TBLC News

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.

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).

Click here for more information.

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.

Click here for more information.

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.

For examples of workplace wellness initiatives, please click here to see the ALA-APA survey analysis.

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.

Very Important Paraprofessional Library Workshop
13th Annual
Friday, May 9th, 2008
 

Location: EpiCenter, 13805 58th St N, Largo, FL 33760
 
St Petersburg College once again presents a one-day workshop where you can experience exciting professional and personal training.  The 32 topics include delivery of services, staff development and a variety of hands-on computer sessions.  Paraprofessionals are essential to providing high-level library services!

Click here for more information or to register for this event.

The Rethinking Resource Sharing (RRS) Innovation Awards recognize and honor an individual or institution for changes they made to improve users’ access to information through resource sharing in their library, consortium or state. It is hoped that the award will encourage libraries and librarians to make changes in how they do resource sharing to improve service to users.  RRS looks for efforts where people didn’t wait for the profession to provide better services for users. 

The Rethinking Resource Sharing Innovation Awards consist of a $1,000 cash award and a citation to the entity that applies.  In 2008 Rethinking Resource Sharing expects to make three awards. The most valuable ideas will be posted to the Rethinking Resource Sharing website in the hope that by sharing a great number of creative resource sharing ideas it will inspire others to try/implement similar ideas. 

Funding for the 2008 awards has been provided by the Alliance of Library Service Networks.

Click here for more information, including eligibility criteria and deadlines. 

ATTN: PUBLIC LIBRARIANS, REFERENCE LIBRARIANS

The Information Use Management and Policy Institute (College of Information, Florida State University) is collaborating with the State Library of Florida’s Florida Electronic Library (FEL) to assess the use of medical and consumer health information resources offered by the FEL and assist the administrators, librarians, and users of FEL to better utilize the FEL medical and consumer health information. Our assessment includes focus groups of public, medical, and reference librarians.  Each focus group will be about 10-12 participants and the session should last 45 minutes.  We will be conducting two (2) focus groups at TBLC in Tampa, Fla.

Our assessment would benefit from your expertise to help improve the FEL’s medical and consumer health information resources. Your contribution will benefit other librarians and help inform the development of programs that can address the needs of librarians and schools in the provision of consumer health information.

Your participation in this research project is completely voluntary. Please be assured that all of your responses will be kept confidential and any data collected from the focus group will be reported in aggregate form. Only research personnel involved in this project will have access to the data and encoded data will be kept on secure servers at the College of Information for a period of two years after the project ends.

I hope you will agree to participate in the study and I would be pleased to answer any further questions you may have about the study and your commitment.  Please contact the MLC to sign up for the focus group.  For more information, please contact Ebe Randeree (eranderee@ci.fsu.edu).    Thanks in advance for considering this request.

1.      Representatives from Florida State will conduct focus groups at the TBLC offices on March 11 at 11 a.m.

2.      Representatives from Florida State will conduct focus groups at the TBLC offices on March 11 at 1 p.m.

The Association of College and Research Libraries, Florida Chapter (FACRL) is accepting proposals for the 2008 Fall Program to be held at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville on Friday, November 7, 2008. 

Theme of the 2008 Fall Program is “Proving Your Worth and Adding Value to your Institution.” 

Click here for format and details for proposals.

The FLA Media Training Workshop scheduled for March 4, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the UCF Library has space available. The program will be presented by John Fleming of Salter Mitchell, a public relations firm, and will include individual video taping of participants in a media interview situation followed by feedback. The program also includes instruction on managing media relationships and other facets of getting the most for your library out of local media outlets.

Registration is $128 for FLA members and $150 for non-members. Please contact Ruth O’Donnell, FLA Executive Director, at flaexecutivedirector@comcast.net for a registration form.

The Big Read, a national program to encourage literary reading and revitalize the role of literature in American culture, is accepting applications from non-profit organizations to conduct month-long, community-wide reads between September 2008 and June 2009.

Organizations selected to participate in The Big Read will receive a grant ranging from $2,500 to $20,000, financial support to attend the national orientation meeting, educational and promotional materials for broad distribution, Organizer’s Guide for developing and managing Big Read activities, inclusion of your organization and activities on The Big Read website, and the prestige of participating in a highly visible national initiative. Approximately 300 organizations of varying sizes across the country will be selected for this cycle.

To download the guidelines and application, visit www.NEABigREad.org.

Questions? Call Arts Midwest at 612.341.0755 or email TheBigRead@artsmidwest.org.