Monday Morning Eye Opener 5/11/09

Good Morning and Happy Mother’s Day to All

1) Games in Libraries Podcast:

2) Scholarship Announcement for Small Libraries

3) Children’s Choice Award Winner

4) Meetings / Events This Week

1) Games in Libraries Podcast: For everyone who attended our workshop last week called “Get Your Game On,” here’s a timely follow-up piece. Every month, the website Games in Libraries.Org posts podcasts about gaming programs in libraries. Eli Neiburger and Beth Gallaway are well-known technology specialists and frequent contributors. Neiburger is the author of Gamers…in the Library? The Why, What, and How of Videogame Tournaments for All Ages (ALA, c2007) At Games in Libraries.Org, the May podcast was posted last week and includes

· Winners of the $5,000.00 Verizon Foundation Gaming Grants

· Review of Oregon and Board Game Podcasts

· The upcoming Wii Motion Plus

· Free gaming in libraries class on YouTube

Scroll down the page for more archived gaming podcasts. And remember to visit the new toolkit from ALA called Libraries, Literacy, & Gaming: An Online Toolkit for Building Gaming Programs @ Your Library. Great resources here…

2) Scholarship Announcement for Small Libraries: Very cool news from the Iowa Small Libraries Association (ISLA) The Exec Board has approved offering a $500.00 scholarship for one ISLA member to attend the Association For Rural and Small Libraries Annual Conference in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. The national conference is September 11-13 in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park.

An essay contest will determine the winner; applicants must be able to verify that they’ll have the full support of their board and can pay for travel and other incidental expenses beyond the scholarship amount. The $500.00 scholarship is slated to cover conference registration and hotel expenses.

Have you heard of the ARSL? Here’s their mission statement “… “The mission of the Association for Rural and Small Libraries is to provide a network of people and materials to support rural and small library staff, volunteers, and trustees to integrate the library thoroughly with the life and work of the community it serves…”

So there are membership opportunities aplenty here! Again, scholarship applicants must first be members of ISLA; find out about how to do that at their website. And I’ll bet whatever Iowa library staff is awarded the scholarship will want to join ARSL, too. Look for more details about ISLA’s scholarship coming later this month. For more information about the Association For Rural & Small Libraries, visit their website.

3) Children’s Choice Award Winner: We have a winner…the Iowa Children’s Choice book for 2008—2009 is Abduction! by Peg Kehret. This year, 659 votes came in from students and patrons of 273 public schools and home schoolers. Other titles in the running were No Dogs Allowed and Larry, the King of Rock & Roll. This year’s teen award winner is Just Listen by Sarah Dessen. For a complete list of the Iowa Children’s Choice books, along with past Iowa Teen Award Winners, visit the Iowa Association of School Libraries website—a subdivision of ILA.

4) Meetings / Events This Week: Cushing Library Board, along with Correctionville and Anthon, have scheduled a trustee orientation for tomorrow night, Tues May 13. Cushing Library is hosting this program, starting at 6:30PM.