Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Ask the Advocate

“Ask the Advocate” webinar provides opportunity to talk to ALA experts and learn about ALA advocacy resources.

Wednesday, February 29, from 2-3pm EST.

Attendees will have an opportunity to ask questions pertaining to advocacy issues at their library, as well as learn who resources are available to help make the case for libraries.

Patricia Tumulty, Chair, ALA’s Committee on Library Advocacy (COLA), and Marci Merola, Director, ALA’s Office for Library Advocacy (OLA) will take questions from attendees during this open forum style webinar and share their expertise on successful advocacy efforts. They will highlight ALA’s Advocacy University, which provides information, courses and tools to help library advocates make the case at the local level.

Visit https://ala.ilinc.com/register/bfhjyyt to sign up today.

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Strategic Downsizing

February 28, 3:00pm Eastern Time.

Some are born to downsize, some achieve downsizing, and some have downsizing thrust upon them. Let’s face it: in today’s economic and governmental climate, library decision makers are more likely to be reducing their organizations than increasing them. Downsizing is never fun, but it can be done in a way that leaves the library less damaged, and in a better position to recover as times improve.

Join library consultants George Needham and Joan Frye Williams as they offer practical advice about how to downsize strategically, making the best of bad circumstances in a positive, active way. Join them as they discuss how to stop trying to do more with less and start doing differently by:
  • Shifting the focus from cutbacks to outcomes
  • Leveraging existing assets
  • Realigning operations with community priorities
  • Engaging the staff and Board in planning and implementation
  • Retiring services that are no longer sustainable
  • Communicating effectively and supporting staff throughout the transition
Even if you’re not downsizing right now, it pays to be prepared. The ideas in this webinar can help you make your organization more flexible and resilient, and strengthen your confidence in the tough decisions you are called upon to make.

This webinar will be of interest to library trustees and commissioners, library directors, managers, supervisors, team leaders, and others who are engaged in setting priorities for their organizations or work groups.

Friday, February 3, 2012

Turning the Page 2.0

Invest In Your Library's Future

Turning the Page 2.0 is a FREE library advocacy training course developed and presented by the Public Library Association (PLA) with generous support from The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

In this six-week, facilitated online course, library staff and supporters will learn how to create and tell their library's story, deliver effective presentations, develop a compelling case for support, and build and sustain partnerships along the way.

Participants are encouraged to come with a specific, self-determined advocacy goal for their library. At the end of six weeks, you’ll have a complete Advocacy Work Plan to guide your efforts.

Turning the Page 2.0 consists of the following components:
  • In-person kick-off (optional)
  • Facilitator-led virtual classroom sessions (1 hour each week for 6 weeks)
  • Independent work on Turning the Page online modules (about 1 hour each week)
  • Online community for discussion (optional)
  • Completion of an Advocacy Work Plan (about 1 hour each week)
  • One-on-one feedback from professional facilitators (free consultancy)
Previous participants have told PLA that they spend on average three hours per week (18 hours total) on this course. ALA membership is not required to participate.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

WorldCat Resource Sharing: FirstSearch Admin Module

Join OCLC and Tina Baich, Assistant Librarian from Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis (IUP) for an overview of resource sharing settings in the OCLC FirstSearch Administration Module. Use FirstSearch Administration to create and modify Constant Data, Direct Request Profiles and Custom Holdings. This refresher on your library’s administration settings will help you prepare you for your upcoming transition to the new WorldShare Interlibrary Loan service, due for initial release later this year.

Date: Thursday, February 16, 2012

Time: 12:00 p.m. (noon) Eastern Time

Register

Friday, January 27, 2012

Live Webinars for February 2012

February webinars. Go learn stuff!

Feb 1.  Composition and Layout of PowerPoint in Online Learning (Adobe)

Feb 3.  Take Control of iCloud (O'Reilly)

Feb 8.  Real Life Examples of Library Cloud Implementation (NISO)  $

Feb 9.  Building a Successful Online Learning Community for Librarians: A Conversation with Steve Hargadon (Blended Librarian)

Feb 9.  Nonfiction Spring Book Buzz (School Library Journal)

Feb 14.  Teen Spring Book Buzz (School Library Journal)

Feb 15.  Composition and Layout of Photoshop in Online Learning (Adobe)

ALA (American Library Association)  All = $
Over a dozen events in February.  Click the link if interested.

Jan 31. Connecting with Struggling Readers
Feb 7. What's New in Y.A
Feb 21. Books for Youth Alert

Infopeople
Feb 2. Children's Literature Update
Feb 7. Storing and Managing Digital Collections
Feb 8. Youth Media Activities in Your Community: Teaching Digital Natives
Feb 14. Top Tech Trends in Materials Handling
Feb 16. Best Business Books of the Year
Feb 29.  Techsoup: Technology Resources and Donated Software

Feb 15.  Meet the Power Patron
Feb 16.  Building a Library Aware Community
Feb 21.  Your Library at Webscale
Feb 23.  Census 2010 and American Community Survey
Feb 24. Directors' Summit

Feb 1.  SOPA and PIPA: What Libraries Need to Know
Feb 8.  AASL Standards for the 21st Century Learner
Feb 15.  Turning Your Library Around
Feb 22.  Learning to Live without a Statistical Abstract
Feb 29.  Tech Talk with Michael Sauers

Feb 3.  Tech Tools: Dropbox
Feb 9.  App Development:  The Why and How
Feb 10. Tech Tools:  Shelfari and GoodReads
Feb 16.  Libraries as Content Collaborators
Feb 21.  The Accidental Library Marketer
Feb 28.  Writing Good Press Releases and Working with the Media

Jan 31. Developing and Maintaining E-Reader Policies and Procedures
Feb 2.  Building Bridges #4: Your Library's Future
Feb 9.  Cloud Computing 101
Feb 23.  Twitter for Job Seekers:  Helping Job Seeking Patrons

Feb 1.  Make Your Grant Proposal Stand Out from the Pack
Feb 9.  Creating an Effective Volunteer Handbook
Feb 17.  Investing in Infrastructure
Feb 22.  Advisory Boards

Friday, January 6, 2012

Handheld Librarian VI

HANDHELD LIBRARIAN VI ONLINE CONFERENCE
FEBRUARY 1-2, 2012


Join us once again for what will be an intense online professional development opportunity for librarians who love technology!


Mobile solutions for libraries that work!

We invite you to the 6th Handheld Librarian conference, a place where interested librarians bring their tools and strategies to the learning scene. The conference will feature professional development for librarians by librarians. This is the grass-roots nature of our highly successful program. Handheld Librarian VI will build on the success of prior conferences in which an array of presenters share their experiences and insights on topics addressing themes such as ebooks, location-based social networking, lending devices, reference and mobile technologies impacting society. You can see the quality of the content by looking through our past archives.
Our exciting one day conference, February 1, will feature presentations from your peers, along with two keynotes from respected thought leaders in the library world.

Michael Stephens, Assistant Professor in the School of Library and Information Science at San Jose State University, will address the conference in the morning. His research focuses on use of emerging technologies in libraries and technology learning programs. He currently writes the monthly column “Office Hours” in Library Journal exploring issues, ideas and emerging trends in library and information science education. Stephens has spoken about emerging technologies, innovation, and libraries to audiences in over 26 states and in five countries, including a 2009 speaking/research tour of Australia.

Our afternoon keynote features Stephen Abram. Stephen has over 30 years in libraries as a practicing librarian and in the information industry. He has visited hundreds of libraries in many different countries and is uniquely positioned to spark ideas and insights. Stephen is currently Vice President, Strategic Partnerships and Markets at Gale Cengage in Toronto, Canada. He has been Vice President Innovation for SirsiDynix and the Chief Strategist for the SirsiDynix Institute, VP of Corporate Development for Micromedia ProQuest, and Publisher Electronic Information for Thompson

New* Post-Conference Skill Builders Workshops – Two additional opportunities!

New this year, a post conference experience focused on giving participants explicit hands on skills through extended workshops. For a nominal fee, participants can register for the following two-hour synchronous workshops on February 2.
• Broad mobile development, including jQuery
• Empowering your E-readers; teaching your readers to access content
Each workshop will not only provide a conceptual framework, but will ask the participants to try their hands at either developing or implementing specific strategies. After the workshop, audience members will be provided with additional ongoing tutorials and access to the experts for mentoring.

Individual, group and site registration is open at www.handheldlibrarian.org

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

WordPress and eBook Webinars

WordPress for Library Websites
Presented by Polly-Alida Farrington
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. EST

REGISTER:
http://bit.ly/v1h5aI

Does your organization need a new web site? One that is more dynamic, easy to update and can easily incorporate social media and other ways to communicate with your library’s patrons/customers? WordPress (free, opensource) may be the answer. WordPress is a powerful web Content Management System (CMS) that has grown far beyond its origins as a blogging tool.

WordPress can be used to power your library website and help you build a dynamic web presence for your library, school, personal web site, business or other project. Its ease of use and flexibility make it a perfect choice for libraries that are struggling to keep their websites up to date and/or looking for a more up-to-date look for their website. Its extensibility via plugins and other customizations make it a great choice for more complex sites as well.

This webinar will cover:

  • Examples of sites built with WordPress
  • Why WordPress is a great choice for schools & libraries
  • Hosting options and requirements
  • WordPress.com vs WordPress.org
  • Making it look great: Themes
  • Building blocks of WordPress: Posts & Pages
  • and more!
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Ebooks, Discovery, and the Library
Presented by Kate Sheehan
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
3:15 p.m. – 4:15 p.m. EST

REGISTER:

Publishers, authors, booksellers, and librarians have traditionally thought of discovery as something that happens in a physical place. A patron browses the shelf, a librarian offers some reader's advisory, a new author is picked up from an artfully created display. Online discovery lags behind, despite Amazon's best efforts. People still pick books up based on word of mouth. Libraries, with entire sections of staff devoted to helping people pick out books, are word of mouth engines, but struggle to prove our worth to the rest of the book ecosystem. Ebooks make that even more difficult when the library as place is taken out of the equation. This session will explore some possibilities for libraries as channels of discovery in an ebook-dominated market.