Hospers Public Library Duct-Tape Contest

Hospers Public Library hosted a Duct-Tape contest for kids aged 9-17. They were judged by everyone in the community who voted for their favorite creation. The winners got a huge Hershey Candy Bar. The Duct-Tape creations had to be made of paper or cardboard and covered with some of the 27 different colors of duct tape.

Monday Morning Eye Opener 7/27/09

Good Morning! Today in EYE-OPENER…

1) Congrats to Valerie at Hawarden PL
2) Record Sales for Sioux City Library Friends
3) NWILS Sponsoring ILL Workshop
4) Meetings / Events This Week


1) Congrats to Valerie at Hawarden PL
Here’s some happy news, too long unreported. Valerie Haverhals, Director of Hawarden Public Library, is the winner of a $500.00 grant to attend the Association For Rural & Small Libraries national conference. The ARSL Conference takes place September 11-13 in Gatlinburg, TN. The grant is awarded by the Iowa Small Library Association.

Valerie’s was the winning entry in an essay contest sponsored by ISLA in June. All applicants needed to verify they’d have full support from their board and be able to pay for travel and other incidental expenses beyond the scholarship amount. In fact, essays needed to be accompanied by a letter from the board confirming their support and pledging additional travel funds.

Previous EYE-OPENER articles included news of this contest and once I wrote “wouldn’t it be great if a Northwest Iowa library is the lucky winner?” Yep, pretty great! Congratulations to Valerie and to the Hawarden Library Board!


2) Record Sales for Sioux City Library Friends
How about this for a tote board tally? The April 2009 Book Lovers’ Book Sale netted a record-breaking $27,000.00 for Friends of Sioux City Public Library! Proceeds will go toward library service enhancements in the fall (specific projects to be announced) This year, the Friends Group unloaded 700 boxes of books; at week’s end, only 22 boxes remained. Friends of Sioux City Public Library accept gently used donations of books and recordings throughout the year; their sale happens in April each year.

3) NWILS Sponsoring ILL Workshop
Coming up on August 4 and 6 is Northwest LSA’s ILL Summit. It happens at Denison Library on August 4 and at Spencer Library on August 6, 9:30—12:00PM each day. Register in c.e. catalog, but quickly!

It’s been a long time since doing an interlibrary loan workshop and now the timing seems right. We’ve made important changes in ILL routines at our office, notably adding fill-in-the-blank forms to our website for reporting books received and books returned. So we want to make sure that your routines now match ours.

But that’s just for starters! We’ll also review SILO and demonstrate how WORLDCAT (a FirstSearch database) needs to become part of your interlibrary loan process. Plus draft an ILL policy by using the POLICIES FOR RESULTS model. Lots to talk about, so make plans to attend.

Note…this workshop is ideally intended for staff who manage daily ILL routines, so do make sure those staff people are free to attend—thanks!

4) Meetings / Events This Week

It’s Career Reading Roundtable tomorrow July 28, online in Central LSA’s Wimba Live Classroom. This time, the title up for discussion is How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read by Pierre Bayard. This online book discussion runs from 9:00—11:00AM for 1 c.e. credit.

Online registration remains open and hey, given the title of the book, looks like you won’t actually need to read it first! Once registered, you’ll receive an email with a link to Central LSA’s classroom.

The State Library’s New Annual Survey workshop happens this week, Wednesday July 29 at Sioux Center Public Library and Thursday July 30 at King’s Pointe Resort in Storm Lake. Scott Dermont with the State Library will lead people through a newly streamlined annual report form, with instruction in how to complete the form online. Attendees are asked to bring any FY’09 facts and stats because there’s time allowed to get started on your own report. Online registration is closed—and a note to everyone preregistered—Wednesday’s workshop is down to one session only, in the AM. However, at Storm Lake both the AM session (9:00AM—12:00PM) and the PM session (1:00PM—4:00PM) are still on.

Finally, Enrich Iowa reports are due at the State Library by Friday July 31. Enrich Iowa reports include your FY’09 transactions for the Open Access program, the ILL Reimbursement program, and the Direct State Aid program. Find all 3 report forms on the State Library’s website here http://www.statelibraryofiowa.org/ld/enrich-ia.

Monday Morning Eye Opener 07/13/09

Monday Morning Eye Opener 07/13/09

Good Morning. How about this...a new fiscal year and a new look for the EYE-Opener!

1. July Display Idea

2. Plymouth County Libraries Win Grant

3. Enrich Iowa Reports Due

4. Meetings / Events This Week

1) July Display Idea

Knowing my fondness for milestone anniversaries, how could I have missed touting this earlier? This week marks the 40^th anniversary of the first moon landing, leading to one of the most famous quotes of the 20^th century: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” So how about a book display and reading list on the Apollo Missions and all things lunar :-)

For some great resources and retrospectives on Apollo 11’s historic moon walk, check out these sites:

· NASA www.nasa.gov

· Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum www.nasm.si.edu

· The History Place www.historyplace.com

· NASA Regional Educator Resource Center at Northwest AEA in Sioux City

http://www.nwaea.k12.ia.us/en/programs_and_services/nasas_regional_educator_resource_center/

This site should be especially cool: We Choose the Moon www.wechoosethemoon.org goes live on Thursday July 16, 90 minutes before 90 minutes before the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 launch from Cape Canaveral, Fla. It will track the capsule’s route from the Earth to the Moon, ending with the moon landing and Armstrong’s walk — in real time, but 40 years later.

40 years after the first moon walk, the crew of Space Shuttle Endeavor launched last night at 6:15pm enroute to the International Space Station. You can follow this shuttle mission in real time on the Smithsonian website above…

2) Plymouth County Libraries Win Grant

Good news for two libraries in Plymouth County: Akron and Le Mars Libraries received a grant totaling $17,700.00 from the Iowa State Historical Society. The grant will be used to digitize 107 rolls of microfilm. This grant, in combination with a grant from the Plymouth County Local Option Sales Tax monies, will make it possible to digitize 50 rolls of the Akron Hometowner and the Akron Register (essentially all of their collection) as well as another 57 rolls of the Le Mars Sentinel. These digitized newspapers will be then be accessible and searchable online. The process began July 1; the work is being done by Heritage Microfilm. Thanks to Sue Kroesche for sharing this story!

3) Enrich Iowa Reports Due

Last month, libraries were required to renew their participation in Enrich Iowa. (Enrich Iowa includes Open Access, ILL Reimbursement, and Direct State Aid) This month—by July 31 actually—libraries are required to report their Enrich Iowa transactions for FY2008—2009.

Here’s what’s expected: for Open Access, report how many items your library checked out to Open Access patrons. For ILL Reimbursement, report how many items your library loaned to others via interlibrary loan. But here’s a nice shortcut: you only need to report if you have ILL lending transactions done outside of SILO and OCLC. If all your ILL lending transactions were done through SILO and OCLC, there is no need to report because the State Library can access those statistics. And for Direct State Aid, report how your library spent its DSA money for FY09. You’ll see categories to indicate whether you spent it on collections, technology, furniture, programming, etc.

Find all three report forms on the State Library’s website here
http://www.statelibraryofiowa.org/ld/enrich-ia. There’s also a link there to check the status of whether your Enrich Iowa reports have been received. Again, the deadline here is July 31^st…

4) Meeting / Events This Week

The George Public Library Board meets tonight July 13 at 5:30PM to discussion automation plans.

Also, area libraries are welcome to join Albert City Library Board on Thursday July 16 for a program called “Building Effective Boards.” Beginning with a light supper at 5:00PM, the program follows from 5:30—7:30PM. Register quickly via the c.e. catalog so the Albert City crew knows how many to expect.

One more date reminder, this time a deadline: the fall Public Library Management courses are open for registration, but the deadline to register for PLM1 is this Thursday July 16; deadline for PLM2 is July 24. Again, that’s done via the c.e. catalog.

Previous issues of Monday Morning Eye-Opener are archived on NWILS website....