If you have presented before or if you haven’t before but want to now, please apply!  Share your talents with the State’s paraprofessional workforce.

The Session Proposal Form is available on the TBLC website at www.tblc.org/vipworkshop.shtml.  Proposals are due by December 14, 2009.

Contact Beth Farmer at farmerb@tblc.org for more information.

The TBLC Library Champion Awards are granted annually to recognize elected or appointed officials who have demonstrated exceptional support for and attention to libraries.

Dave Eggers, Mayor of Dunedin – “Mayor Dave Eggers always mentions the Library and keeps our budget concerns on the table. The Mayor attends most of our Library functions and best of all his wife, Becky Eggers, is the President of the Friends of the Library. Together they make a fantastic Library support team!” This is quite a testimonial from Anne Shepherd, Dunedin Public Library Director. In light of Florida cities’ serious budget challenges, TBLC is impressed by Mayor Eggers’ positive outlook and the way he sees the library’s importance in the lives of Dunedin residents.

Representative Will Weatherford – Mr. Weatherford participated in the Pasco County Public Library’s Leaders are Readers program and read with a group of young Pasco library users. Will was featured in a library Read poster supporting reading with children and in a video public service announcement encouraging parents to read with their children starting when children are infants. Will also works with Pasco County schools to encourage all children to read. Representative Weatherford was nominated by Linda Allen, Pasco County Public Library Director. TBLC admires Mr. Weatherford’s warmth and enthusiasm and his willingness to reach out to and inspire young learners.

Representative Rich Glorioso – Representative Glorioso from Plant City is one of those rare people who stay cool and calm no matter what, so it is a good thing he was Chairman of the Florida House of Representatives Transportation and Economic Development Appropriations Committee last May during a very challenging session. Representative Glorioso was always receptive to calls and visits from the library community. He still smiled and was gracious after listening to our pitches and appeals for the umpteenth time.

When the shortage of dollars made it appear that library programs might lose their funding, Rep. Glorioso calmly listened, and calmly kept working to see to it that the programs were funded. Representative Glorioso was nominated by Bruton Memorial Library Director Anne Haywood. TBLC also commends Rich for his passion and commitment to working for young people at risk – that makes him two times a Champion in our eyes!

Senator Mike Fasano – Senator Fasano has so consistently saved the day for Florida libraries that the Florida library community should call him Mr. Library. As Chairman of the Senate Transportation and Economic Development Appropriations Committee for a number of years, Senator Fasano has often made the critical difference. This year, when funding was particularly tight in Tallahassee and it looked like we might lose state funding for libraries, Senator Fasano fought fiercely to keep it in the budget in the face of powerful forces and prevailed. Mike and his staff are always gracious and pleasant to work with, regardless of the hour and the craziness going on around them. Senator Fasano was nominated by Charlie Parker, TBLC Executive Director. Like the residents of his district, TBLC appreciates how no one in the Florida legislature works harder for what he believes in than Senator Fasano.

The Tampa Bay Library Consortium is a non profit multi-type library cooperative comprising 100 member libraries serving 13 west central Florida counties. The counties served are Citrus, DeSoto, Glades, Hardee, Hernando, Highlands, Hillsborough, Manatee, Okeechobee, Pasco, Pinellas, Polk and Sarasota. TBLC is supported by funding from local member dues and fees, state Library Cooperative Aid Grants and federal Library Services and Technology Act Grants. For more information, log on to www.tblc.org.

We are thrilled to announce that this year’s TBLC Annual Meeting will be held at the Tampa Bay History Center – a wonderful new facility housing a very exciting and re-energized regional cultural program. The facility is dazzling – and the organization is a model for how to do collaboration right.

We are also thrilled to announce that Susan Benton will be the keynote speaker at this year’s annual meeting.

Susan was recently named CEO of the Urban Libraries Council. Before taking the ULC position, Susan was Research, Development and Strategic Partners Executive at the International City/County Management Association (ICMA).

Susan has a strong background with sustainable communities, community building, and civic engagement. While at ICMA, Susan began the ICMA Local Government and Public Libraries Partnership Initiative. The initiative developed an approach based around the idea of building stronger libraries by connecting them more closely with communities’ needs and service priorities. A significant aspect of this initiative involved building closer working relationships between city and county managers. Seminole Community Library Director Michael Bryan and the City of Seminole City Manager were both involved in that initiative.

Susan’s work with the Local Government and Public Libraries Partnership Initiative then led to a project with the Gates Foundation — the Public Library Innovation Grant Program. The Gates grant program drew over 550 applications, including many from Florida and several from the TBLC area.

Susan’s background and experience are particularly valuable in these times when libraries are struggling to convince funders of necessity to fund libraries when all types of services are being cut back and reduced.

Look for further announcements in the days ahead!

The July issue of Wavelinks is now available for your perusal.

Enjoy!

The TBLC Library Champion Award is granted to recognize elected or appointed officials serving in any level of government who have demonstrated exceptional support for and attention to libraries.

Nominations for the TBLC Library Champion Award may be made by the voting representative of any TBLC member library or by the TBLC Executive Director.  The TBLC Board of Directors will review all nominations and select the recipient.  Just tell us in a couple of paragraphs why you believe your favorite official should received this recognition.

Please e-mail your nominations to Charlie Parker (cparker@tblc.org) with “Library Champion Nomination” in the subject line before the August 21, 2009, deadline.

The university says readers across the country will be able to preview its books for free and buy access to the full texts online.

In addition, universities, colleges and public libraries will be able to offer access to their students through subscriptions.

Every public and university library will also receive one license to provide free online viewing of millions of books at designated computers.

The new agreement revises a deal struck between UW-Madison and Google in 2006. So far, more than 200,000 works have been digitized.

This article is courtesy of salon.com.

For more information, visit the UW-Madison news website.

Geek the Library is a community-based public awareness campaign designed to highlight the vital role of public libraries for individuals and communities, and raise awareness about the critical funding issues they face.

The website, which uses ”geek” as a verb, encourages the public to share what they geek, and the answers range from worms to football to schooners and beyond. This public awareness campaign shows that everyone is passionate about something — yep, even worms — and that the library supports them all.

So what do YOU geek?

The following post, courtesy of Alison Circle at LibaryJournal.com’s Bubble Room, explains how customer service — one of the most important pieces of word-of-mouth marketing — can make or break a customer’s experience.

Burst the Bubble: Bad Customer Service
June 1, 2009
Today I inaugurate an ongoing feature: Burst the Bubble. Things that make us sad in the Bubble Room — anti-brand experiences, failed marketing ideas or what-were-they-thinking concepts. I’m inspired today because of two diametrically opposite customer service experiences I had this weekend. Good, even outstanding, customer service is the watchword for libraries, so emulating what is good and avoiding what is bad is an excellent strategy.

Let’s start with how the bubble burst. Like many of you, I spend my weekends on home projects. Given that it is spring I am inevitably drawn to the garden store on a sunny Saturday. I like to support the local businesses, but boy do they make it hard for me. I literally had to hurdle multiple obstacles to get to the plants: trying to park, maneuvering my cart over hoses strewn in my path, puddles, even a makeshift board that an employee accidently jammed into my foot. That burst the bubble for sure! My cart was loaded down with 8 bags of mulch and I asked for help getting into my car. They said no. And when I asked for a paper towel to wipe the mud from the bags off my hands, the cashier handed me a single sad little paper towel.

Compare that with my experience the same day at a national chain hardware store. I was living every wife’s nightmare — my husband had sent me to the hardware with a long list of items most of which I had never heard of before (two gang old work box with fins and no nails). I approached the first employee I saw who escorted me through the entire store and gathered my items. It took ten minutes. Hummm. They also have a garden section. I’m very tempted….

Today’s public has high expectations for customer service, whether it is shopping, visiting a ball park or going to the library. And they have unforgiveable and long memories. To continue to keep their expectations inflated and not burst, we have to realize that every interaction every time is an opportunity to be on brand or not. It requires dilligence, commitment and awareness.

Click here to view the original post.

ResumeMaker helps job seekers write professional resumes and search millions of job openings from one location.  Quick-and-easy step-by-step wizards quide patrons through building resumes and cover letters, without assistance from Library Staff.  ResumeMaker provides everything patrons need to create, store, and distribute top-quality resumes and cover letters, and keep track of contacts, companies, data, and documents that contribute to finding a job.

ResumeMaker’s career resources include virtual interview practice, interview tips, expert job search advice, and an internet job finder – linking job seekers to over 60 job boards across the country from one screen.  Job finder gadget sits on the computer screen and instantly notifies a patron when a job is posted that meets their specific criteria. 

ResumeMaker has been rated the #1 selling resume writing and career development solution for the last 10 years.  ResumeMaker is published by Individual Software, Inc., a 26 year old company, with a rich history of designing and publishing software solutions for education and business. 

ResumeMaker is a popular solution for libraries because it is easy for patrons to use, requires little or no help from library staff, and has thousand of professional samples, cover letters, and phrases written by certified resume writers.  It is the only software solution designed for the broad demographic base of patrons served by libraries, from entry level to the most seasoned professionals, in almost every conceivable market sector and industry.

By Will Van Sant, Times Staff Writer

Librarians have an image problem — stern face, thick round glasses, “shush!” —- which they parody with Web sites like Warrior Librarian, Macho Librarians with Guns, Librarian Avengers.

Now, harsh reality has swept aside self-mocking pretensions to comic book greatness and turned librarians into real, if largely unsung, heros of the recession.

Take mild-mannered David Stoner.

Trained to help adults discover the trial of Socrates and sixth graders track the Oregon Trail, he now spends half his time in the trenches of a battered economy. There his job is far more urgent: helping people who need jobs, food stamps or Medicaid.

“These days, it’s really social work in some respects,” said Stoner, who directs adult services for the Clearwater Public Library System. “And it’s really satisfying to see how much you are helping.”

Click here to read the rest of the article.

Photo and article courtesy of the St. Petersburg Times.