Governor Charlie Crist has proclaimed April 2008 as “Library Appreciation Month.” The proclamation identifies many of the ways that libraries contribute to Floridians’ quality of life. This proclamation is posted on the State Library and Archives of Florida’s Web site.
County and city governments may choose to issue similar proclamations of their own. We encourage you to share this proclamation with your community.
You’re Invited! This workshop is open to all information professionals and students.
SLA Florida and Caribbean Chapter
Getting Ready for the Job Search
Date: Thursday April 10, 2008
Time: 5:30-7:30 p.m.
Place: Time Customer Service Inc., 2nd Floor, One North Dale Mabry Hwy, Tampa, FL
Cost: FREE (Refreshments will be served)
RSVP by April 7 to Theresa Burress, 727-803-8747 (ext. 3108) or email tburress@usgs.gov.
Workshop Overview: This meeting offers a virtual presentation via Click U, SLA’s continuing education programming, with a break to enjoy free refreshments and to meet other SLA members and information professionals.
Presentation summary: Whether you are already embarking on a job search or thinking about it, you must be prepared to effectively market yourself. Are you feeling overwhelmed with where to start? If you know you have excellent skills, ideal experience and incredible passion for your work but don’t know how to package yourself to effectively communicate your professional message, then participate in this seminar. We will focus on how to maximize what you have to offer and how to present it to ensure you’re the candidate that rises to the top. You will also walk away with “10 Secrets to Manage Your Career for Enhanced Satisfaction.”
Speaker Bio: Marshall A Brown, CPCC, is a certified career and life coach with extensive experience in the association and nonprofit sectors. Marshall has been involved in the career management profession for over eight years.
I’m very sorry to inform of the passing of Dr. Maria Chavez-Hernandez, associate professor at the College of Information , Florida State University. For those of you who may not have known, she had a long fight with cancer and could not fight any longer to live.
Dr. Chavez-Hernandez was an active champion of library services and LIS education for minorities, and was recently honored by the Florida Library Association with an award bearing her name.
As posted in the College of Information website: “The Florida Library Association (FLA) announced an award honoring Dr. Maria Chavez-Hernandez of the FSU College of Information last week (January 8). The ‘Maria Chavez-Hernandez Libraries Change Peoples Lives Award’ will celebrate the ‘dynamic spirit of her work in expanding the opportunities of information access to under-served and immigrant populations’ by recognizing librarians who have ‘made a demonstrably positive and big difference in the lives of Florida ’s library users.’”
Her family was with her and were able to say goodbye. She will surely be missed by many.
The Association of College and Resource Libraries (ACRL) offers the first-ever “ACRL Springboard Event” on April 2 from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. CDT. It’s a free 90-minute “interactive webcast” for ACRL members with Henry Jenkins (Peter de Florez Professor of Humanities and co-director of the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program).
REMINDER: T-shirts are still available for $10 each through our website.
The shirts are Jerzees heavy weight 100% cotton in sandstone. The “world” image is approximately 9” wide by 7” tall and appears only on the front of the shirt.
Please click here for more information or to place an order.
Contact Vickie Frost at (813) 622-8252 (ext. 224) with questions.
The Florida Association of Community College (FACC) Commission’s Joint Annual Spring Conference will be held at Indian River Community College (IRCC) in Fort Pierce, Florida, April 10 and 11, 2008.
The theme “Reflect on the Past-Focus on the Future” was selected to highlight the “reflection of the change” of our students, our institutions and our society and how we can “focus on the future” to achieve learning that opens doors for our students. The Executive Board members of the Commissions would like to extend an invitation to you to participate by submitting a workshop/program proposal.
This is an excellent opportunity for you to submit an idea or program that has been successful at your institution or business in the past or one that addresses how products and services have changed to prepare students for the “flat world” of the 21st Century. We encourage you to take advantage of this opportunity to showcase and share proven ideas being used at your institution or business that “Reflect on the Past” or “Focus on the Future” or creative or practical new ideas to embrace the future of learning and technology.
Following are the tracks of interest for the Learning Resource Commission’s conference workshops:
Communities and Collaborations: Communities – Showcase partnerships with other college departments, faculty, student organizations, or other business, government, and non-profit organizations
Gaming/Virtual Worlds: Share how you are using Web 2.0 to connect with students and foster learning
Learning: Share best practices in learning enrichment/tutoring, emerging technologies in learning, library instruction, or meeting ACRL Standards
Planning and Managing: Share Tips in training staff, tutors, student assistants, and volunteers, or Strategies for stretching budgets and balancing print and e-resources
Service: Virtually Everywhere: Showcase Service Endeavors from Mobile Reference to Supporting e-learners
The conference brings together eight FACC commissions at Indian River Community College.
Administration Commission
Equity Commission
Faculty Commission
Instructional Innovations Commission (Curriculum)
Institutional Advancement Commission
Learning Resources Commission
Rural Campus Commission
Technology Commission
Hosted by IRCC
We encourage novice as well as experienced presenters to submit a proposal application. March 17, 2008 is the deadline for proposals to be received. Proposals (application, abstract and description) may be submitted in .doc, .txt, .rtf, or .pdf format and sent as an e-mail attachment.
All presentations should be 45 minutes in length and will be presented either April 10 or 11, 2008 at IRCC. Each presenter (one per presentation session) will receive a 50% discounted registration fee of $37.50. To submit a proposal request, simply submit the application below and an abstract summary (not to exceed one page) of your presentation/program. The summary should address the program’s relevancy to the Commission’s area of interest.
The FLA Executive Board is pleased to announce they selected Faye Roberts from among the 10 executive director candidates. A definite start date for her employment is not yet set but it will probably be some time in June. The board is very pleased to have found someone with Faye’s skills and knowledge of the Florida library community to serve in this position.
Faye is a long-time member of FLA, has worked in direct service and management positions in two Florida public library systems and is currently employed as a development consultant at the State Library & Archives of Florida. Her experience also includes work in non-library not-for-profit organizations and managing a for-profit business.
An FLA office staffed by Faye and a bookkeeper/administrative assistant (to be hired) will open in Lake City in June or July. We are locating the new office to Lake City at Faye’s request because that is where her home and family are located. This will be the first office FLA has ever had on its own.
Please join us in congratulating Faye. FLA is indeed fortunate to be going through the next transition to a new office and employed staff with such a capable, informed and hard-working executive director.
For more information, contact FLA at flaexecutivedirector@comcast.net, (850) 668-6911 or (859) 322-5005.
Barbara S. Ponce, Pinellas Park library director, will retire on March 31 after nearly 30 years with the City of Pinellas Park.
She received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Florida in June 1974, and her Masters Degree in Library Science from the University of South Florida in 1983. After beginning as a cataloger, she moved on to reference librarian in October 1978, assistant library director in 1983 and library director in December 1985.
In July 1999, Barbara was promoted to community activities administrator-library director. She heads up a department consisting of the library, parks & recreation, and media/public events. Barbara has contributed greatly to the tremendous growth of Pinellas Park. As library director, she ushered in an era of automation and streamlined many of the tasks that make the handling of more than 120,000 books, tapes, DVDs and other items more efficient, providing patrons with excellent service.
Her sense of style is evident all over town, from assisting in the design of the new library building to selecting carpet, tiles, wall colors and signage for the renovations to City Hall, Park Station and the Performing Arts Center. City projects under her department included the Broderick Recreation Center, the addition of 20 acres of new park land, the development of the equestrian park area and dog park at Freedom Lake to name a few.
She has overseen the growth in special events at the England Brothers Band Shell and, most recently, the transformation of the former Crosspointe Baptist Church into the Pinellas Park Performing Arts Center.
Barbara is a second generation native of Florida, born and raised in Jacksonville. Barbara is married to Pat Ponce (50 years last October). Barbara and Pat have three grown sons: Patrick, Michael and Buddy. Barbara and Pat reside in St. Petersburg.
Barbara’s knowledge, experience, and positive outlook will be missed by the members of the Pinellas Public Library Cooperative and the community she served. We wish her all the best in her retirement.
Submit a star and tell us about your healthy workplace
for National Library Workers Day
CHICAGO - Start the celebration early for National Library Workers Day (NLWD) by telling the world what makes your favorite library employee special.
ALA-APA is accepting submissions for the NLWD Stars web site - www.ala-apa.org/about/nlwdstarsform.html. NLWD is celebrated on Tuesday, April 15, during the American Library Association (ALA)-sponsored National Library Week. This year, we also want to know how your library administration staff gets and stays healthy.
This year, in addition to honoring library staff for delivering stellar service, the American Library Association-Allied Professional Association (ALA-APA) also wants to hear about library programming, equipment and benefits that are helping staff improve their health. For example, if your colleague teaches a staff yoga class, or you provide low-fat food choices at meetings and events or in vending machines or the library gives staff discounts to local gyms or hosts support groups for staff, let us know. NLWD Stars and workplace wellness initiatives will be featured on the National Library Workers Day site for one year. Self-nominations are accepted. The deadline for submission is April 14.
Download the free NLWD poster (here) to decorate your library and let patrons, trustees and colleagues how to submit a star.
NLWD is a day for library staff, users, administrators and Friends groups to recognize the valuable contributions made by all library workers. Libraries are encouraged to use National Library Workers Day to focus on the value of their staff, includingindividuals or units responsible for the number of materials selected, acquired, cataloged, checked out and back in and shelved; for handling requests and sending them to other libraries; for answering reference questions; for planning, publicizing and presenting programs; for developing and maintaining the library’s Web site; for managing the library and for other elements of library service. Ideas for how to celebrate in your library are here and here.
Proud of the work you do? The ALA Online Store is selling buttons that proclaim “Libraries Work Because We Do.”
Customizable tools and materials in English and Spanish to help libraries promote National Library Workers Day in their local media are available here on the ALA-APA Web site.
The list of NLWD Stars will be updated weekly. Contact the ALA-APA Office to tell us how you will be celebrating - (800) 545-2433, ext. 2424 or jgrady@ala.org.
Equal Pay Day, April 22, is closely related to NLWD, because libraries are staffed predominately by women, and library workers tend to be underpaid. Equal Pay Day highlights the gap between the wages of men and women. For more information, see the NCPE website at www.pay-equity.org.
National Library Week (April 13-19) press materials, programming suggestions and display ideas can be found here on the ALA Web site in both English and Spanish. The theme for 2007 is “Come Together @ your library®.” The site includes a link to National Library Week products available from ALA Graphics, including posters, bookmarks and key chains.
NLWD is sponsored by ALA-APA: the Organization for the Advancement of Library Employees, which advocates for improving the salaries and status of librarians and support staff.
A monthly online newsletter highlighting the important work that the Library of Congress’s digital preservation program is performing to collect and preserve the nation’s heritage in digital form will launch in March.
The Newsletter of the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP) will be produced by the Library’s Office of Strategic Initiatives, which is leading NDIIPP, and will offer a digest of recent news related to the program’s activities. The newsletter will contain short descriptions of each news item, with links provided to the full story on the NDIIPP Web site (www.digitalpreservation.gov).
NDIIPP is the Library’s program to build a national network of partners dedicated to the collection and preservation of important digital materials that are at risk of loss if they are not now preserved. The program focuses on born-digital content; that is, materials that are created digitally and exist in no other form, such as electronic journals and Web sites as well as films, television programs, sound recordings, maps and other media that are digitally produced.
Click here to subscribe to the newsletter. Here you will type in your e-mail address and press “Enter.” Then you will see a list of all available e-mail updates from the Library of Congress; you can subscribe to any of these services. To receive the NDIIPP newsletter, scroll down and click on “Digital Preservation.”
The aim of this new publication is to provide easy access to the latest news from NDIIPP and its more than 100 partners, which include government agencies, educational institutions, research laboratories and commercial and nonprofit entities. News items of interest will include key milestones from the many digital preservation projects, partnership news, events and other new material added to the NDIIPP Web site.
“We hope this newsletter will serve as a valuable resource for the interested public as well as information professionals by providing timely highlights of the varied activities of the NDIIPP community,” said NDIIPP’s Director of Program Management, Martha Anderson.
The Library of Congress, the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution, is the world’s preeminent reservoir of knowledge, providing unparalleled integrated resources to Congress and the American people. Founded in 1800, the Library seeks to further human understanding and wisdom by providing access to knowledge through its magnificent collections. The Library seeks to spark the public’s imagination and celebrate human achievement through its programs and exhibits. In doing so, the institution helps foster the informed and involved citizenry upon which American democracy depends. The Library serves the public, scholars, members of Congress and their staff through its 22 reading rooms on Capitol Hill. Many of the rich resources and treasures of the Library may also be accessed through its award-winning Web site at www.loc.gov.