LMSA

Junior Library Guild....

2007-10-04T11:27:00.000-04:00

The folks from JLG call often and are persistent in follow up calls if they haven't heard from me from a year to year basis. How many of your schools buy from them? Are any of your schools on a standing order with them and if so what lists? Would you recommend libraries buying from them?

BookMonger

Standard: Keyboarding

2007-09-20T12:11:00.001-04:00

Question for this group...when is formal keyboarding techniques taught? Hudson teaches it as a high school elective and I'm wondering about the county schools. Do you offer keyboarding at the high school level and if so, what are the standards taught? Is keyboarding taught at the elementary level and if so what grade shows mastery? If the class is taught at the middle school, what grade and what are the standards taught at this level?

Any comments would be most helpful!

Thanks!

Bookmonger

LMSA

2007-01-04T14:42:00.000-05:00

LMSA

MLC in Second Life!

"MLC is excited to annouce our first lecture in Second Life! On January 11 from 6-7 pm Second Life Time (9-10 pm EST), Angela Semifero, Deputy Director and Head of Technical Services at the Marshall District Library will be giving the talk, "MySpace is Your Library's Space: Reference, Programming and Promotion" This program will take place at the Cybrary City Open Air Auditorium located at Cybrary City (122, 141, 24). If you need a teleport, please IM Evie Mikazuki at least 15 minutes prior to the event.

Don't know how to get there? Never heard of Cybrary City or Second Life?
Need to know what a "teleport" is? MLC is offering two free online
sessions: Introduction to SL. These 1 hour sessions include background history and information of libraries' presence in Second Life and give step by step instructions on how to create an account, get where you want to go and much more. Register at:
https://members.mlcnet.org/workshops/viewcourse.html?id=155 for either the January 30 session from 3:00-4:00pm or the February 6 session, from 10:00-11:00am.

Evette M. Atkin
Network Librarian & Training Consultant
Michigan Library Consortium"

Library 2.0

2006-12-14T18:59:00.000-05:00

"Library 2.0 is a loosely defined model for a modernized form of library service that reflects a transition within the library world in the way that services are delivered to users. The concept of Library 2.0 borrows from that of Business 2.0 and Web 2.0 and follows some of the same underlying philosophies. This includes online services such as the use of OPAC systems and an increased flow of information from the user back to the library.

With Library 2.0 library services are constantly updated and reevaluated to best serve library users. Library 2.0 also attempts to harness the library user in the design and implementation of library services by encouraging feedback and participation. Proponents of this concept expect that ultimately the Library 2.0 model for service will replace traditional, one-directional service offerings that have characterized libraries for centuries.

More info at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_2.0"

Some of you have read that MLC is in Second Life from a previous post. What MLC and other libraries seem to have done is join forces and brought Library 2.0 to Second Life. Information Sciences moves to an online service that is a 3d chat room to some, a platform for creativity to others, and businesses to others. Everything in between seems to also be represented. Check out SL, the sim: Cybrary City, and the article on Wikipedia if you want to know just where we are going to deliver information to users.

Bookmonger

MLC tries Second Life

2006-12-08T14:03:00.000-05:00

Second Life is a 3d platform. For some of it's members, it's a game, for others an opportunity. Money can be made and lost along with friends. What it also can do is provide a simulated life within an online community. MLC is in with the likes of Yahoo, IBM, companies such at Radio Shack, Circuit City, as well as online companies that buy and trade for online virtual goods.

What is MLC doing there? For this person standing on the outside looking in, I believe they want to see if there is a way to provide library services to an online community. It's already being done with ebooks. The delivery system of sending through email and fax's, online card catalogs and so would this truely be any different? Second Life is proud to announce that they have literally thousands of users registered. With the possibility of that many users needing services, perhaps MLC and the other world wide libraries taking part, this may be the beginning of where we will be in the digital age in 5 years..10..25.

I've been a long time member of Second Life. There have been librarians, media people, techies, and others associated with our profession within SL all along. It's nice to see an organization try to bring it all together and provide a service.

To read more about MLC, check out it's blog on Dec 7th. http://mlcnet.org/blog/

To read more about Second Life: http://secondlife.com

Bookmonger

We're losing our money!

2006-12-05T17:21:00.000-05:00

Oh boy-just found out today (but will receive more details tomorrow) that all district budgets will be frozen. Yikes! For those of you who have already been down this astounding piece of calamity I'd appreciate feedback about some of the most successful methods you've found that bring funds into your libraries.

I'm wondering if maybe we host a grant expert at one of our meetings who could specifically help us with this, as I know we are all struggling to survive.

Maybe I'll feel better after our dept. meeting tomorrow when I find out more details; I have a feeling though that this is just wishful thinking.

It's a start!

2006-11-28T20:49:00.000-05:00

Glad to see a few posts! You should now be able to post anonymously. If we decide we like the blog we can also create specific accounts via our email. Checking this from home, not sure why the frames are uneven. Will have to look into that.

How do you feel about a link on the page for the meeting minutes? Do you like the format, color, etc? I'm not entirely sold on it and am willing to play around with some other options.

Keep sending along that feedback and posts!

I can see that this can have great potential for us!

OPAC sucks video....

2006-11-28T11:50:00.000-05:00

"Pretty timely video for us here at MLC as we put the finishing touches on the agenda for our upcoming OPAC & Beyond special program in The Library Rebooted series. “The OPAC Sucks” might just become the unofficial theme song for our program."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJD-safYEb0

I'm not sure what this special program is, but after watching the video, I think they need to rethink this song as the unoffical theme song. It's obnoxious, loud, and without sounding like my mother, hard to understand. Instead of wanting to know what OPAC and Beyond represents and the ideas involved, I turned it off and decided my time fixing my MARC records and AR was more important.

You decide..does it represent you and your library training?

Book Monger

Accelerated Reader and us....

2006-11-22T11:27:00.000-05:00

We have installed the new AR program. At the onset, it appears to be working well and student access is relatively easy. There were a few concerns aka problems that we encountered.

>User name and passwords were changed and once we went online with the program, we had issues with reteaching students what their new usernames and passwords were. You may want to figure out what you are using ahead of time and let Advantage Learning know what you prefer. If all else fails, go back into the system and reset them to what was originally used.

>I noticed database history issues with students names being entered with the middle initial causing a student to have 2 AR accounts. The problem here is which account is the student using and "nightmare look" were there tests on both accounts. I tried cleaning that up prior to sending AR our database.

>The task at hand now is how to mark all of our books with some of the collection out in circulation. MarcMagician isn't ready to use their AR checking service. That means we do the automated system in Follett by hand. Do we go to the shelf and pull books, match them, mark them, and mark my card catalog marc record? Do we run a shelflist and use it to adjust the marc record then go to the shelf and find the books? Mark the book after that for circulation issues? This is huge and I'm not sure how to do it with the least amount of issues.

>Be aware as well that some of the levels and points have changed from when we initially marked our books. Another issue is version - especially on the nonfiction books. Match that up because old versions of books on a newer test doesn't work well. The same can be said for unabridged and abridged books. They aren't the same nor will the tests be.

I am glad that we moved ahead and have this version. I just don't see an easy way to mark our collection other than one book at a time, one marc record at a time.

Book Monger

Welcome, fellow Readologians!!

2006-11-10T11:51:00.000-05:00

Don't know if that's a real word, but it sounds good! Welcome to our blog! Looking forward to some great discussions.
Here's some great blog safety and etiquette tips:
http://wwwstatic.galileoweb.org/gems/
principalVoices/blogEtiquette.pdf