SEMLS News

Reports Submitted by the Communication Working Group of the TransTeam 

The Office for Intellectual Freedom is partnering with ALTAFF to present a one-hour webinar in February for library trustees on the topic of controversial materials in library collections. The webinar, entitled “Controversial Materials in the Library: Supporting Intellectual Freedom in Your Community,” is intended to help trustees understand the basics of intellectual freedom in libraries. It will be presented February 17, 23, and 26....

for further information Intellectual freedom webinar for trustees

Earth Day will be on April 22 this year. One way to reenforce your library's image as earth friendly is to call attention to the library as the ultimate green agency in your community. There are so many ways to celebrate this monumental day—ways that don’t require a big budget but instead a bit of lead time and some creative thinking. You could put an article in your local newspaper highlighting all the recycling that goes on in running a library, invite a local green business in for a demonstration and information session, plan an exhibit of artwork made from recycled materials, or run a contest for the best earth friendy idea to implement in the library. More ideas are available from the Going Green series in the SEMLS Newsletter last August through December at http://www.semls.org/news/newsletter/index.html.  How will you use the community interest to spotlight your library?

On March 9, 10-12, SEMLS will hold a final session of the Adult Programming Roundtable. Everyone who is responsible for adult programming is welcome to come and share what they are doing in their libraries and bounce ideas and quandries off their colleagues.

Guest speakers at this session will be Adrienne Latimer from Falmouth Public Library talking about their very successful one town , one book program anf how they have included all ages in their program. Our other guest speaker will be Janet Campbell, Director for the Mansfield Public Library, talking about their one town, one book program working with a citizen organizing committee to bring Three Cups of Tea author Greg Mortenson  to Mansfield.

Register at the SEMLS Website.

Picassa, IrfanView and JPegger are free programs that can be used for basic image editing. Barbara Andrews will offer a three-hour workshop on how to get these free downloads and begin using them in your library on March 4, from 10 - 1 in the SEMLS computer lab.

Picassa is a free download from Google and is great for organizing pictures and has great search capabilities. Picassa makes editing easy by previewing changes in real time and by providing for multiple levels of undo to revert to the original image. Irfan View is a simple image viewer and editor that supports all major graphic formats and allows you to modify color depth, crop and sharpen images. JPegger provides standard image management functions as well as the ability to create autorun CD's for an easy way to distribute pictures.

Participants should hav basic Windows proficiency before taking this class. Register on the SEMLS Website.

Libraries are in the process of reinventing themselves in response to community needs. On March 18 at SEMLS Cheryl Bryan, Asst. Administrator for Consulting and Continuing Education will show how libraries across the Commonwealth and across the country are doing this. As we plan extensive adaptations we need to stay informed about national trends toward green technology that can contain costs and serve as a conservation model for other community agencies while we make our libraries more welcoming and useful to our users.. This workshop will focus on how to go about finding space to add new services and integrating green technologies into existing buildings.

As the Planning Committee works on a model for the new MA Library System, I know that many of you have questions about services.  FY 2011 will be a year of transition for services that the region provides.   All of us, the Planning Committee, SEMLS Executive Board and SEMLS staff, are looking at the core services and second-tier services to make sure that these continue through the transition year. To those of you receiving delivery service, FY 2011 is the last year of the delivery contract with Optima.   Optima will continue to provide delivery service to you during FY 2011.  At the next few board meetings, the SEMLS Board will look at databases to see if there are any that SEMLS should keep going for FY 2011 or if there is a better model to provide databases to you.   As information about services becomes available, I will share them with you.    As this transition moves along, I want everyone to know that first and foremost in our planning is how to maintain services for you during FY 2011.

Are you looking for a way to deliver library programming online for those users who cannot make it to your building? On March 10, from 10 - 3 SEMLS will offer a hands-on workshop on Podcasting in the SEMLS Computer Lab with Beth Gallaway. Podcasting is one way to reach out to patrons at home. With a podcast, your library can record library events, book reviews, poetry slams and talks and easily make them available on the Web. SEMLS now has recorders available for loan to libraries to help them create their own podcasts. In this class participants will create a podcast by recording the audio file, editing the recording, uploading it to a server and syndicating the show.  Participants should have basic Internet proficiency before taking this class.

Massachusetts Library  System FY 2011 Cooperative Purchasing

The Pledge, Participation and Supply Listing forms for the FY 2011 material and supply cooperative are due by March 31, 2010.  These forms are available at:  http://www.selms.org/what/coop/materials.html.

 Previous forms were sent out in January;  if you review the new forms and want to add any amounts to new catagories, please fill out the forms again. We apologize for cross postings.

The Pledge form now includes catagory 18, which is for video games (Wii, Xbox, etc.).  For the supply portion of the cooperative, there is a 27-page listing for all supplies; please fill in only the number for each item that is anticipated to be purchased for the next fiscal year.  (No dollar amounts.) Only return the supply list pages that contain items  to be purchased.  

These forms are used by the statewide coordinator to review and use the current pledged amounts to approach different vendors to negotiate the best discounts for our members. Feel free to contact the SEMLS office for further information.

The  spring delivery survey will be conducted the week of March 22-27, 2010.   Please remind your circulation staff of these dates.  The delivery survey forms will be sent out by the end of February.

There is a change in how this delivery survey will be done. 

1.  Please report the amount of books and AV materials placed into delivery each day, a separate   space is  provided for each item each day.

2.  Please report the amount of incoming bins and outgoing bins.  Again a separate space for each day is  provided. (Do not include any empties in your count)

3.  Do not count empty delivery bins picked up by the driver.

4.  Answer question on the backpage of the delivery survey each day.

5.  To provide the best delivery service, we are also asking that  your library hour be reported on the form each day.

When you have completed the delivery survey, please send it through delivery by April 1, 2010 to the SEMLS office.

This may be the last delivery survey that SEMLS will supervise.  Thank you for all of your help in making this information available.

Spreadsheets are a great way to create budgets and track expenses. On March 11 from 10-1 in the SEMLS Computer lab Barbara Andrews of Andrews Consulting will offer a workshop on creating spreadsheets in Microsoft Excel.This hands-on workshop will explore all of the pull-down menus, toolbars and features that will help you create worksheets and charts. Learn to create and edit a spreadsheet, use formulas, preview and print a worksheet and create and edit charts.