re: Alberta Library Conference 2014

On Saturday, February 9, 2013, members of the ALTA and LAA boards and the ALC Planning Committee met in Lacombe to discuss the future of the Alberta Library Conference. In attendance were Dwight Nagel (President), Sherrill Johnson and Don Podlubny from ALTA, Diane Clark (President) and Lisa Hardy from LAA, and Anne Carr-Wiggin from the ALC Planning Committee.  We are pleased to inform you that both associations have agreed that the best outcome is that the Alberta Library Conference continue as a partnership between LAA and ALTA to represent the entire library community of Alberta.

Both ALTA and LAA recognize that for the Conference to continue to be successful and provide developmental, social and strategic opportunities for the entire Alberta Library community, a good partnership and sound planning process is important. At the meeting on February 9, both boards agreed that, beginning with planning for the 2014 conference, the ALC Committee will take on a new structure that leverages the strengths each organization brings to the Conference. The Alberta Library Conference will be planned and hosted in partnership by LAA and ALTA.  Within the new structure , the logistical and administrative  planning responsibilities will be coordinated by the ALC Committee which will be chaired by LAA. An appointed ALTA member will advise the Committee on trustee education and content and act as Program Co-Chair with the LAA Past President.  ALTA will continue to have a visible role at the conference as a Conference Partner and to conduct the valuable advocacy work that is their mandate. Member rates will continue to be available to both LAA and ALTA members.

ALTA and LAA would like to thank the Parkland Regional Library System for hosting the February 9 meeting at their headquarters, and Anne Carr-Wiggin for participating on behalf of the ALC Planning Committtee . Additional thanks goes to the Public Library Services Branch and members of both associations who provided feedback and engaged in the discussion.  We look forward to seeing you at ALC 2013 in Jasper.

Diane Clark, President LAA                    Dwight Nagel, President ALTA

Notes from the Feb. 9th meeting are available for review here.

Left to right: Karen Anderson, Ron Konieczny (Mayor of Innisfree), Mircea Panciuk, Lil Carter, Eric Anderson, Carmen Nott (Innisfree Agriculture Society President)

by Marilyn Newton

On October 24, 2012 we had our official grand opening here at the Innisfree Library. We had approximately 80 people in attendance, an amazing turn out considering the weather that night! We had many people from our community attend. We were very pleased to welcome visitors from some of the other libraries in the Northern Lights System as well.  Among our special guests were Larry Tiedman, Chairperson of the NLLS board; Mircea Panciuk, Director of the NLLS Board; Ken Feser, Library Consultant and Patricia McNamee, Policy and legislative advisor. We were much honored to have them attend our ceremony.

Our evening was emceed by Friends of the Library Society (FILS) member, Karen Anderson. Lil Carter, our board chair, walked those assembled thru the process of getting the library up and running; from the concept stage, to funding and to finding a home (and all the renovations required) for our library. She expressed deep appreciation to the Innisfree Agriculture Society for allowing us to make use of two rooms in the Millennium Building. She also thanked all the board members, FILS members and volunteers who helped make the journey to opening a library in Innisfree a success.

Library Manager Marilyn Newton thanked the board, FILS and all the volunteers, especially Kristin Bergman who started volunteering during the summer and who has come into the library every Thursday after school to help. She also thanked the Innisfree Quilting Queens, who graciously invited her to join them for supper on their meeting nights. (Every Wednesday) Stating, it was an unexpected, but much appreciated bonus.

She also read addresses from Leon Benoit, MP and Richard Starke, MLA who were both unable to attend. In his address, Mr. Benoit stated “A library is a window to the world as it holds within its walls history, tourism, languages, culture, religion and the opportunity to expand our imaginations. Indeed you can travel the world when utilizing the resources of a library.”

Dr. Starke spoke of the importance of communities working together, saying “The breadth of your collection is multiplied many times over through your participation in the Northern Lights Library System. The partnership is an excellent example of communities working together to provide first class service to Albertans, regardless of where they live, rural or urban, in villages, towns and cities across our province.”

Eric Anderson, Reeve for the County of Minburn was there to present a plaque to the library in honor of this momentous occasion. The ceremony was ended by a few closing remarks from Holly Cependa, our board vice chair. This was followed by a tour of the library, a ribbon cutting and the commencement of the Silent Auction and door prize draws. All in all it was a very successful night!

It has taken nearly 2 years of hard work and dedication to see the dream of a library in Innisfree come to fruition. The support for not only our library, but our community as a whole is truly amazing! We would like to thank everyone who has supported us along the way and we look forward to seeing you in the library for many years to come!

by Tamara Van Horne

In September of this year, the Brooks Public Library closed its doors for two weeks to complete a major upgrade/renovation project on the library facilities. The goal of this project was to refresh the library and create a welcoming space for all community members to explore and enjoy. The biggest changes during the upgrade included the installation of carpet tiles to replace the existing carpet, the expansion of the children’s area and installation of window seating in this area, and the improvement of the space between all the shelving in the library.

The library also took the opportunity to introduce new features to the library to improve the space including bringing in live plants, installing a coffee bar, making eReaders available for check out, expanding the teen space, rebranding with a new logo, and swapping out the Dewy Decimal system in the adult Non Fiction area in favour of subject based organization (BISAC).

On Tuesday October 9, the Brooks Public Library reopened its doors with a Grand Reopening celebration, inviting the community to come in and celebrate with the staff. A ribbon cutting ceremony was held at 12 Noon with City of Brooks Mayor Martin Shields and County of Newell Reeve Molly Douglass assisting Head Librarian Sarah McCormack and Brooks Public Library Board Chair Lisa Crosby with the honours. Feedback from the community has been overwhelmingly positive with comments ranging from “It’s so large in here!” to “Wow! Look at the castle!”

While the staff at the library are pleased with the changes, they aren’t through yet!  Plans are already underway to make-over the new teen area in 2013 and fundraising is now on to help the library purchase and install early education computer stations.

Yes, it is that time a year again. Nominations for the Award of Excellence are being accepted. This award is given to library boards that are recognized for outstanding support to their library and library community. To be successfully nominated, the library board should have been available to support and enrich the library experience over a five year time period, and should have a working knowledge of the current and future state of the library experience as well as the services implemented to encourage the library experience in their community. Nominated boards should have served their communities in at least three of the following ways:

• assessed and responded to future and changing needs or circumstances in their community;
• exhibited innovation and creativity in meeting community needs;
• embarked on successful fundraising activities to support projects/services that better meet community needs;
• established mutually beneficial partnerships with other community organizations through shared planning and sponsorship of services and programs; and
• enabled their libraries to expand their services/programs to meet community needs.

For more information on the award criteria and judging information please visit the ALTA website.

To receive an Awards Nomination form and/or additional information, please contact our Executive Director, Heather Mayor; ed@librarytrustees.ab.ca

A new type of library is popping up around the world. Known as the Little Free Library, these libraries are stocked with only a handful of books and are based on the honour system.

The goal of  the ‘Little Free Library’ is to encourage the exchange of books worldwide and to facilitate further engagement in literacy. Users follow an old system of trade; in exchange for taking a book you leave a different book in its place.

The ‘Little Free Library” movement spread like wildfire across the USA but its first Canadian home was in Calgary, Alberta. Artist Cheri Macaulay installed the city’s first ‘Little Free Library which inspired two more in the city and was followed by another to be set up in Regina, Saskatchewan.

These mini-libraries motivate community involvement and encourage literacy. Many people stop by at these libraries before or after work and holidays. By involving communities in a project like this, people who would normally not use a library might find themselves venturing towards a public library in search of the next book in a series or in search of a larger book sharing community.

In an Openfile Calgary article, Macaulay said, “It just grabbed me from the start, it seemed like a really fun way to connect with neighbours.” Thus, the ‘Little Free Library’ has many community benefits from building a community relationship in your neighbourhood to increasing public library use.

Little Free Library

There is a lot more to social media then what meets the eye.

A study done by the loyalty management firm Aimia proposes that social media needs to be used as a customer service platform based around 6 social media personality types. These personality types are based on the number times a person logs on to a social media site and the number of social media sites a user is actively involved in.

The 6 categories of social media users are: 1. No Shows 2. Newcomers 3. Onlookers 4. Cliquers 5. Mix-n-Minglers and 6. Sparks.

Aimia developed their study to show how understanding and using the different social media personalities could build more accurate and stable loyalty among consumers.

Considering the huge role social media plays in today’s society, could this  study be applied to libraries to encourage and keep more loyal members?

Read a Summary of the study, “The 6 Types of Social Media Users”

Read the full study, “Staring At the Sun: Identifying, Understanding and Influencing Social Media Users”

Photo from socialpeel.com

Unglue.it is an online start-up company that works to make the publishing rights to digital books legally available to the public and libraries.

Unglue.it uses a funding technique known as ‘crowdfunding’ which  collectively pools contributions for a cause from individual supporters. After raising over $7500.00, “ungluers” successfully freed its first book, Oral Literature in Africa by Ruth Finnegan. The unglueing of this book makes it freely and legally available to the public in a digital format under a creative commons license.

However, since its first campaign Amazon Payments decided to suspend payment services for crowdfunding accounts. While this does cause an initial setback, Unglue.it is already at work looking for a new way to process payments, but has had to temporarily close all open campaigns.

Interested in more Information?

Unglue.it

Amazon forces Unglue.it to Suspend Crowdfuning for Creative Commons eBooks

Photo from Contenidosenred

YouTube has been creating new opportunities and challenges when it comes to education and teens. Here is an example where YouTube can be used to positively interact and educate and engage teens in everything from history to classic literature.

Popular YA author John Green and his brother Hank have been making YouTube video blogs for over five years. There popular YouTube Channel VlogBrothers, a year long project where they could not communicate with each other in any format but video blogs, has more then two hundred million views. Since then, the VlogBrothers have expanded to many other video projects including  Crash Course.

Crash Course presents ten minute YouTube videos which provide “crash courses” in history and science. They short and sweet yet educational and funny. They are sure to catch the attention of even the most resistant learners.

Plus if you find teens and students enjoying these videos you can recommend a John Green novel. His books feature his engaging sense of humour on young adult issues. He is extremely relatable and knows how to incorporate the tough parts of life into his work so that it is readable. He does not sugarcoat life, so to speak, but makes it believable and bearable.  Visit John Green’s website for more information about his YA novels.

If you enjoy the Green Brothers’ antics, also check out Hank Green’s side project the Lizzie Bennett Diaries, which he co-created with Bernie Su.

The Lizzie Bennett Diaries tells the story of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice as a modern tale through the form of a video blog. Its witty, funny, and completely relatable for teens today.

WARNING: Some content may not be suitable for younger viewers. Based on Alberta Film Ratings, these videos would fall between PG and 14A.

Library summer reading programs are proven to foster student success and pro-active attitudes in students. Now, what will your library do with this information?

At the end of a three year study by the Dominican University’s Graduate School of Library and Information Studies (River Forest, Illinois), researchers found that students who participated in a Summer Reading Program offered by public libraries were more confident and prepared for the upcoming school year. The study also showed that these students had a more positive attitude towards reading. This attitude was found to translate into home life too. Parents of children in summer reading programs tended to have more books and more literacy related activities at home, and also tended to use the library more themselves.

While this study proved something that many librarians already knew about reading programs and the importance of libraries, the researchers want the study to do more than that. They want the study to act as a call to action.

“We’re urging library staff, administrators, educators, and others to use these findings to transform attitudes about public library summer reading programs,” said Carole Fiore and Susan Roman, in an article in the School Library Journal.[1]

Summer reading programs are multipurpose tools with limitless outcomes. They improve student performance in school, encourage the use of the library, foster positive reading experience, which is then passed on to their family and friends. Summer reading programs are one way to show your community that libraries are still relevant in a digital age.

Does your library have a summer reading program? Share your success stories with us! Email: admin@librarytrustees.ab.ca. We will feature them in next month’s Trustee Voice.