OverDrive Training Opportunities and FREE Building Bridges Series for Public Libraries

Are you looking for a way to refresh your OverDrive skills, Jane Richard, from WILS sent the following information as a reminder that OverDrive offers live and recorded training sessions throughout the year. Please follow the links below for more information:

• View Now (http://overdrive.com/learningcenter/viewnow.aspx) : View the core courses at your convenience … plus pause, stop and fast forward to suit your learning style. Among the topics recorded: Kindle demo, community outreach, and patron assistance.
• Register: Watch for upcoming *live* training opportunities. We'll post them on the listserv, too.
• Resources: Spread the word about your OverDrive service through promotional and educational materials. All materials are free!
• A relatively new resource is the Going Mobile Preview page with short how-to video series for iOS, Android and Kindle operating systems. These each run 20-30 minutes
  long. 

Another great opportunity to think about how Public Libraries can build bridges to the future and build community support will be offered in the "Building Bridges Series for Public Libraries"

Please join OCLC, host Chrystie Hill, WebJunction’s Director of Community Services, and guest speakers for the second half of this series of webinars designed to inspire and engage public libraries on topics of vital interest. Each program in the series will offer practical advice on issues that are top-of-mind in public libraries.

Communicating Your Value:  Without sufficient funding, your service to your community can suffer. But you can effectively communicate your value to those who fund your library – learn how. Speakers to be announced shortly.  January 18, 2012  Register now

Your Library’s Future:  This look ahead will focus on (1) the critical services libraries should provide; (2) services that only the public library provides; and (3) communicating the library’s future plans to the community. Speakers to be announced shortly.  February 2, 2012  Register now

Watch the earlier sessions in this series:

Principles of Advocacy:  Public library professionals know the importance of demonstrating their value to their local communities. Are you looking for inspiration to jump-start your own advocacy efforts? Join us to better understand how ongoing community advocacy supports the vital role your library plays in the community Speakers included Mary Hirsh, Project Coordinator for PLA and Lynn Slawsky, Program Officer, Turning the Page 2.0 program through PLA, Janet Sawaya, Program Officer, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Jennifer Pearson, Senior Manager of Advocacy Programs, OCLC. Topics included the Turning the Page program, the Geek the Library community awareness program and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation funding public library advocacy programs.   Watch now

Community Outreach:  Hear from both a small and large public library on why they believe these partnerships are integral to their success. Guest speakers Gerry Meek, CEO of the Calgary Public Library in Canada, and Debbie Winlock, Director of the Page Public Library in Arizona will give you tips on how you can make this work in your community.   Watch now  

(Jane Richard, Wisconsin Library Services & Wisconsin Public Library Consortium)

Great Websites for Kids Has Been Redesigned.

ALSC's Great Websites for Kids Relaunches With Fresh New Design

Great Websites for Kids (GWS) (www.ala.org/greatsites), the Association for Library Service to Children’s (ALSC) online website directory, has been completely redesigned. The updated site boasts a fresh and colorful kid-friendly look and interactive social media enhancements.

Clear, bright icons display subject categories and appear on every page, while eye-catching thumbnail images provide a visual preview of each great site represented. Special sections highlight Sites of the Week and Month, Most Popular pages and Top Rated selections. Prompts for each site offer “more selections like this.”

Visitors can actively connect with the site and further their online experience by rating sites; sharing their favorites on social media sites such as Facebook; and emailing recommendations to friends.

"Great Websites for Kids is a prime example of the essential work librarians do in disseminating high quality information,” said Mary Fellows, ALSC President. “The GWS transformation is a content-rich, visually exciting advancement for a terrific tool.”
The recent updates to GWS are part of a two-phase makeover for the popular site. Phase two improvements will take place in 2012 and include further development of “social” functionality and interactivity.

ALSC, a division of the American Library Association (ALA), is the world’s largest organization dedicated to the support and enhancement of library service to children. With a network of more than 4,000 children’s and youth librarians, literature experts, publishers and educational faculty, ALSC is committed to creating a better future for children through libraries. To learn more about ALSC, visit www.ala.org/alsc.
(American Libraries Direct, January 4, 2012)

2012 BadgerLunch Webinar Schedule Announced

2012 - BadgerLunch Webinar Series

BadgerLink provides access to quality online information resources for Wisconsin residents at http://www.badgerlink.net/.

 

Want to learn how BadgerLink can help you?

Join BadgerLunch Sessions

Thursdays at Noon
30 - 45 minute sessions

To view the full announcement go to https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B5YmcgoABMUOODUxMDYwZjItZGM0NC00MjBmLWI0NTAtMDBlM2UyMmQ3MTk0

 

Discover BadgerLink

Find resources that you may not realize are available through BadgerLink!

1.19 Wisconsin Digital Archives: Find Information in Wisconsin’s Collection of Electronic State Documents

To Join Click: http://ow.ly/84pkS

 

1.26 Songbook Database: Easily Locate Sheet Music Available for Interlibrary Loan

To Join Click: http://ow.ly/84puX

 

2.2 BadgerLearn: Explore Wisconsin’s Collaborative Learning Space and Training Portal

To Join Click: http://ow.ly/84pEU

 

2.9 Consumer Reports: Connect to Expert, Independently Conducted Studies that Empower Consumers

To Join Click: http://ow.ly/84pZN

 

2.16 Found In Wisconsin: Uncover Wisconsin's Digital Collections

To Join Click: http://ow.ly/84qni

 

2.23 How to Promote BadgerLink: Learn About Ways to Get the Word out About BadgerLink

To Join Click: http://ow.ly/84qpj

 

3.1 Q&A: Get the Answers to Your BadgerLink Questions

To Join Click: http://ow.ly/84qrZ

 

Kara Ripley, Reference and BadgerLink Training Librarian, Department of Public Instruction  kara.ripley@dpi.wi.gov

World Book Night - April 23, 2012

World Book Night U.S.:  Honorary Chair & Book Picks Unveiled

World Book Night U.S., which also unveiled the WBN 2012 U.S. book picks and opened the registration process for those wishing to become volunteer book givers.
 
Author and journalist Anna Quindlen has been named the honorary national chairperson for World Book Night U.S., which also unveiled the WBN 2012 U.S. book picks and opened the registration process for those wishing to become volunteer book givers. 

"What’s better than a good book?" Quindlen asked. "A whole box of them, and the opportunity to share them with new readers. The idea behind World Book Night is inspired, and as a writer and a reader I’m thrilled to be part of it."

World Book Night U.S. board chairman Morgan Entrekin said, "We are thrilled and flattered that Anna has agreed to join our cause. Her energy has already been a great asset to the campaign, and we look forward to her being a leading voice among the many for this ambitious effort to promote reading and a love of books across America."

World Book Night U.S. will enlist 50,000 volunteer book lovers to give away a million free books across the U.S. on April 23, 2012, to help promote reading. Volunteers can go to www.us.worldbooknight.org to register through February 1 by providing answers to several questions and picking a book to give out from the World Book Night U.S. 2012 list.

Regarding the book picks, World Book Night U.S. executive director Carl Lennertz said there will be 30, rather than 25: "We decided to expand several categories, notably from three to five YA/middle reader books, due to popular demand from booksellers and librarians, as well as adding a sci-fi novel, an additional mystery, and a surprise classic from an indie press. I am thrilled about this, as it broadens the appeal of the list to our two audiences: the 50,000 book givers and the million new readers we want to reach."

The books were chosen by a panel of independent booksellers, Barnes & Noble buyers and librarians through several rounds of voting. Thirty-five thousand copies of each World Book Night title will be printed as special, not-for-resale paperbacks, totaling over a million copies to be distributed nationwide. Copies of several of the picks will be shipped directly to military bases, and there will be an outreach to prison libraries.

The 30 World Book Night U.S. titles for 2012, in alphabetical by author, are:

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson (Speak)
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou (Ballantine)
Friday Night Lights by H.G. Bissinger (Da Capo)
Kindred by Octavia E. Butler (Beacon Press)
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card (Tor)
Little Bee by Chris Cleave (Simon & Schuster)
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic)
Blood Work by Michael Connelly (Grand Central)
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz (Riverhead); a Spanish-language edition, La breve y maravillosa vida de Óscar Wao (Vintage Espanol), will also be made available.
Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo (Candlewick)
Zeitoun by Dave Eggers (Vintage)
Peace Like a River by Leif Enger (Grove Atlantic)
A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick (Algonquin)
Q Is for Quarry by Sue Grafton (Berkley)
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead)
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving (Ballantine)
The Stand by Stephen King (Anchor)
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (Perennial)
The History of Love by Nicole Krauss (W.W. Norton)
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri (Mariner)
The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien (Mariner)
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett (Perennial)
My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult (Atria)
Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson (Picador)
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (Back Bay)
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (Broadway)
Just Kids by Patti Smith (Ecco)
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls (Scribner)
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (Knopf Books for Young Readers)

(Shelf Awareness, December 14, 2011) 

Free Recordings Available From the Library 2.011 World-wide Virtual Conference

Library 2.011 Website - What a Find!

The Library 2.011 World-wide Virtual Conference was held November 2 - 4, 2011. The conference was held online, in multiple time zones over the course of two days, was free to attend, and has been recorded! The School of Library and Information Science (SLIS) at San José State University was the founding conference sponsor.

The recordings of the conference sessions can be found HERE.

In addition to the World-wide Virtual Library 2.011 Conference,  the "library 2.011 future of libraries in the digital age" website offers librarians an opportunity to participate in various groups to discuss library related topics.  Here are just a few of the topics:

Using Blog Effectively In Your Organisation

New Breed Programming

Distance/Off-Campus Library Services

New Librarian Experience
Training 2.0
School Libraries
Defining a Mobile Library
and more...

Sign up for a free account today:  http://www.library20.com/?xg_source=msg_mes_network

Grand Opening Children's Learning Center/Story Room

Recently the the Mararthon County Public Library changed the children's space at the Wausau location.  This new children’s Learning Center is debuting this Saturday, Decembe 17, 2011 @ MCPL Wausau.

Join us at 10:30, Saturday, December 17 @ the Wausau location as we celebrate the Grand Opening of the new Children’s Learning Center/Story Room. Perhaps you too will be transported to the seaside while looking at the wall art by our very own Kitty and Deb.

Stories, cake, fun and learning for all. Don’t miss it!
(Sharyn Heili, MCPL Blog December 12, 2011)

OverDrive Ensuring Access to the Largest eBook Catalog for Libraries

At OverDrive, we always advocate on behalf of readers to have and maintain continued access to the largest eBook catalog from our partner libraries and schools. With evolving eBook and digital business rules, OverDrive must constantly adapt to the distribution rights and restrictions that authors and publishers require for library lending of their intellectual property. It’s our important role – and core to our mission – to advocate on behalf of our partner libraries, while upholding publisher usage requirements.

As a result of OverDrive’s cooperation with hundreds of forward-thinking librarians, we are proud to have the largest available catalog of popular eBook and digital content for library lending, negotiated over years, from nearly one thousand supplying publishers. Yes, we are navigating new terrain and challenges every day, while at the same time adding thousands of new titles from dozens of new suppliers who have joined the public library eBook lending channel – all as a result of this existing marketplace.

OverDrive always seeks to obtain the broadest catalog rights and permissions. We also advocate that the investment our library partners make in their OverDrive digital catalogs (cost of materials, MARC records, promoting audience, and decreasing staff costs) provides the highest return with growing circulation and turnover, while honoring the obligations we have from publishers and authors.

We serve a growing network of libraries, schools, corporations, government agencies and institutions, and every week add new publishers and thousands of new eBook titles. Each publisher or author has the ability, on a title-by-title basis, to set the permissions, copyright protection settings, price, and other rules associated with digital lending of their eBook or other digital content. These permissions are constantly under review by publishers, authors, agents, their associations, and many others that impact how we grow our catalog, which now exceeds more than 500,000 digital titles. Under the permissions set by authors and publishers, 99.9% of US public libraries served by OverDrive have access to the exact same catalog of eBook, audiobook, music, and video titles.

Here are a few of the restrictions and rules that publishers and authors require for access to their materials,which have been communicated to OverDrive’s library partners:

1. Geographic and Territorial Rights: Publishers make their content available based on the geographic territory for which they have rights, expressed on a title-by-title basis. This is why our Canadian, UK and Australian libraries see different catalogs when they log into Content Reserve/Marketplace.
2. Library, School, or Special Library Markets: Select suppliers (publishers, film studios, music labels, etc.) have the ability to (and a few do) make their content available only to schools or only to public libraries This may be because the supplier has granted “exclusive” rights to other publishers for these markets, or the publisher may have its own sales force that calls on accounts in these markets.
3. Different Formats and Different Re-distribution Rights: In some cases, multiple publishers may have the same book available, each providing different formats or different geographic permissions. As a result, we occasionally experience changes to title availability where a publisher or author signs a new distribution agreement that alters these rights.
4. Connection to Library Service Area: As Steve Potash communicated in writing to every one of our library partners earlier this year, select publishers set restrictions on their catalogs where the library allows access to the library’s digital collection by card holders that have no connection to the library’s service area. We are constantly working with library IT teams to test and validate patrons’ card status, before they can download copyrighted materials. In very few cases, where an institution does not restrict download access to only patrons with connections to their service area (such as residents, students, property or business owners) there may be limits on access to select publishers’ catalogs.

Every day we are engaged in discussions and negotiations with publishers along with upgrading our Content Reserve distribution platform to encourage publishers’ participation in the largest catalog of eBook, audiobook, music and video suppliers available for library lending. Increased and continued publisher participation is enabled by providing authors and publishers the ability to control how, where, and when their titles are made available for your selection. We take our trusted position very seriously, and are investing in our role to provide you with a growing “marketplace” of digital content.

To that end, if you ever have any questions or concerns about your service, please contact your OverDrive Account Specialist directly. We make every effort to get back to you within 24 hours. In this age of Internet gratification, we know news spreads fast and need to ensure what we communicate is accurate, objective, courteous and professional.
(Karen Estrovich, OverDrive Digital Library Blog, December 12th, 2011)

Reading Between the Lines

It’s been quite a few years since I bothered to put out what passes for a Christmas village display at our house. As it was, Wendtville would be a pretty strange place to live, combining as it does the interests of a librarian and an automotive guy.

The first two units were a miniature gas station and a used car dealership, the second building so small that it didn’t even come with a light bulb. As we acquired and parked various vehicles from the same set, my husband wondered whether little ceramic vandals would roam through the dark car lot causing random acts of damage to the inventory.

So I bought a set of battery powered streetlights which were a royal pain to operate and sucked batteries faster than two kids with straws in a seven ounce bottle of soda. We soon found a little police car to keep the vandals in check and only turned the lights on to impress guests.

The larger automotive service station was added a year or two later along with a wrecker truck, two ceramic mechanics and a couple more cars. A gas war immediately broke out between the first gas station and the larger one down the street; pretty soon both registered identically higher prices.

There were also three libraries – the main building and two more branches accumulated as gifts from different sets – as well as a bookmobile. Little ceramic children carried their books past the gas pumps and squatted under the streetlights next to the used cars to read.

That might have defined the village limits except friends gifted us with a bank (to issue loans for the used cars), a city hall (to pay the librarians), a bookstore, a car wash and a fire station. The 1950’s style diner and classic cars parked all round a musical ice skating rink arrived next, thus making it possible for the little people to read, drive around in clean cars, eat and get gas. We placed the fire station next to the diner in case they served four-alarm chili.

Surrounded as we are these days by economic and political complexities, there’s a mighty temptation to attempt casting real life in a similarly ideal mold. Alas, we cannot pick and choose the component parts of our own village as we might assemble one manufactured by Department 56.

The people and opportunities in our community, however widely that is defined, are not so easily or permanently arranged. Nonetheless, what we acknowledge as well as what we ignore around us in real life sometimes amounts to the same sort of artificial village construction.

Other than in times of crisis, a sense of community is most often visible during the holiday season. Gifts are gathered for needy children and donations pour in for various charities. Efforts are made to reach out and pull into the circle those among us whose lives don’t usually connect. At this time of the year we sometimes realize our own actions can have an impact on others in ways that we weren’t otherwise aware.

It’s that sense of community connectivity and interdependence that has always appealed to me when watching the traditional holiday film “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Average citizen George Bailey wishes he had never been born and, with the temporary granting of his request, sees the town of Bedford Falls as it would have been without his influence. Each of us has the potential to make that same profound difference every day in a positive or negative sense.

A library, with its collection of diverse opinions and unlimited potential to access the writings of all humankind, represents a community of knowledge. In safety and privacy, library customers can freely choose to construct a personal information village by either selecting only that with which they are most comfortable or by gradually acquiring structures of more divergent thought.

My colleague David Polodna, former director of the Winding Rivers Library System, once ruminated on the way in which a community values its library alongside other municipal services.

“Libraries are as ‘essential’ as police and fire departments,” Polodna wrote in 2003. Even though a library isn’t thought of as an emergency agency, he continued, “Libraries work in proactive ways to inform, educate, and assist people to avoid the traumas in the first place. We offer programs and materials on fire safety, personal and home safety, and child rearing skills and responsibilities. In addition, we offer constructive recreational opportunities that can keep people away from the temptation of other activities that can get them into trouble.” There are many times when librarians provide answers in personal situations that could genuinely qualify as an information emergency.

At this year’s annual budget meeting in the town where I live, our chairman ably fielded a question from a taxpayer who complained he was being forced to support a library he never used. “You pay for the fire department and ambulance though you hope you don’t have to call them to your door. And you may not drive on all the town roads,” the questioner was told. “But the library is a positive thing for our community and nothing is stopping you from taking advantage of all it has to offer and getting more than your money’s worth.”

Amen.

Hopefully our citizens will remember the public library as one place in our village where they can find free illumination. May the glow of learning continue to shine from library windows throughout the holidays and upcoming year!

Kris Adams Wendt

Reading Between the Lines

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayna

We are on the threshold of the holidays when the cookbook aisle at most public libraries is a busy place. Most women I know are about to throw themselves into turning out cookies like elves on espresso.

I am, however, a kitchen klutz who did hard time in Remedial Home Economics as a high school senior. Cookbooks given to me by well-meaning friends have actually become mildewed from lack of exercise. I’m the one who habitually brings raw vegetables and dip to the holiday feast. Or Jell-O accompanied by festive soda straws. Or cream liqueurs which, when camouflaged lightly with milk, fortify the real cooks in my family with what we started calling “enhanced calcium.”

Last weekend, while checking the cookbook cupboard for instructions on how to safely microwave a whole squash without attracting the attention of the Town of Newbold Volunteer Fire Department, I ran across a book called I Didn’t Know That: or Why We Say the Things We Say edited by Karlen Evins.

I didn’t know that I owned it and can only assume the slim paperback may have been fraternizing with my cookbooks because “I didn’t know that” is frequently heard in my kitchen. As in “I didn’t know that tin of baking powder was dated September 1975.”

The phrase “I didn’t know that!” is also uttered many times a week in our nation’s public libraries, where equal attention is paid to all questions – whether they concern matters that will have a significant impact on somebody’s life or just something trivial that’s bugging someone.

In her introduction, Evins tells the story of a new bride preparing her first Thanksgiving dinner by of illustrating how knowing what’s behind certain traditions may enable us to take a fresh approach to life’s ongoing challenges.

Evins wrote that as the young woman began to dress the turkey, “she cut off the ends of the bird and placed it in a pan. Her new husband, not certain of the proper cooking procedure, asked his bride, ‘Why do you cut off the ends?’ Her reply: ‘Because my mother always did it.’

“Later that day, the mother of the cook dropped by for lunch, and the newlywed husband thought it an opportune time to learn more about cooking turkey, so he asked his mother-in-law, ‘Why do you cut off the ends of a turkey before you cook it?’

“With as much consideration as the daughter had given the question earlier, the mother-in-law answered, ‘Because MY mother always did.’

“Finally the meal was prepared, the guests were seated and the grandmother of the bride was posed the same question by the now anxious and eager grandson-in-law. ‘Grandma, why do you cut off the ends of a turkey before you cook it?’ he asked.

“With trembling hands, the grandmother replied, ‘Well in my day, the pans were only this big!’”

Karlin Evins concludes, “This story illustrates a point and that is that our reasons for many of the things we do today make little sense logically, though at one time, perhaps they did.”

The homily could easily apply to library policies and procedures devised B.C. (before computers) or otherwise held onto long after the reasons for them have faded into the mists of bibliographic time.

Recent weeks have seen much speculation on how congressional cooks might influence what’s brought to the table in a presidential election year. Not only the federal budget table, but also in the sense of what’s on the actual dinner table of ordinary Americans hungry for a meaningful role in their government and a greater sense of economic well-being.

Speaking personally as a member of our notoriously fact-based profession, much of what passes for info-tainment in the political arena these days – at both the state and national levels and especially on the debate stage – is enough to drive a person to enhanced calcium.

From a librarian’s point of view, trying to set a national course without knowing or understanding our common history and literature is like wasting the ends of a perfectly good turkey. “I didn’t know that” is no excuse. “I don’t need to know that” is even worse.

If new cooks merely end up following traditional recipes that value concentrations of wealth and power but devalue working people, the turkeys will still be dry and tasteless regardless of being surrounded by different distracting garnishes or presented on a blue or a red platter.

Kris Adams Wendt

WPLC OverDrive Offers Publicity and Support

At the recent WPLC board meeting, it was noted that Christmas is right around the corner. With that, we can probably expect another tidal wave of e-reader gifts and questions from their new owners. The bulked-up buying pool will be in effect by then, too, and more titles will be available, so traffic will be heavy.

To get ready, here are a few ideas for publicity and support.

PUBLICITY

• OverDrive has a video with ideas on promoting the collection:

Community Outreach.
Maximize circs … get the word out Learn creative techniques for introducing new users to your OverDrive service. We'll showcase a range of promotional ideas from high circulating libraries that you can implement inside and outside your library.

      View the slides and/or the recording: http://overdrive.com/LearningCenter/viewnow.aspx 

• Check out the marketing materials on the OverDrive site; most of these can be customizable. I'll distribute any that have been customized for WPLC as I see them, or let me know which you'd like. 

SUPPORT

• More OverDrive videos on the training site: http://overdrive.com/LearningCenter/viewnow.aspx; See both: the e-book explosion, and Patron assistance
• Keep up with changes to the site by reading the WPLC list; I'll also post FAQs coming through the support email

(Jane Richard, WILS & WPLC)