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.