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....