November 2008 Archives

A new feature has been added to InfoSoup, and its name is "My Lists." This feature allows you to save materials to lists that you name and describe, and then allows you to manipulate your lists via sorting, deleting titles, or creating new lists. View the screencast for a quick demo of how it works and give it a try today.



Feel free to post your comments or questions about My Lists here.

> contributed by Beth

I'd like to welcome Anne Paterson to the OWLSnet team!  Anne has joined OWLS as our Cataloging Librarian.  She comes to us Chicago, and has  experience in the advertising and publishing fields.  Anne also has an MLIS from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

We're excited to have her as part of OWLS and the cataloging department! However, it will take her a while to learn everything she needs to know, so we encourage you to keep sending those cataloging and technical services questions to the OWLSnethelp list.

> contributed by Gerri

Our next Play Date is scheduled for Friday, November 21st at 10 a.m. online in OPAL. The topic will be "The Wonderful World of Widgets." Here’s the description:

Learn how to liven up your web sites and blogs with portable chunks of code called widgets. There are loads of sizes and types, and they are incredibly easy to use. Just copy and paste! Joy Schwarz and Beth Carpenter will show you how to find them and why you should consider using them.

If you’d like to attend the online Play Date please register on the SCLS web site, so we’ll know how many people to expect. If you can’t make it to the Play Date, the content will be posted on the blog so you’ll be able to go through it at your leisure.

"See" you on the 21st!

> contributed by Beth

Online Classes

You won't want to miss "Challenging the Assumptions of Legacy Librarianship" with Joan Frye Williams and George Needham in OPAL on Wednesday, November 19th! The details are available on the Online Classes page on OWLSweb. Take a look and plan on  logging in and taking part. If you don't have a quiet place to participate in OPAL workshops at your library, come and join us in The Nest (a.k.a. old OWLS computer lab) and enjoy a discussion of the workshop after it's over. Contact me if you'd like to join us at OWLS.

Computer Lab Classes

There's still room in the next Google Reader Basics class on Friday, December 5th, so sign up today! More and more information from OWLS is being published in blogs, so there are more and more places to keep track of in order to stay informed. Learn how to make your life easier by using Google Reader to aggregate the content from our blogs and others. This session will teach you about RSS feeds and Google Reader basics. We'll take some time to set up your account, subscribe to OWLS feeds, and explore the web for fun feeds beyond OWLS and OWLSnet resources.

CE Workshops

Not sure what a Flip is? Always wanted to play with a Kindle or iPod Touch? Well, here's your chance! Join me and Julie for a Gadget Open House. We'll have one on Wednesday, December 10th and one on Thursday, December 18th, so take your pick. There will be plenty of hands on time with gadgets and games, so come enjoy. This is a great time to see and play with gadgets our patrons are using and what it might mean for our libraries.

The Survey

Thanks to everyone who took the time to complete the CE Survey I sent out a few weeks ago. If you're interested, you can view the results here. I truly appreciate your input and will consider all of the responses as I plan for workshops and classes in 2009.

> contributed by Beth

Both the Outagamie County and Waupaca County budgets have been approved. Details are available on the 2009 County Budgets page on OWLSweb.

In other news, the OWLS Board approved the 2009 System Plan and Budget. The 2009 Plan is not significantly different from the current Plan.  Because OWLS financial position is healthy no major reductions in services are planned for 2009.  However, given the difficult economy and the potential for future revenue decreases, we are doing some belt-tightening.  The 2009 operating budget represents a 1.8% decrease from the 2008 operating budget.

I encourage you to take a look at the new Plan, especially the first six pages which describe the context in which the Plan has been developed.  If you're into numbers and statistics you might also enjoy looking at page 2, which show how OWLS libraries compared with libraries in other systems in 2007.

As always, be sure to contact me with any questions or comments.

> contributed by Rick

This video from flixxy.com, although humorous, highlights how difficult new technologies can be for people.  Even now, we can't assume that people are Internet savvy.  The video made me think of the spectrum of abilities, talents, skills and knowledge that our patrons present us with.  I think it is critical to hire a diverse staff.  Also, we need to keep offering continuing education opportunities to our employees. As a team, then, we can offer our best service to this amazing spectrum!  I know that I have to have more patience with patrons and not expect them to necessarily know what I am talking about! After conducting a good reference interview to test the waters, I can tell whether I need to adjust my teaching up or down.

> contributed by Elizabeth Timmins, Director, Muehl Public Library, Seymour

The 7th annual International Children’s and Young Adult Literature Celebration, “Open a Door… Open a Book… Open your Mind… to the World,” is scheduled for Saturday, November 22, 2008, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Memorial Union’s Tripp Commons from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.   The celebration is an annual interactive workshop for educators, librarians, students, and children’s literature enthusiasts, with an aim to internationalize statewide reading curriculum.  This year’s event features authors Meshack Asare, Bodil Bredsorff, Margarita Engle, and Cynthia Kadohata.  Each author will discuss the stories that they have written and highlight the work they feel is most suitable for classroom discussion. Two authors will speak in the morning and two following lunch. A reception and book signing will be held at the end of the day.
 
This event is sponsored by the Wisconsin International Outreach Consortium (WIOC) in observance of International Education Week 2008. International Education Week is a joint initiative of the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Department of Education to promote programs that prepare Americans for a global environment and attract future leaders from abroad to study, learn, and exchange experiences in the United States. For more information and to register, please go to http://www.wioc.wisc.edu/childlit/.  Please register and pay by Monday, November 17, 2008. Registration payments will not be accepted at the event.  For more information contact Rachel Weiss at (608) 262-9224, or by e-mail at rweiss@wisc.edu.

> from Channel Weekly, Vol. 11, No. 9, November 13, 2008, posted with permission

Take a look at Laura Cahill's book vases and furniture made from unwanted books. Hmmm... maybe this would be a way to use leftovers from book sales? Get your teens together and see what they can come up with!

> contributed by Beth