literacy program recently adopted by Florida's public schools.
  
• Interesting article on filtering of computers in schools

Increase the Usage of Your Gale Databases

Here's the cool thing Tony Shamoun from Gale showed me at the SAMM Vendor Fair. They've got a cool widget that allows you to add a PowerSearch box to your website. Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library added the PowerSearch search box to their home page and saw their usage increase by twenty times. Yes, that’s right… twenty!

Simply visit http://access.gale.com/pse, enter your location ID (found at the end of the URL when you access your Gale databases), and voila! – you instantly have the HTML code you need to add to your page to make a search box appear. You can customize the box to fit your website’s color scheme. This will easily draw attention to all your resources and make searching library databases as accessible as Google. If you want to expand PowerSearch to search your catalogue and other vendor databases, you can.

SAMM, the final installment

The meeting ended with Karen Schneider, who is always great. She said her presentation, Sustainable 2.0: Marketing & Strategy for Blogs and Social Software was a repeat of the one she did at the Solinet Users Group meeting in Tallahassee but I still managed to come away with two pages of notes for myself. Michael Stephens introduced her and then sat and blogged the session (I'm not that hi-tech, yet). It was interesting to read what he captured as opposed to what made it to my very random notes -

• Blogging provides immediacy, informality, and an architecture for participation
• You do not need to blog
• Consider twitter.com - microblogging - 140 characters or less (see Karen's twitterprose)
• Create an event blog - and then close it at the end of the event
  
• Begin by blogging staff to staff and then blog staff to public
• Start with an internal blog to build trust
  
• The Poetry Scene - a blog by a Tampa Librarian (and SSLLI participant)
• Use found content, create link dump
• CD Baby in Portland makes you feel special just with their packing slips - cool ideas for librarians to include with reserve materials, or notices that your books are about to be overdue (rather then after they are late)
• Allow multiple people to blog
  

SAMM part 2

Michael Stephens was a great way to start the meeting. I went because I knew Karen Schneider was going to do the closing. In the middle there was lots of other good stuff....

Let me start with the non-work part of the event. The Emory Conference Center Hotel is FABULOUS!!! It's a bit far from anything, out in the woods, but it's a great facility. The architecture was beautiful and there were a lot of little extras that made it special. I was quite taken by their green-ness. They are a Green Seal approved facility and there were some interesting things they were doing - some of the room keys were recyclable, they had recycle containers everywhere for cans, bottles, and paper. They had a great space with pool tables, foosball, checkers, and other games for those who just wanted to hang out. And getting to go to the Braves game with Sol Hirsch didn't hurt the event either (especially when the Braves won!) And bonus points to someone who can tell me where to get the Coke bottle shaped recycle receptacles they have at Turner Field.

Thursday morning I atended the program on Open Source technology. It wasn't quite what I was expecting but since I know nothing it was informative. The three speakers were John from Duke talking about their proposal to start discussing the Services Oriented Architecture approach to open source. Then Tim Daniels talked about the PINES/Evergreen project and their experiences. He was followed by Andrew Nagy from Villanova talking about vufind, an open-source resource discovery portal that he referred to as an 'open source OPAC replacement'.

The lunch speaker was Scott Peacock, executive chef at Altanta's Watershed Restaurant. Scott is a great storyteller and talked about southern cooking (tales from his book, The Gift of Southern Cooking). I'm particularly excited to try the chocolate fritters and perhaps work up the nerve to make a Lane Cake.

Thursday afternoon's business meeting was probably the shortest business meeting I've ever attended - 15 minutes to cover everything. This was followed by the merger discussion. Not to much new to report, if you haven't been following this I do encourage you to read the info Solinet has up on their website. The Board has voted to accept the results of the Due Diligence and the next step is to begin discussions on location, governance, and membership. The Director of Palinet provided an overview of their services - some highlights were podcasts, a technology sandbox, their leadership network wiki, and workshops available from WebJunction.

Thursday nights vendor reception was great. Mashed potato 'tinis are just fun! Best thing I learned was about the Gale Powersearch widget (which I blog about later this week when I get more details).

Friday started early with Richard Madaus' presentation - Staying Ahead of the Technology Curve. As always, Richard is way ahead of my technology curve.

• What is the value added by the library?
  
• Plan for the future instead of the past
• Libraries are living in the print legacy of Search & Locate
• Library 2.0 puts us in the world of Find & Deliver
• The real world wants to Click & Know
  
• how many of us know about
• iGoogle
• Google Co-op - create your own search engine
• Google Mobile - take Google on your phone
• Google Book - search the contents of millions of books
• OpenLibrary.org
• Internet Archive
• Wikipedia's other areas?
  
• Sister Projects
• Portals
• MediaWiki
• WikiWix
  

Solinet Annual Meeting - part 1

There was so much happening at the Solinet Annual Membership Meeting (SAMM) this year that it's probably going to take multiple posts.

Congratulations to the staff at Solinet who put together a very strong program this year. Thursday morning started with a keynote by Michael Stephens - The Transformed Library: Trends, Tools & Transparency (this takes a while to download - it's 200 slide, 74MB). Michael was great! We've been trying to get him here at NEFLIN but our schedules never work. We'll keep working on it. I have lots of notes from Michael's talk but I'll try to just pull the thought provoking ideas (I love the notion of being transparent to staff and the public) -

• From the OCLC Report: Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources - people start with search engines, only 1% start at the library website
• From the OCLC Report: Sharing, Privacy and Trust in Our Networked World - library website use declined to 20% of the general public
• From the Pew Internet & Life Project report on Wikipedia - 8% of online Americans consult the Wikipedia daily
• Cool chart from Business Week about who participates and what they are doing online
• Search Google Maps or yelp.com for your library and read the reviews - What are people saying about your library?
• Darien Library lets their circ staff blog and do collection development!
• Roadmap to the transparent library - just say 'YES'
• Replace the reference fortress with a welcome desk - (see cool photos on slides 70-75)
• Offer User Driven Services
• Amazon lets people upload video reviews (and sells the Flip Video Camcorder to make it happen). Libraries are doing contests to tell stories at the library
  
• Have an Emerging Technology Group that trend spots, plays with tools, and reports out (hey - NEFLIN has one of these!). Do a meet the gadget day
  
• Market your library - do a Ray of Light, Day in the Life of the Library video on YouTube
• Create a library presence - Use social networking software, go where the people are, imbed meebo into library website for IM, add a link to Ask a Librarian from the Results not Found page, twitter from the ref desk or twitter new books
  
• How important is learning? A well trained staff can carry your message to your users
• Play - if we play we learn
• Let go of the role of gatekeepers
• Death by Risk Aversion - why don't we innovate?
• 5 Phrases I Never Want to Hear - this is a man after my own heart
• Top 100 Lamest Excuses for Not Innovating
• Rules for Innovating
• Dream big
• Encourage the heart
• Throw out the culture of perfect
• Ground technology use in the library mission and vision
• 5 Things I Can Do Now
• Be a trendspotter
• Form an Emerging Technology Group
• Try a Learning 2.0 program
• Create a "What's New" blog
• Explore presence - put my library in different places

Introducing Mrs. Patricia Morris

Lake City, FL - Patty Hay and Jim Morris were married May 10, 2008 in a ceremony at the Lake City Community College Library.

They were joined by an intimate group of family and friends at the LCCC Library for the wedding ceremony. Chani and India Morris, daughters of the groom attended the bride. The best man was Anthony Free, best friend of the groom. Larry Fulton recited an original poem entitled "Timeless" for the couple. Larry won the most recent LCCC Poetry Slam with this poem.

A reception at the Holiday Inn Lake City followed and was attended by many more family and friends. Elizabeth Free, wife of the best man, sang two songs for the couple.

The very happy couple will spend a week in Savannah and then return to the real world.

Hanging Out with the Columbia Staff

I had an absolutely wonderful time last Friday, as one of the speakers for Columbia County Public Library’s annual Staff Day.

Columbia’s entire staff of 30 or so, joined me at a beautiful wilderness retreat near Live Oak…Camp Weed.

It was a well-thought out program for the day with a relaxed atmosphere and schedule. Breakfast first, then I had some fun in the morning talking with the group about “Pop Culture” and its influences. Lunch in the dining hall was then followed by Andrea Giggetts giving a interactive talk on team building.

The group was nice enough to allow some photos, which I have added to NEFLIN’s Flickr site.

Thanks go to Debbie and her staff for making me feel welcome!

If you are having a staff event and would like to have a NEFLIN staff member participate…by all means let us know.

Two NEFLIN Members Reach Career Milestones

Two NEFLIN members recently reached impressive milestones in their library careers.

Pat Coffman (pictured at left), celebrated 35 years with Clay County Public Library at a surprise party held on April 30th at Clay County Headquarters Library in Fleming Island. "Pat Coffman is the most dedicated Librarian that I have had the pleasure of working with in my career," said Arnold Weeks, Library Director. "She is a valuable asset to the Clay County Library System and the citizens of Clay County."

April 30th was also the last day for Ruth Benjamin (pictured at right) who retired from the B.C. Pearce Learning Resource Center at St. Johns River Community College in Palatka.

NEFLIN wishes Pat many more years with Clay County Public Library System, and to Ruth our best wishes for a happy retirement.

Training in Your Library this May - Updated!

My monthly round-up of webinar and other online training opportunities for May. Don't let budget cuts keep you from taking care of yourself. All of the programs listed below are available for free on your desktop and most will be archived if you can't make the live broadcast.

Providing Help Desk Support Using Event Tracker on Wednesday, May 7 @ 1:30pm

Event Tracker is a free tool within TechAtlas which allows users to create an online "help desk" so they can track all of the requests and solutions to computer troubles in the library. When a staff member reports the problem using the web-based form, TechAtlas notifies the designated technical support staff by e-mail. After the problem has been resolved, there is space in Event Tracker to include the solution. This creates a knowledge base that can be referred to later if the same problem occurs. It also helps you to stay on top of all the technology tasks that need to be completed in the library.

Online Marketing for Libraries on Thursday, May 8 @ 2pm - NEW

Join Sarah Houghton-Jan, the Librarian in Black blogger, in exploring how libraries can market their collections and services online. In the Web 2.0 environment, libray staff need to think about outreach differently. Users spend more time online in both solitary and social endeavors. This session will cover how to find potential users online and reach out to them with the services and resources they need. Attendees will go away with a lengthy checklist of ideas to take back to their libraries to successfully create an ongoing online marketing plan. Please note: This program will last approximately 90 minutes.

A Casual Conversation with Jenny Levine on Friday, May 9 @ 2pm - NEW

Jenny is the Internet Development Specialist and Strategy Guide at the American Library Association. She works jointly in the Information Technology & Telecommunications Services unit and the Publishing unit. She also writes the very popular blog, The Shifted Librarian. The Casual Conversations series is designed to be up-close and personal from a respectable online distance. While there are many conferences (in-person, online, and in-world) where librarians can hear leaders in the field make formal presentations about interesting projects, there are few opportunities to hear these same leaders discuss informally what they currently are working on, their future plans and goals, the challenges and opportunities facing librarianship, their personal pet peeves, etc.

Innovative Health Information Programs for Spanish Speakers on Tuesday, May 13 @ 1pm

Learn about several innovative programs designed to increase access to health information for Spanish speakers and increase community health. Guest speakers include: Susan Dalmas, manager of Queens Library/ Adult Learner Program; Kathel Dunn, Associate Director of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine, Middle Atlantic Region; and Loida Garcia-Febo, Assistant Coordinator, Special Services, Queens Library.

Professional Development: Making the Most of Upcoming Conferences on Wednesday, May 14 @ 2pm

Whether you have the privilege of attending one of the upcoming conferences (ARSL Fall Conference or ALA Annual), or you're just looking for a way to grow professionally through virtual conferences, this session is designed to help you leverage the opportunities that are out there. A variety of speakers will address how to make the most out of attendance at any conference, what is virtual conferencing and will it work for you, and what does ARSL have in store for its Fall Conference and why you should plan on attending.

Opening New Windows of Opportunity: Creating Breakthrough Instructional Experiences on Thursday, May 15 @ 3pm -NEW

Brian Mathews will speak on "breakthrough opportunities" as he shares his latest ideas on creating interactive library experiences for students. This session will feature tactics for engaging students in both the classroom as well as in digital environments. Brian will also discuss possibilities for the library and librarians to become a more integrated part of campus and will highlight his ubiquitous "push-out" philosophy. Blended Librarians Online Learning Community webinars are free but require registration.

Technology Training and Competencies for Libraries on Thursday, May 15 @ 4pm - NEW

Join Sarah Houghton-Jan, the Librarian in Black blogger, in exploring how libraries can provide tech training for staff. Every library on the planet struggles with technology training for staff. In this session, learn how to create a set of useful technology competencies, catered to your individual library and its technologies. Also learn how to use these competencies, and the staff's assessments, to build a self-sustaining staff technology training program. You will hear about the purpose and benefits of competencies and technology training, get a review of the process of creating competencies lists, and the implementation process, including assessment. Please note: This program will last approximately 90 minutes.

PowerSearch on Friday, May 16 @ 11am - NEW

Learn more about the platform that allows your patrons to cross-search multiple Gale databases as well as thousands of eBooks from one single starting point. You'll also be introduced to PowerSearch Plus, our newest platform enhancement that allows patrons to cross search not only your Gale databases, but nearly all of your electronic subscription databases (regardless of publisher), your OPAC, and the open Web!

New Tools for School Librarianship on Tuesday, May 20 @ 7pm - NEW

In the day-to-day aspects of our jobs, librarians collect a vast amount of information, including information about scheduling, collecting statistics, or facts and figures for our patrons. A wiki is a great tool to store, share, and edit information, whether it be externally with our patron community or internally among staff. Join us to discuss tips to economize time spent in the library, and how to stretch resources when you're in-office. We will discuss using online tools for projects & research, book recommendations and scheduling IMC time. This wiki webinar is designed to show you how wikis can be used by school librarians.

Trends in e-learning: What Does it Mean for Libraries? on Wednesday, May 21 @ 11am

While in some sectors e-learning may seem "old hat", the world of e-learning continues to change at a rapid pace. With newer technologies such as mobile devices, technologies such as Second Life, litigation in the e-learning vendor arena, and evolving standards, e-learning remains a dynamic area that we have to keep our eye on. And while many libraries have fully developed e-learning environments, many are just getting beginning to explore the possibilities. This workshop will focus on issues related to how availability and interoperability are changing the way e-learning is being delivered as well how developments in open source and open access as well as social networking are changing the way e-learning occurs.

Wireless Acceptable Use Policies: MaintainIT Cookbook Webinar on Wednesday, May 21 @ 1pm

Grab a comfy chair and participate in a 30-minute discussion where contributors to the Cookbooks share their insights, their secrets, and what you can do to get started with projects like theirs. In May, join Louise Alcorn of West Des Moines Public Library, contributor to Recipes for a 5-Star Library Cookbook, and author of Wireless Networking: A How-To-Do-It Manual for Librarians, as she chats about her experiences with wireless, including considerations around the ever-important wireless acceptable use policy. Take 30 minutes out of your day and learn from the experiences of others. Get started with wireless at your library!

Introduction to Shaping Outcomes on Thursday, May 29 @ 2pm

Join presenter Rachel Applegate, Project Director of Shaping Outcomes Continuing Education, as she introduces the online course, 'Shaping Outcomes,' which teaches the principles of an 'outcomes-based planning and evaluation' (OBPE). The course was developed to help LSTA and IMLS grant applicants create stronger grant proposals-and stronger programs.

Changes on the Florida Electronic Library

Have you noticed some changes on the Florida Electronic Library? We warned you were they were coming and POOF, on May 1st they appeared.

The biggest change is the switch to PowerSearch. PowerSearch allows you to search the Gale-Cengage databases all at once (or in any combination you choose). The results of your search are then displayed in a tabbed format organized by - Newspapers, Magazines, Journals, Reference, and Media. The results under each tab are ordered with the most recent entries listed first and the name of the electronic resource from which it was collected.

Wondering how to get to the other databases licensed by the Florida Electronic Library? Follow the link to Available Resources.

Other changes to look for are the Popular Magazines & Journals search from the front page. Simply click on a logo and view the full text of the magazine or look for your favorite magazine in General OneFile or Academic OneFile.

You'll also see that the direct link to FloridaCat has been replaced with a link to WorldCat. I'm liking the new search capabilities and think it will be much more functional for the general public. Love that it resolves my IP address to a zipcode and identifies the closest library - how cool is that!

There are still direct links into the incredible digital collections available through the Florida Memory Project and Florida on Florida and easy access to Ask A Librarian.

Want to know more about using all these resources? Watch for workshops in the July - September schedule which should be coming soon.

Blog Post of the Month!

April's Blog Post of the Month was an outstanding recap of the Florida Library Association's annual conference. We had more than one member remark that they did not have to write their own report of the conference, they could just send in Stephanie's and that would do!

Read all about it

Thank Your Volunteers

April 27 - May 3 was National Volunteer Week - how did you celebrate your volunteers?

I made a stop in St. Augustine to check out audiobooks for my drive south on Wednesday and boy did it smell good in their staff area. In appreciation of the volunteers at St. Johns County Public Library Southeast Branch Library, staff took turns baking cookies each day (Sunday thru Saturday) just for the volunteers.

The Great Jacksonville Fire

I had been living in Jacksonville for a few years when I visited the Jacksonville Historical Society and learned about the "Great Fire of 1901". The city of Jacksonville had for all intents and purposes burned to the ground. 2,368 buildings were destroyed, 146 city blocks decimated, and 10,000 people left homeless.

The Historical Society had some of the only photos of Jacksonville that existed prior to the fire. I am pleased to report that many of these have now been scanned and are part of the Florida Photographic Collection.

If you haven't taken a look at the larger collection known as the Florida Memory Project, you should do so. There are photographs, video, music, and educational activities that can be done with information in these collections.