News from May, 2009

Ann Hutton, Executive DirectorAs the SELCO office has received several questions about the possibility of closing libraries in light of the first confirmed case of the H1N1 (swine) flu, I am posting the message shared with SELCO employees as an example of precautionary language that library directors and library boards may share with staff.  While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Minnesota Department of Health are certainly urging preventative measures, circumstances do no warrant library closures.

The following notification was sent to SELCO staff.  Feel free to adapt the sample language for local notifications:
    As I am sure you have heard, an individual at a Cold Spring school was the first in the state with a confirmed case of the H1N1 (swine) flu virus.  The symptoms of H1N1 flu are similar to symptoms of regular human seasonal influenza and include fever, lethargy, lack of appetite and coughing.  Some people with H1N1 flu also have reported runny nose, sore throat, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.

    Because this case may have a health impact on Minnesota, I am reminding staff about appropriate preventive measures:

          WASH YOUR HANDS frequently with soap and water, particularly before and after eating and before and after using someone else's computer.

          COVER YOUR COUGH.

          STAY HOME any time you are ill or are presenting respiratory symptoms. If you are running a fever, consult your physician to consider being tested for H1N1 flu.

    If you are tested and notified that you may have a "probable" case of H1N1 flu, please immediately notify Aimee Lake or Ann Hutton.  Similarly, if you are in *close contact* with someone who has been notified they have the probable or confirmed virus, notify us immediately.  A probable or confirmed case would require SELCO to prepare for extenuating circumstances and we prefer as much advance notice as possible.

    For more information about H1N1 flu, visit the Centers for Disease Control at http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/.  The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) has also set up a hotline at 800-657-3903.
    MDH is monitoring the situation in Cold Spring, and we will notify SELCO staff if any action becomes necessary.

Mollie Pherson, Regional Librarian

Good news for folks in Adams!  A trial program has been set to start during the 2009-2010 school year where Adams citizens will be able to check out materials from the Austin Public Libraryon Wednesday nights at the Southland school library.  Details are still being worked out, but this is a step in the right direction.  Volunteers will run the special hours at the library, and computers will be available for patrons to use.  For more information, check out the full Austin Post-Bulletin article by clicking here.

Looking for a cool fundraiser?  The Rochester Public Library Foundationis sponsoring the Amusing Race fundraiser for the third year in a row.  The fundraiser is based off the TV show, "The Amazing Race," where people are given clues to solve.  Teams of four register, pay a registration fee, and money is also raised during the race.  The money raised by the foundation is used to support local library programs like tudor.com.  The race usually lasts two to four hours, prizes go to the top three finishers, and a free lunch is provided by a local business.  To read the Rochester Post-Bulletin article, please click here.  For more info about Rochester's event, visit www.amuzingrace.org.

The Stewartville Public Library is the first public library in the SELCO region to have items featured in the Minnesota Digital Library's Minnesota Reflections database.  To access the historical photos and documents, click here.  Some SELS members have also contributed documents and photos to the database.  To see the collections, please click on the names.

• Carleton College
• Freeborn County Historical Society
• Goodhue County Historical Society
• Northfield Historical Society
• Olmsted County Historical Society
• St. Olaf College
• Winona State University
• Winona County Historical Society

Michael Scott, Assistant Director

On May 4, 2009, I had the privilege of visiting the Media Center at LeRoy-Ostrander Schools in LeRoy, MN.  Located in a single building in LeRoy, the school houses grades K-12 and has an enrollment of 300 students.

Rhonda Barnes, LeRoy-Ostrander Librarian, welcomed me to the Media Center and gave me the grand tour.  The media center is a large bright space that is very welcoming to students and houses a large book collection, study tables and chair for students, and a number of public access computers.  Two special highlights of the space are a centrally-located, semi-enclosed storytime space and a beautiful mural that "swirls" its way through the media center along the outside wall.  The storytime space is painted with the cardinal red of the school's mascot and has carpeted steps for students to sit and listen to a story.  The lighting is soft and makes a great spot for students to gather.  The mural contains various storybook characters and really does seem to swirl through the media center.  On the day I visited, students were making use of the computers, studying at tables, and checking out and returning books - considered a quiet day at the media center!

I also received a mini-tour of the school itself.  As you can see in the LeRoy-Ostrander photo seton SELCO's Flickr site, I had a chance to peek into the Band Room, of which they are very proud.  Other areas of the school that I had the chance to see were the industrial agriculture area (with an area large enough to pull a combine in for repairs), the shop and industrial arts area, gym, commons area, and the school's greenhouse, which was having a plant sale.  I also had the chance to meet several staff members at the school along the way, including the school's principal, Aaron Hungerholt, who stopped by the Media Center to visit with me briefly.

A couple of special programs that the Media Center provides for the students are the Scholastic Book Fair and "Breakfast and Books."  Breakfast and Books is held in late February/early March and is a time for elementary students to enjoy breakfast and reading books with their parents and watch a program by actors from the local community theatre.  This program has been a long-standing committment by the Media Center and continues to be a huge success.

I want to say thank you to Rhonda for a great visit and making me feel so welcome at the LeRoy-Ostrander Schools!  Your pride in your school certainly shows.

Ann Hutton, Executive Director

The Minnesota group heading to Washington, DC for National Library Legislative Day 2009 will be a smaller than usual but no less passionate about libraries and quality services in these finacially challenging times.  On May 11-12, I will be lobbying for libraries with Melissa Brechon, Carver County Library, Peter Pearson, Friends of the St. Paul Public Library, Dave Pointon, 3M and Mike Bloomberg, Augsburg College and MLA Federal Legislative Chair.

Major topics this year of interest for SELCO/SELS libraries and a quick preview:

• LSTA - An annual favorite with lots of examples of good work.
• Broadband and Telecom - Keeping SELCO and the Online Libraries connected.
• Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act - Lots of concern about lead and children's books.
• American Recovery and Reinvestment Act - How can SELCO libraries benefit?

ALA's Washington Office offers NLLD 2009 information including in-depth briefing papers on these topics and other legislative issues.   Additional SELCO Librarian blog posts and Fickr pix will all be tagged NLLD2009 or you can follow me on Twitter at hutton356.  Stay tuned for more from our nation's Capitol.

Ann Hutton, Executive Director

ALA President, Jim Rettig, welcomed the 400+ attendees to NLLD and expounded on one of the themes from his presidential year --- advocacy within the library ecosystems.  As an academic librarian, he sees first hand the difficulties students experience who have not had research training in their K-12 learning environment.  Warming the hearts of many of his listeners, he likened the local public library to other community first responders since it is the library that is on the first line of defense for many in this strange and unprecedented economic environment.  He believes that libraries of all types are interdependent and need to advocate for each other.  "If a school system gets rid of its library it is leaving its children behind and while the first responders, the public library, will do a lot it cannot do it all."

Rettig stressed that all of the NLLD issues are library issues not just by type of library but within an integrated library ecosystem.  And as to why we come to Washington to lobby, Rettig said, "We don't do it for libraries we do it for the people they serve."With Rettig's vision, ALA's Office for Library Advocacywill create a new website identifying best practices from around the country and detailing how effective libraries coalition build with other libraries, within cities, communities, and states.  Library Stategies, a consulting group of the Friends of the St. Paul Public Library will perform the research.

Ann Hutton, Executive Director

Emily Sheketoff, Executive Director, ALA Washington Office offered her thoughts on the "New Congress, New Administration: What to Expect in the 111th Congress." Despite a new administration with majorities in the House and Senate, it is still an uphill task to secure support for libraries.  There are raised expectations by many groups seeking financial support and members are being selective of what they agree to support.

Senators Reed (D-RI) and Snowe (R-ME)  are circulating a letter of support for LSTA and the Improving Literacy Through School Libraries program.  Signatures are being collected until May 14 and Minnesota readers of this blog post should contact Senator Klobuchar's office and encourage her to sign on at 202-224-3244 or via her web form.   The House letter was sent on April 2, 2009 and Representative Oberstar was one of 26 supporters.

Ruthann Horning, SELCO-EQS Scholarship Recipient, Rochester Public Library

Thanks to Selco for the opportunity to attend the symposium for "Enhancing Quality Staff". It was informative and enjoyable.

One of my favorite programs was "B is for Battle Cry" with David Geister, an historical artist and children's book illustrator. He shared how, even as a child, he was fascinated by the American Civil War. As he read "The Red Badge of Courage" and "Gettysburg" his fascination with the American Civil War became his life's passion.  His art ability was recognized early in life. As a fourth grader he won a prize of $100 in a 5-state art contest and later as a young man was asked to reproduce an enlarged version of a picture of a Virginia mansion for a restaurant. Even on his wedding day, he and his bride were dressed in 1860's attire and invited their guests to do so also. As he spoke to us, he was dressed in a woolen Civil War jacket, belt and cap. As an illustrator he uses real people as models for his work. His wife, some of her students and a possible future son-in-law have served as models for him. His most recent work is illustrating his wife's book on the Civil War alphabet entitled "B is for Battle Cry". His work shows fine attention to detail as he strives for complete historical accuracy in his illustrations. I was captivated by this man's enthusiasm for his life's work and his dedication to it.

Thanks again for the opportunity to attend this fine symposium.

Marilyn Sheehan, SELCO-EQS Scholarship Recipient, Rochester Public Library

Thank you to SELCO for sponsoring me to the workshop.  I enjoyed the sessions as well as meeting SELCO staff members Melanie Olson and Becky Littlefield.  It was a most enjoyable day.

The session that impressed me the most was done by Craig Sorum from the FBI.  He spoke on the topic of Cybercrime and what the Bureau is doing to intercept terroritsts, hackers, and child predators .They are trying to protect us from foreign intruders in an effort to preserve our military secrets, telecommunications, bank information, public health, transportation system, postal service and our national monuments.  Every citizen can be of help by reporting if the functions on your computer have been hacked.  If they find several similar incidents coming from a locale, they will investigate.

Mollie Pherson, Regional Librarian

A Special Library focuses on the interests inherent in the institution it serves. Church libraries serve their organization, its members, and often the surrounding community. Collaboration between church libraries and the other nearby libraries strengthens the services provided to their communities.  Below are some useful links for Church Libraries and for searching religious sources:

• American Bible Society site contains links to numerous resources, including children's activities
• BibleGateway.comSearch by passage, keyword, or subject in a variety of versions.  Audio reading, Commentaries, and Topical Indexes are also available
• Daily Bible Readings from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA)
• Easter Dates through 2024, from the U.S. Naval Observatory.  Includes description of establishing the date of Easter
• Episcopal Glossary of Liturgical Terms
• Hymn stories from St. Peter's Church, Nottingham
• Our Daily Bread Daily devotions
• Revised Common Lectionary Vanderbilt Divinity Library
• Textweek indexes arranged by Scripture passages
• Virtual Religion Index meta index of religion, philosophy, and theology resources

Michael Flores, User Technology Manager

On Wednesday, May 6th Rushford Public Library held a scrapbooking program for people interested in learning more about it.  Creative Memories Consultant, Jill Flores, was there to demonstrate some items as well as help people create their own items for Mother's Day.  Participants used kits to create their own Mother's Day cards or brought pictures with to create their own min-scrap book.  Library Director, Susan Hart, was there to help out and take pictures of some of the participants in this program.  Susan is hoping that this will spark an interest in scrapbooking.  She is also hoping to hold more scrapbooking programs later this year.

Becky Littlefield, Cataloging and Interlibrary Loan Assistant

On May 5th I had the opportunity to go to the Enhancing Quality Staff symposium.  My favorite panel that I attended this year was the panel on New Technologies by Eric Celeste.

We spent a lot of time discussing one of Google's new offerings called Google Voice.  Google Voice allows you to have one telephone number that rings in multiple locations.  It also allows you to set up a voicemail account, record your calls, and also to make long distance calls for the same rate as a local call.  I am very excited for this application to go live!

Another thing that we looked at was a new search engine from the makers of Mathematica called WolframAlpha.  Eric felt that this was going to be the new thing amongst teenagers.  It works differently from traditional search engines because instead of providing links to pages that contain the search query, it works to provide answers.  You can ask it a scientific question and it will compute the answer for you.

One of the last things we explored was an artist called Kutiman who takes people who are performing on YouTube and remixes them to create new music.  He then posts this on a website called Thru You.  I thought this was very interesting and exciting.

Michael Flores, User Technology Manager

As some of you may have heard Microsoft is releasing a new operating system called Windows 7, which should be out late 2009 or early 2010.  Windows 7 has a very similar look and feel to Windows Vista, but has a lot of other changes under the hood.  Windows 7 is still just in a release candidate phase and has not been commercially released yet.  We have done some minor testing on the release candidate here at SELCO just to see how some things work, and what kind of impact there will be yet.  Much like the release of Windows Vista, once it comes out we will give it a stricter test to make sure it will work in the capacity of both a staff and public computer.  While the tool we use on the public computers, Windows Steady State, has not released a version to work with Windows 7, there have been rumors of integrated tools in Windows 7 that could do similar functions.  One of them that I have read is called PC Safeguard, however I have also read rumors that PC Safeguard may be removed from the actual Windows 7 release.

All in all, when you hear Windows 7 know that it is not officially released yet and that there are still changes being made.  Once it is released we will do some testing on our end to make sure it will work in a library environment with support following by a few months after the release.  Much of our support however will depend on its ability to work with some of our other tools, such as Anti-Virus, Windows Steady State, Citrix, and CleanSlate.  Once Windows 7 has actually been released and we have done some testing, we will have more information for you.  If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to contact us on the SELCO Help Desk and we will be more than happy to discuss them with you.

Ann Hutton, Executive Director

Despite the challenging economic times, Members of Congress are hopeful and upbeat about libraries --- plus it was a beautiful sunny day to be in Washington, DC.  I was part of a small but effective group from Minnesota who briefed legislative staff and Members on issues important to daily library operations as part of National Library Legislative Day.

Library Services and Technology Act - LSTA

Topping our list was the re-authorization of LSTA.  The approximately $2.9 million which Minnesota receives pays for statewide delivery, as well as other statewide projects such as the Minnesota Digital Library project.  Each year a portion of the funds are dedicated to competitive grants.  We distributed information and highlighted projects in each congressional district.

eRate

Now in its 11th year, the discounts and reimbursement provided by the eRate program ensures continued telecommunication bandwidth and Internet access in public libraries  and schools around Minnesota.  Rather than seeking an annual exemption to keep the eRate program in compliance with the Antideficiency Act (ADA) accounting requirements, ALA is urging passage of S. 348, a bill introduced by Senators Rockefeller (WV) and Snowe (ME) and in the House, a companion bill, H.R. 2135, introduced by Rep. Rehberg (MT).

Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 -CPSIA

Legislative staff had varying degrees of knowledge about Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) General Counsel's interpretation of the CPSIA which stated that books will be subject to the same testing standards as children's toys. An interpretation that sent school and public libraries into panic wondering what might become of library collections.  With a one year stay of implementation, ALA is urging Congress to clarify CPSIA, specifying what was and was not intended to be included.  We alerted the Minnesota congressional delegation to a new bill introduced by Rep. Fortenberry (NE), H.R. 1692, which clarifies legislative intent that CPSIA was not intended to apply to ordinary books.

Because this is such a complicated topic with far reaching consequences, ALA is conducting bi-weekly conference calls with the Chief Officers of State Library Agencies and ALA State Chapter Councillers.  Minnesota representatives invited to participate in this regular teleconference are: Suzanne Miller, State Librarian, and Melissa Brechon, Director of the Carver County Library and ALA Chapter Counciler.

Rachel Gray, Information Services Librarian

SELCO upgraded our WebMail Exchange Server back in February 2009, and with this upgrade, there are new features and options available for us to use.  In this episode of SELCOtv, we will touch on some of these changes, & will hopefully help you use Outlook Web Access more fully.

The next 2 episodes will be looking at other features of Outlook Web Access, so stay tuned for more info!

• SELCOtv - Introduction to Outlook Web Access

Greg Sauve, Reference Services, Rochester Public Library

Note:  Greg was one of 4 SELCO member library staff from across the region who were sponsored by SELCO to attend the 18th Annual Minitex ILL Conference on May 19, 2009.

During Ray Wilson's talk on tools for improving your workplace, one of the ideas he presented is worth thinking about. Based on his experience in improving productivity in many organizations, he stated that "Treating everything equally is more efficient than prioritizing everything!" I started thinking how this applies to our technical services area, but it could also apply to interlibrary loans. Our library prioritizes items with patron holds for processing first, so they are not stuck in a processing backlog while patrons are waiting.

Ideally, every incoming item should be processed quickly enough so that prioritizing isn't needed. On the other hand, no matter how many steps you can save by looking at the workflow process, there are times when there are not enough staff to handle incoming materials quickly. The flow of incoming materials is not even, depending on budget cycles, selection and acquisitions dept. staffing, or vendor deliveries. In part, the answer could be cross-training enough people in the staff to enable flexibility when more staff are needed in a department such as technical services.

Marshall Breeding's session on next generation library automation was more abstract in nature, with less immediate application to interlibrary loan practices. He mentioned that ILS vendors often ignore the technological needs of interlibrary loan because it is so difficult to create software for this area. The result is that interlibrary loan remains the most labor intensive area per item in library operations, costing upwards of $20 per item (adding borrowing and lending libraries' staff time, plus overhead delivery costs and processing.) MNLINK has improved the requesting side of the process, shifting staff time in requesting materials to the requesting patron. The flip side is that by opening interlibrary loan to unmediated borrowing, demand for interlibrary loan staff time has multiplied, from MINITEX staff down to the lending/borrowing libraries. ILL volume has more than doubled in the state from 400,000 requests to over 1,000,000 in the past five years. 40-50% of MNLINK requests are for AV material, not readily available in many cases, resulting much more staff time needed to notify patrons of unsupplied requests.

As Marshall Breeding and Bill DeJohn stated, part of the solution is to make our ILL automation more efficient, or smarter. We have just started using NCIP at our library, which makes interaction possible between VDX and Symphony, our ILS. Records for ILL records are automatically added when received on VDX and holds are placed. When lending materials, the items are automatically checked out in Symphony when marked shipped in VDX. It promises to be a great time saver, my only complaint is why didn't this happen years ago! All due to meager financing for software in the library field compared to the business world, as remarked by Marshall Breeding.

MNLINK needs to go a long way in improving user communication with the goal of becoming "smarter". Availability status is currently buried in "details". When a patron places a request, a smart system would tell the patron that the item is currently unavailable for lending or available at the patron's home library (or possibly give the option to reserve the item when available.)  A patron message box or MNLINK, or interaction with an email address supplied by the patron would also help in communication. Instead of leaving the burden of communication to ILL staff at the end of the process, real-time communication between the lending libraries status replies (lost, in use, too new, in process) and patrons would give needed information about their request status.

Marshall Breeding focused much of his talk on integrating digital resources of the library with the catalog, presenting users with the full range of information when searching.  My experience at our library has been negative with this type of searching. At least in the library, patrons generally want either items to borrow and take home, or online information they can print, email or save, but not both. The single search options we tried turned out to be too complex for the average user, and resulting in confusing patrons. Many wandered around the library looking for magazine citations that they assumed were books, or vice versa. Integrating different magazine/journal/newspaper/reference book databases into a full text digital resource does sound more useful for public library users.  The answer is making integrated searches more sophisticated and simpler at the same time, guiding users to focus on what types of materials they need, and providing the results in an easy to understand format.

Mollie Pherson, Regional Librarian

Another SELCO member library has been affected due to the economic turmoil in the state of Minnesota.  The La Crescent Public Libraryboard made the decision to implement cuts right now so they would not have to make further cuts at the beginning of 2010.  The library will be cutting one part time position and cutting the hours of all of the remaining La Crescent Public Libraryemployees.  The hours were also cut, eliminating open hours on Mondays and cutting an hour of service on Wednesdays and Thursdays.  These changes will remain in effect for the foreseeable future.  Funds will only be spent on essential items as well.  To help a little, the library now has a "Wishing Tree" where folks looking to help the library can take a leaf off the "Wishing Tree," buy the item that is listed on the leaf, and give it back to the library as a tax deductible donation.  Check out the La Crescent's "Wishing Tree" by clicking here.

Michael Scott, Assistant Director

I had the opportunity to attend the 18th Annual Minitex ILL Conference which was held at the Continuing Education & Conference Center on the University of Minnesota St. Paul Campus.  This year's conference featured two excellent speakers, Marshall Breeding and Ray Wilson.  The conference had good attendance by library staff from around the Minitex region.  SELCO was also able to sponsor 4 member library staff from around the region to attend this conference, including Greg Sauve from Rochester Public Library, LaVonne Beach from LaCrescent Public Library, Kathy Rush from Northfield Public Library, and Patti Tieskoetter from Red Wing Public Library.

Marshall Breeding was the keynote speaker for the day and spoke on the topic, "Next Generation Library Automation and Its Implications for Resource Sharing."  Marshall is the Director for Innovative Technologies and Research for the Vanderbilt University Libraries.  Marshall also writes the "Systems Librarian" column in Computers In Libraries, has authored the "Automation System Marketplace" featured in Library Journal since 2002, and manages the Library Technology Guideswebsite.  Marshall's presentation focused on next generation library automation which move beyond providing information about just the print collection of a library and including a much more diverse collection of information resources such as digital materials, articles, and so on.  Most library automation systems in place today were created when the focus of libraries was on a print collection.  He talked about a redefinition of the library catalog to one that has a more comprehensive information discovery environment, better search capabilities, better information delivery tools, and a more elegant presention.  Tying into interlibrary loan, he pointed out that library automation has to move beyond "discovery" to "fulfillment."  Resorce sharing modules as part of library automation systems are difficult for the vendors to create and thus haven't been done well.  Standard protocols like NICP are too slowly being implemented and have difficulty addressing all the necessary functionality.  So what are we using?  A complex system of different ILS's, ILL managment systems (VDX, Illiad, etc.), and regional or even global ILL agreements (regional library systems, Minitex, OCLC, etc.) to fulfill our patrons requests.  Marshall points out that we must continue to find more efficient and user-friendly systems to not just allow our library patrons to "discover" what we have but for our library patrons to have their information needs "fulfilled."  If Amazon.com can offer one-click buying, why can't libraries?

Ray Wilson, president of Ray Wilson & Associates, did a presentation in the afternoon on the "Seven (+3!) Tools for Improving Your Workplace."  As he stated, the purpose of his presentation was to give the group some tools for continuous improvement (CI) and assist us in looking at situations where they could be used.  He started with the building block of any good CI program:  data.  I really took this to heart as so many times we can get caught up in "anecdotal" information without always looking at the data.  An easy tool to use to collect the data is the Check Sheet.  Basically, this sheet is used to capture data and organize it into a few categories.  The example we used during this session was to take complaints from a comment box, arrange them into categories, and create a tally sheet with rows of the categories down the left side of the page and columns for each day of the week.  Att the bottom of the sheet were listed some agreed-upon definitions for the categories so that everyone collecting data was on the same page.  The suggestion then was to have these tally sheets spread around the library so that staff could easily record (with a "tick" mark) issues or problems they heard or dealt with in any of the categories.  Sound familiar to anyone working at a reference or circulation desk?  After the data is collected, Ray shared with the group various tools that work as part of process to analyze the data.  Once data was analyzed, he suggested three questions to ask ourselves as we decide on where to devote our work energies:

1. What is it we're trying to accomplish?
2. How will we know if what we try is an improvement?
3. What can we try tomorrow?

Finally, Bill DeJohn gave an update on Minitex.  They are seeing significant increases in the use of ILL (both articles and books), searches in ELM, and the number of materials moving through delivery.  One statistic that really stood out for me was that 40-50% of all materials going through the MnLINK Gateway are AV materials.  We certainly see that in the ILLs we process at SELCO.  The challenges are large for all of us, from budgets shrinking, to increasing use of our materials, to the pressure on delivery of materials.  However, even with all of the challenges, Bill offered these important words and phrases as part of his presentation:  self-sufficiency, improve performance, and be more efficient.

LaVonne Beach, Director, LaCrescent Public Library

Note:  LaVonne was one of 4 SELCO member library staff from across the region who were sponsored by SELCO to attend the 18th Annual Minitex ILL Conference on May 19, 2009.

I enjoyed the two speakers who presented at this year's Minitex ILL Conference.  Though I have heard Marshall Breeding speak before, I am always amazed at the extent of his knowledge of library automation systems and trends in library automation.  One thing new that I learned during his presentation was the website that he has developed called Library Technology Guides.  The site has lots of useful information, including a directory of libraries from around the world called lib-web-cats.  Of course, I just had to look and see if I could find the listing for LaCrescent Public Library, which I did.

This was the first time that I have heard Ray Wilson talk.  I plan to implement the check sheet for comments and complaints as we move towards the new reduced hours at the Library.  This will be an invaluable tool to track the impact of the reductions and have solid statistics to present to the City Council as we seek money next year.

Karen Bodin, SELCO-EQS Scholarship Recipient, Red Wing Public Library

Pass It Along:  How Wanda Gag's Picture Book, "Millions of Cats", was Imagined, Retold, Written, Illustrated, Archived, Researched and Translated to Impact Readers, was presented by Karen Nelson Hoyle, the curator of the Children's Literature Research Collections (including the Kerlan and Hess) at the University of Minnesota Libraries for the past 40 years.  From the start, you could tell she was very passionate about her subject, and even thought the title subject was Wanda Gag's books, she explained how the entire Kerlan collection at the U came into being.  Karen is the author of a biography on Wanda Gag, and had many little anecdotes to tell of the life and lifestyle of this gifted author and illustrator.  Along with retelling the story, "Millions of Cats", she showed many of the illustrations from that book and others.  I found the session very interesting, even knowing nothing about the subject beforehand, mainly because of the passion and excitement that Karen put into her presentation.  It made me want to go and explore the Kerlan collection myself!

Diane Burfeind, SELCO-EQS Scholarship Recipient, Red Wing Public Library

The 2009 Enhancing Quality Staff Conference once again proved to be a great Conference.  There are always valuable sessions to gain information from, both professionally and personally.  The most thought provoking session I attended at the May 2009 conference was "Values, Visions and Voices: Ethical Issues in Troubled Times".  The speaker was Mike McGlynn from the U of M Human Resources Office.  He is guaranteed to keep you awake for a 2 hour session following lunch. The subject of ethics in the workplace is always relevant, but especially in these difficult economic times.  I ended the day by attending the "Geocaching" session.  Caches can also be located in libraries!  What a fun adventure that I hope to make a hobby of mine.

Michael Scott, Assistant Director

On May 6, 2009, I had the opportunity to visit the Media Center at the Mabel-Canton Schools, in Mabel, MN.  This was the first of two visits that day to SELS member schools not online with the SELCO ILS.  Mabel-Canton Schools is a single-building district serving grades Pre-Kindergarten through 12th Grade.  The media center serves all grades and is located near the main entrance to the school.  Laura Schulte is in charge of the Mabel-Canton Media Center and met with me to show off the space.  The space is large and bright with plenty of tables and chairs available for study or meetings, a large bank of public access computers, and a good collection of materials for all students.  As one would expect, elementary and high school materials are separated in the Media Center but are easily identified.  Laura has been working to update the collection particularly in the heavily used areas of the collection, such as the sciences (oh those animal books!) and juvenile and young adult fiction.  Even with limited funds, Laura is able to add some new items to the collection.  Mabel-Canton Schools also receives delivery through SELCO one day per week and that has been very useful to the students and staff at the school.

The school uses the Accelerated Readerprogram for reading and have implemented up throughout the elementary grades.  The program seems to work well for them and has helped with reading scores.  A special program available to Mabel-Canton Schools this summer is the ability to provide AR access outside the school at the public library.  Laura has worked with the Mabel Public Libraryto get AR set up on the Library's computers so that students can continue reading and take the AR quizzes between the 2008-09 and 2009-10 school years.  I was pleased to hear about this collaboration and hope to be able to report on this project this fall.

I want to say thank you to Laura for the opportunity to visit the Media Center at the Mabel-Canton Schools!  Check out photos of my visit in the Mabel-Canton Schools' folder on SELCO's Flickr site.

Rachel Gray, Information Services Librarian

May 2009 meeting of the SELCO Technology Users Group. This video has been broken into 4 parts for ease of viewing.

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3a (The YouTube video can be found here.)
• Part 3b
• Part 4

Mollie Pherson, Regional Librarian

Starting with the May/June 2009 SELCO/SELS Update, the staff-produced newsletter discussing all of the latest news regarding SELCO and SELS, each issue will feature one of the SELCO Special Consultants projects taking place in the region.  The first project featured is the Rushford Public Library PR and Marketing project, where Rushford Public Library Director Susan Hart and SELCO PR & Marketing Special Consultant Mark Reidell worked together to create a marketing plan to promote the construction of the new library in Rushford.  Ideas included getting the community involved in a fundraising kick-off event in October 2009 for the public phase of the new library fundraising campaign and promoting the library webpage and wireless internet using signage in the windows, magnets with the website address, and bookmarks.  During initial planning, Susan worked with Crescendo, a fundraising firm, to conduct an assessment study which recommended fundraising $1 million for the new library.  Susan Hart is pleased with the Special Consultants program and said, "Mark Reidell is a great listener!  He is very good at taking a look at the big picture, narrowing the scope to a manageable focus for the best results."

Check out the Rushford Public Library's website by clicking here.

The SELCO Special Consultants project is a unique service for public libraries where libraries may draw on a wide range of expertise from a varied group of subject specialists who, during the next two to three years, will concentrate on PR & Marketing, Teen Programs, Inviting Spaces, and Literacy Development.  For more information, please click here.

Michael Scott, Assistant Director

Looking for a few good websites that have information about services for seniors?  Here are a few websites from Minnesota & beyond that have some great information about senior services.

• Rochester Public Library
• St. Paul Public Library
• Hennepin County Library
• Lawrence (KS) Public Library
• East Islip (NY) Public Library
• AARP
• The Center on Aging, Health & Humanities
• SELCO Senior Techies
• Webliography

Rachel Gray, Information Services Libarian

Video recording of the May 21, 2009 meeting of the SELCO ILS Operations & Technology Policy Joint Committee.  This meeting video has been broken into 3 pieces for ease of viewing.

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3

Michael Scott, Assistant Director

On May 6, 2009, I had the opportunity to visit the Media Center at the Spring Grove Schools in Spring Grove, MN.  This was the second of two visits that day (see my visit to Mabel-Canton Schools for the other visit) to SELS member schools not online with the SELCO ILS.  The Spring Grove Schools is a single-building district that serves 336 students from Pre-Kindergarten through 12th grade.  The Media Center serves all grades and is a large, inviting space.  Bev Nelson, Spring Grove Media Specialist and Susan Jahnke, Media Aide, gave me a tour of their space.  To see pictures from my visit, check out the photos in the Spring Grove Schools folder on SELCO's Flickr site.

There is a lot going on in this space!  A large information desk is located near the front entrance so that students can easily check out or return books or ask questions.  There is additional staff work space including Bev's desk (she didn't want any pictures of her desk because she felt it was too messy!), a large processing area for books, and a back storage room that houses videos, TVs, and other equipment.  Definitely spaces that other libraries or media centers would LOVE to have!  For students, there are a number of public access computers for study and research which are located right in the middle of the space.  A large number of tables and chairs are available for study throughout the media center as well as for classes and meetings.  The Media Center's book collection is large, divided into elementary books and middle & high school books, and are located on opposite sides of the space.  The space also houses a small conference room and a Storytime room, complete with a colorful mural as can be seen above.

On the day I visited the Spring Grove Media Center, the place was buzzing with activity.  Students were using computers, reading, studying, talking, etc.  Even though there are a large number of places for students to sit, the space was completely full.  Bev and Susan report that they do get good use by students.  Elementary students have regular "library" time every week while middle and high school students use the Media Center either for a specific class or come in when it is convenient.  Besides her duties as the Media Specialist, Bev also teaches a writing course.

For those of you who follow my posts about visiting libraries and media centers you might have noticed a few additional pictures during this visit.  Besides showing off Spring Grove's space, Bev and Susan were also interested in ideas about how to arrange their space.  They are going to get new carpet this summer and wanted to take the opportunity to re-arrange the space.  Take a look at the photos on Flickr and if you have ideas, please feel free to email Bev Nelson at bev.nelson@springgrove.k12.mn.us.

I want to say a big thank you to Bev and Susan for making allowing me to visit them and see what is happening at the Spring Grove Schools Media Center.

Mollie Pherson, Regional Librarian

Over 180 people from across the Minitex region attended the Eighteenth Annual Interlibrary Loan Conference on May 19, 2009, including me.  I was really excited to attend because this year's morning keynote speaker was Marshall Breeding, Director for Innovative Technologies and Research for the Vanderbilt University Libraries in Nashville, TN.  I didn't get the chance to see him present his Tech Expectationsworkshop at SELCO in 2007, so I was really looking forward to hearing his ideas about the role of technology regarding interlibrary loan and the advancement of open source and next generation integrated library systems.

I appreciated hearing Marshall speak about how library automation isn't a one-size fits all type of thing, that every library, staff and patrons have their own specific and unique requirements needed to function.  Due to the new needs of patrons, we need to be thinking more about automation systems that search for the traditional print materials AND the electronic resources available to the public--this makes for a more user-friendly environment for the patron, a sort of one-stop-shopping experience.  Check out www.librarytechnology.org to see what's going on in the library automation world!

Interesting fact:  There are 16,887 public libraries in the United States!!