SEMLS News

Executive Summary of

SEMLS Reference Task Force 2009 Report

In response to decreased use and increasing economic pressures SEMLS formed a Reference Task Force and conducted a series of three focus group sessions throughout the region to evaluate current use of reference resources in the region and project future trends in reference support needs of members in the fall of 2009.  The data collected in those focus groups is compiled in this report. The appendices at the end of this report contain individual reports from each meeting and compilations of participants’ prioritizations of reference services and their projections for future services to users.

A total of 25 members attended the reference focus groups with representatives from the Falmouth Reference Center attending each session and the Thomas Crane Library in Quincy attending one of the three sessions.

A number of trends emerged from the sessions:

·         The public has dramatically changed the way it seeks information since the legislation requiring local reference centers was established in the 1960’s and libraries anticipate even more change as technologies evolve and improve.

·         Libraries need to move their resources online to meet the users where they are currently seeking information and develop new ways to mediate the information for users.

·         The move to online resources creates a self serve information seeking environment creating the need for libraries to move their assistance online using new technologies.

·         Both local libraries and the regional centers are seeing decreasing demand for general reference service and increasing demand for more community–based information.

·         Library staff needs continuous training to develop new ways to deliver information and to help their users find and evaluate online information.

full report available at www.semls.org/what/reference/index.html

Kathy Lussier is leaving SEMLS at the end of January to begin a new opportunity.   Kathy will be the working with  CW/MARS, MVLC and NOBLE  as their  Project Manager for the development and  implementation of Evergreen Open Source ILS. 

Everyone at SEMLS wishes Kathy all the best in this new endeavor.  Before she goes, we want you and us to have the opportunity to thank Kathy for sharing her love and excitement for technology;  and for  encouraging and inspiring us to use it to improve the services we provide.

SEMLS is hosting an Open House on Wednesday, January 27 from 1 pm to 5 to give you the opportunity to say good luck to Kathy.    We hope that you can drop by and that you have a Kathy story to share.
 

The FY 2011 Cooperative Purchasing forms have been all been sent out to our SEMLS members.  To join the FY 2011 Cooperative, please fill out both the pledge and participation forms.  The deadline for these forms to be returned is January 31, 2010.  Please see that the person(s) who do the ordering are given the participation and pledge forms, have them filled out according to catagory and return to the SEMLS office by the deadline.

Libraries treasure their local history collections but what about other materials like old diaries, letters, photographs, scrapbooks and newspaper clippings? What should you do to presereve and provide access to these materials with limited staff, space and budget? On February 11 from 10 to 1 this workshop will review some of the strategies that you could use to provide the best possible solution for your collections within your means. Topics discussed will be the role of the local history collection, why we collect archives, what an archivist is and when to hire a consultant, how to prepare to write a grant or advocate for funding for the local history collection and what emergency measures can be taken in the short term. This is not a workshop on how to process archival materials but rather an overview to help you determine how you should manage them. Presented by Judy Farrar, Archives and Special Collections Librarian at the Claire T. Carney Library at the University of MA, Dartmouth. With her husband and partner, under the name History Preserved, she has consulted with many local libraries on archival matters.

On February 25 SEMLS will offer a workshop on using volunteers in your library at teh Brewster ladies Library from 10 to 12. Many libraries are exploring new and creative ways to extend their services with volunteers in the library. Volunteers can improve your library in many ways. They willingly do repetitive work freeing your staff to address more complicated tasks, and because they are key stakeholders in your library, they serve as good-will ambassadors in the community. The time spent recruiting, training, involving and retaining volunteers can be a great benefit to the library. We’ll talk about best practices and some of the many ways volunteers are currently being used in member libraries. Instructed by Cheryl Bryan, SEMLS Assistant Administrator for Consulting and Continuing