ALA Presidential Candidates Forum

If you weren't able to attend ALAs midwinter meetings (I wasn't), there are a number of videos available on ALAs YouTube channel including the 2015 ALA Midwinter Meeting Presidential Candidates Forum.

More QR Codes ...

More discussion regarding QR codes and libraries! This link to Guided by Barcodes, an American Libraries Magazine article by Meridith Farkas, provides a nice overview of QR codes and a few more workable ideas on how they may be incorporated into library instruction, accompanying handouts, and web pages.

Even more fun, the power of Facebook ... I was led to the ALA article from OhioLINK's Facebook page re-posted by a "Facebook Friends" (thanks, Susan).

Sparky Award Web Tools

A message from Adam Burling at ALA:

The organizers of the Sparky Awards video contest have released several new resources to help college instructors and librarians engage students in an exploration of information sharing and copyright by encouraging their participation in the 2008 contest, “MindMashup: The Value of Information Sharing.” Contestants are invited to submit videos of two minutes or less that imaginatively portray the benefits of the open, legal exchange of information on the Internet. Mashup is an expression referring to a song, video, Web site, or software application that combines content from more than one source.

Educators at all types of institution – including 4-year colleges and universities, community and junior colleges, art and film schools, and others – are invited to incorporate the contest into fall curricula, whether as a formal assignment or extracurricular activity. The following new resources are available to facilitate adoption of the contest:

• Video invitation to enter the Sparky Awards
• Sparky Awards promotional poster
• Educators’ Guide to Using the Sparky Awards in Your Classes
• Librarians’ Guide to Introducing the Sparky Awards on Your Campus
• Banner ad art to promote the Sparky Awards on Web sites

All tools are available for download and customization through the Sparky Awards Web site at http://www.sparkyawards.org, along with complete details on the awards.

The 2008 Sparky Awards are organized by SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) and cosponsored by the Association of College and Research Libraries, the Association of Research Libraries, Campus MovieFest, Penn Libraries, Students for Free Culture, and The Student PIRGs.

Visiting ALA Annual as a Newbie

Having been back from the Annual Conference in California for almost a week now I am settled back into the daily routine and ready to review my first time at ALA. As a new academic librarian and first timer to anything ALA related I was so excited to get there and see what brings 20,000 plus librarians away from their desks and out to the pacific coast. Of course I did the early bird registration and had been pouring over the preliminary program, trying to plan my conference time with appropriate sessions. As the conference grew closer I received much welcomed advice from my fellow colleagues also attending. One of the best pieces of advice, other than wear comfy shoes (which I of course only packed sandals with heels and ended up at Target in search of flip flops), was to leave yourself some breathing room. Often times there are additional events, sessions or just networking with others that pop up and will become a valuable resource. Also it is a good idea, if pre-planning your sessions, to pick back up options. Unfortunately, I was closed out of a session that filled up quickly only to find myself walking across the hall to attend my second choice. This turned out to be a wonderful session called Protecting Planet Earth sponsored by AFL FOLUSA, where each author not only captured my attention but gave away signed copies of their books!
Overall as a newbie, I think I did fairly well. I was happy with all of my selected sessions, only got lost once, took home 5 wonderful new books, and met some great people and decided to join a few organizations. The only thing I may not have done as well as others, is take full advantage of grabbing low cost and free items from the exhibit booths. Next time I'll be ready.
I would like to make mention of a great ALA organization called New Members Round Table (NMRT). I learned about this group at the conference and wished I would have discovered them sooner. They provide great resources and programs for new librarians or new ALA conference attendees or both. I recommend taking a look at their website. I know I will.

Call for contributors

This email opportunity has been making it's way around various listss and blogs during the last several weeks. I have had opportunity to work with Carol Smallwood, submitting articles to her recent book (mentioned in the call), Thinking Outside the Book, and would recommend taking advantage of this call for contributors.

Seeking Submissions from U.S. Librarians for ALA Editions, The Published Librarian: Successful Professional and Personal Writing
(publisher, American Library Association)

Introductory Note: Bob Blanchard, Adult Services Librarian, Des Plaines Public Library. Contributor to Illinois Librarians; Thinking Outside the Book: Essays for Innovative Librarians (McFarland, 2008)

Afterword: Dr. Ann Riedling, LIS Faculty, Mansfield University. Learning to Learn: A Guide to Becoming Information Literate in the 21st Century (Neal-Schuman, 2006)

Practical, concise, how-to articles. No previously published, simultaneously submitted material, or co-authors. Two articles required: 1900-2100 words total; for example, one article could be 1000 words, the other 900 words. No underlining, bold, all caps for emphasis, please.

Editor Carol Smallwood, M.L.S., has written, co-authored, edited 19 books such as Educators as Writers for Scarecrow, Libraries Unlimited, Peter Lang, and others. Her work has appeared in English Journal, Clackamas Literary Review, The Detroit News, Poesia, and several others including anthologies. Pudding House Publications published her chapbook, 2008; Words and Images of Belonging co-edited with Aurorean editor is with an agent; a recent book is Thinking Outside the Book, published by McFarland.

Possible topics: marketing, online publishing, where to send reviews, research skills for historical novels, using editing a library newsletter to edit books, ideas from students for YA books, using tools like BIP to locate publishers for your books, storytellers turned picture book authors, blogs and author web sites, interviewing, writing groups, networking, using a technology edge, promoting your books at conferences. Using issues librarians face such as censorship in poetry, essays, memoir, short stories, columns.

Deadline June 30, 2008

Topics may be sent first for feedback. Compensation: a complimentary copy, discount on additional copies. Please submit articles for consideration with a 65-70 word bio. Place LIBRARIANS/your name on the subject line to: smallwood@tm.net

Tags: Carol Smallwood, ALA: Call for contributors, Thinking Outside the Book

National Library Legislative Day

Tomorrow, May 14th, is National Library Legislative Day. An email from ALA president Loriene Roy this morning focus upon things we can do. See also the ALA web site for information regarding organizing your own virtual Library Legislative Day.

We need your voice to be heard on National Library Legislative Day (May 13-14)! During this time, I will be joining hundreds of librarians and library supporters across the country visiting legislators in Washington, D.C. We need you to join the thousands of other librarians, library workers, trustees, and library users participating in "Virtual Library Legislative Day!"

Please take 10-15 minutes today or tomorrow to send a message to all of your congressional representatives, letting them know how important libraries are to society, and the need for:

• more federal funding for libraries a certified school media specialist in
  every school
• fair copyright laws
• an expanded role for libraries in E-Government
• national security letter reform

ALA's Legislative Action Center provides you with talking points on these important issues. You can use them to craft your message as you wish, and send it to all of your representatives. Thanks so much for taking a few minutes out of your day to help libraries across the nation!

Sincerely, Loriene Roy ALA President

Tags: ALA, American Library Association, National Legislative Day

YALSA: Teens' Top Ten

The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) blog has information regarding the 2007 Teens' Top Ten. This list, "the only book award list that is recommended soley by teens," has been posted on the YALSA blog and the Teens' Top Ten web site. Teen groups selected the twenty five books, all published in 2006 and 2007.

About the Teens:"Nominators are members of teen book groupsin five school and public libraries around the country Conneccticutt, Kansas, New Jersey, New Hampshire, and Utah selected for their experience in discussing books." - Teen Read Week, YALSA

The 25 Nominated titles are:

• Firegirl - Tony Abbott
• Clay - David Almond
• Road of the Dead - Kevin Brooks
• Secrets of My Hollywood Life: On Location - Jen Calonita
• The Loud Silence of Francine Green - Karen Cushman
• Just Listen - Sarah Dessen
• How to Ruin a Summer Vacation - Simone Elkeles
• In Search of Mockingbird - Loretta Ellsworth
• The Christopher Killer - Alane Ferguson
• What Happened to Cass McBride - Gail Giles
• Hello, Groin - Beth Gobbie
• River Secrets - Shannon Hale
• Shock Point - April Henry
• Bad Kitty - Michele Jaffe
• Born To Rock - Gordon Korman
• New Moon - Stephanie Meyer
• Kiki Strike: Inside the Shadow City - Kristen Miller
• Prom Anonymous - Blake Nelson
• Maximum Ride: School's Out Forever - James Patterson
• Life As We Knew It - Susan Beth Pfeffer
• Penelope Bailey Takes the Stage - Susanna Reich
• All Hallows Eve (13 Stories) - Vivian Vande Velde
• Skin - Adrienne Maria Vrettos
• The Unresolved - T.K. Walsh
• Flora Segunda: Being the Magickal Mishaps of a Girl of Spirit, Her Glass-Gazing Sidekick, Two Ominous Butlers (One Blue), a House with Eleven Thousand Rooms, and a Red Dog - Ysabeau S. Wilce

I am always intrigued learning what young adults are reading verses what we think they are reading. Differences between public and academic libraries are often noticeable in this particular area as our patron base differs; public libraries purchasing for the teens and academic libraries supporting the curriculum of teacher education programs teaching the teens. AU library has fourteen of the twenty five titles listed (alas, only 56%) and I have read several of them.

My favorites in this group? I enjoyed both Firegirl and Life as We Knew It. For more on these books, links from this post go to Amazon.com and most have reviews from Booklist, School Library Journal, and Publisher's Weekly.

Voting will take place during Teen Read Week October 14 - 20, 2007.

Tags: YALSA, Young Adult Library Services Association, Teen Read Week, ALA

New from AL Focus

Two new conference video links arrived in my AL Direct email this morning. Since instructions to embed the videos on a blog, "Copy and paste this code (make sure you get all of it) into your blog to embed it," are provided I'll post both of them here. Word of warning, I have had little luck viewing either of these in real time this morning. Even with Flash 9 downloaded there was a significant wait time while the videos loaded from Blip TV.

And yes, ALA is aware of this because they already have video help posted on the page.

Either way, there is a lot of traffic signifying a great deal of interest in these videos and/or our network connection is slow; regardless it is requiring more patience and time to view than I have available this morning. I will stop back later.

5 Days in 3 1/2 Minutes: Annual 2007 Wrap Up
AL Focus - July 16, 2007 - posted by Daniel

The Greg Show #1
AL Focus - July 13, 2007 - posted by Greg

Updated: 7/20/07

I removed the embedded shows late Friday afternoon; the slow connections with BlipTV were dragging down general load times for other page elements in the blog, including sidebar widgets and photographs. Links to these videos still work and will take you directly to AL Focus for viewing.


Tags: ALA Direct, American Libraries, AL Focus, ALA Conference

ALA: Poster Sessions

This year marked the 26th Annual ALA Poster Session. The 2007 Annual Poster Session Abstracts booklet presents a history of the sessions stating that they "cover a broad range of subjects grouped according to such areas as management, collection development, technology, reference, and library services to special groups." (More information about poster sessions may be found here.)

There were six specific sessions of twenty posters scheduled throughout a three day period, June 23rd - 25th, totalling 120 posters of different ideas and topics from a diverse group of presenters. Poster sessions were in the exhibit hall, and even though a last minute change of location from one end of the hall to the other made finding them a bit challenging, I was very pleased with the interest generated.

My first poster session, Keep Blogging Along: Side by Side Library Blogs, was 1:00 - 2:30 p.m. on Sunday, June 24th, part of Poster Session IV: Outreach: Posters on Interlibrary Cooperation, Library Services to Special Groups, and Reference, and Information Services.



Presenting a poster is a great opportunity to converse one-on-one with people who are interested in your session topic. I had occasion to talk at length with current and budding bloggers about projects that worked, ones that did not live up to their potential, and how to determine the difference. There was significant interest in the blog widgets, particularly in how I was using LibraryThing in conjunction with the library specific blogs in IRC (unbeknownst to me, there was a session prior to poster time slot featuring a speaker from LibraryThing), as well as time management and blog purpose.

A Tale of Collaboration: The Art of the Picture Book Conference was 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on Monday, June 25, part of Session V: Connections: Posters on Cooperation with Non-Library Institutions and Agencies, Interlibrary Loan, Library Use Instruction, and Public Awareness.



Thanks to everyone who stopped to talk and my apologies, again, to the last dozen or so people who did not get one of the blog poster session information/handout CD's. As promised, I have posted the CD information from both sessions online:

• Keep Blogging Along: Side By Side Library Blogs
• A Tale of Collaboration: The Art of the Picture Book Conference

Tags: 2007 ALA Annual Washington, D.C., Poster sessions, ALA, Academic Library Blogs, Academic Libraries and collaboration

American Libraries video

American Libraries debuted a video history at the opening session in D.C. last week. After seeing it fly by in less than five minutes, I was pleased to see the video posted at American Libraries, inside ALA. And, since they offered, I added it here:

Enjoy! More ALA conference program insights and comments to follow.

Tag: ALA Conference 2007, American Libraries, American Libraries 100 Years video, ALA

ALA in Washington, DC

It is that time of year, I will be taking a break from blogging for vacation and to attend ALA's Annual Conference in Washtington, DC. ALA annual is always a great experience with opportunity to attend not only ACRL meetings and sessions, but also children and young adult literature sessions by YALSA and ALSC, and various technology sessions by LITA.

Falling under the shameless self promotion category, I will also be presenting two poster sessions at the conference:

• Keep Blogging Along: Side By Side Library Blogs
  Sunday, June 24th: Session IV, Table 19
  1:00 pm – 2:30 pm

• A Tale of Collaboration: Art of the Picture Book Conference
  Monday, June 25th: Session V, Table 10
  11:00 am – 12:30 pm

Focusing mainly on blogs currently used for the IRC, the blogging poster session will also briefly discuss Library Cloud as a professional development tool. Stop by and say "hello."

Tags: ALA, ALA Annual Conference, ALA poster sessions

ALA Press Release

With all of the discussion concerning the Higher Power of Lucky, I almost forgot to include this statement from ALA released on February 22, 2007.

"Statement regarding the true value of "Higher Power of Lucky.

CHICAGO - The following is a joint statement released by Kathleen T. Horning, president, Association for Library Service to Children, and Cyndi Phillip, president, American Association of School Librarians, regarding the "Higher Power of Lucky."

"Recent media coverage failed to discuss the true value of the 'Higher Power of Lucky,' by Susan Patron. The author’s use of one word should not prevent children from having free access to this remarkable piece of children’s literature. Children and their families should be given the opportunity to read this book and develop their opinions.

"The 'Higher Power of Lucky' is a perfectly nuanced blend of adventure and survival, both emotional and physical. It is a gently humorous character study, as well as a blueprint for a self-examined life. The book serves as a reminder that children support one another just as adults do.

"Libraries are about inclusion rather than exclusion. The freedom to read, speak, think and express ourselves is core to our American values. Part of living in a democracy means respecting each other’s differences and the right of all people to choose for themselves what they and their families read." (ALA, 2/22/07)

"Fortunately, most libraries do offer a full spectrum of resources and ideas from which our patrons can choose. Librarians understand that children mature at different rates and have different interests, reading abilities and life experiences. Decisions about what materials are suitable for particular children should be made by the people who know them best - their parents or guardians.

"We believe that every family should have the opportunity to read the 'Higher Power of Lucky' and that every public and school library should consider adding the book to their collections."

Tags: ALA, Higher Power of Lucky, Newbery Award

ALA event in Second Life

AASL Blog (American Association of School Librarians) has an interesting post today concerning an ALA event taking place in Second Life. According to the post, "On February 15, 2006 at 6 p.m. SL (9 EST) the ALA Washington Office will hold it's first event in Second Life, a 3-D virtual world."

I'm hoping they meant 2007 ...

Tags: AASL, ALA, Virtual libraries, Second Life

"Where are they now?"

The anniversary of Hurricane Katrina is next week. In some respects it is hard to believe a year has come and gone. But after attending the ALA conference in New Orleans in June and spending a day working with the Librarians Build Communites project, it is glaringly obvious in some areas it was only yesterday.

Inside Higher Ed has contacted several institutions, and people dealing with this still, and reports on how the hurricane continues to affect their lives a year later.

"With the year anniversary of Katrina approaching, Inside Higher Ed checked back in with some of the people who took time amid the chaos of the hurricane’s aftermath to talk about how the storm affected their work and lives. Nearly a year after they were first quoted in Inside Higher Ed, some of these faculty members, students and administrators have left the institution they were at when Katrina came; some are still fighting for their institutions’ survival on a daily basis; and some are busily reconstructing their research, and in some cases their homes." ~ Where are they now? 8/24/06

Also of interest is the original article, Scholars on the Road, posted September 12, 2005.

Tags: Inside Higher Ed, Hurricane Katrina anniversary, New Orleans, New Orleans - Academics