[Libs-Or] LTLO February 2005
Arturo Guillen
arturo at www.osl.state.or.us
Tue Feb 1 09:03:28 PST 2005
Letter To Libraries Online
An Electronic Newsletter of the
Oregon State Library
Voume 15, Issue 2 February 2005
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LIBRARY BOARD NEWS
Governor Kulongoski Appoints Richard Turner to Board
State Library Board Holds Retreat
OTHER LIBRARY NEWS
Population Survey Shows Oregonians Make Heavy
Use of Public Libraries
Corvallis-Benton County Library Participates in
Get Real, Get Fit! Initiative
Author/Illustrator Visit Funding Award Opportunity
Read Across America
PS. (FROM THE STATE LIBRARIAN)
STATE LIBRARY CONTACT INFORMATION
LIBRARY BOARD NEWS
====================
GOVERNOR KULONGOSKI APPOINTS RICHARD TURNER TO BOARD
Governor Ted Kulongoski has appointed Richard Turner of Lake Oswego to
the State Library Board of Trustees. Turner will complete the term of
Nolan Crabb of Salem who was appointed last year, but recently resigned
from the Board. Turner is a Braille and Technology Instructor for the
Oregon Commission for the Blind in Portland. He is a patron of the
frequent user of the Lake Oswego Public Library. He received his
Bachelor’s degree from Willamette University and a Master’s degree in
Social Work from the University of Washington. He will begin his
service on the State Library Board as soon as he is confirmed by the
Oregon Senate.
STATE LIBRARY BOARD HOLDS RETREAT
The January 28th State Library Board Meeting in Salem was mostly
devoted to reviewing the Board’s roles and responsibilities and
considering a draft of new Board bylaws. Howard Lavine from the
Governor’s staff shared the Governor’s expectations of state boards and
commissions. The Board did not adopt the bylaws, but will seek more
input from the Attorney General’s office and consider them at the next
Board meeting scheduled for April 22nd at the State Library in Salem.
OTHER LIBRARY NEWS
====================
POPULATION SURVEY SHOWS OREGONIANS MAKE HEAVY USE OF
PUBLIC LIBRARIES
At the end of January, the Oregon Progress Board released preliminary
results from the 2004 Oregon Population Survey. The survey showed that
in late 2004, 42% of Oregonians had used a public library or public
library service in the previous month. This result is about the same as
in the last Oregon Population Survey in 2002. The preliminary results
released by the Progress Board showed that children, ages 5 to 14, are
the heaviest users of the Oregon public libraries. Sixty percent of
children had used a public library in the month prior to the survey.
The second largest user group was 15 to 17-year-olds, 53% of whom had
used a public library in the past month. Seniors made the least use of
a public library. For example, only 28% of 65 to 74-year-olds used a
public library in the past month. The State of Oregon has conducted a
biennial survey of Oregon households since 1990. The 2004 Survey
contacted a sample of over 4,500 households and obtained survey
responses for over 11,000 Oregonians. To download a copy of a press
release and a presentation on the 2004 Oregon Population Survey, go to
the Oregon Progress Board’s website: http://egov.oregon.gov/DAS/OPB/
CORVALLIS-BENTON COUNTY LIBRARY PARTICIPATES IN
GET REAL, GET FIT! INITIATIVE
Libraries for the Future has chosen the Corvallis-Benton County Library
to participate in Get Real, Get Fit!, an initiative sponsored by
Libraries for the Future and MetLife Foundation that promotes healthy
lifestyles for teens. The Library was one of 40 sites nationwide
selected to develop a program emphasizing the importance and benefits
of fitness and healthy eating for teens and their parents.
AUTHOR/ILLUSTRATOR VISIT FUNDING AWARD OPPORTUNITY
The Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a division of
the American Library Association (ALA), and Simon & Schuster Children's
Publishing are pleased to announce the creation of a new award for an
author/illustrator visit to a library. Named for the late Maureen
Hayes, who in the 1980s was the Director of Library Services for
Atheneum, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing, the
Maureen Hayes Author/Illustrator Visit Award joins ALSC's prestigious
family of awards. The award will provide up to $4,000 to an ALSC member
library to fund a visit from an author/illustrator who will speak to
children who have not had the opportunity to hear a nationally known
author/illustrator. The applicant is required to work cooperatively
with other types of libraries (academic, public and school) and
bookstores within the local community to coordinate and publicize the
visit, thereby also reaching a broader audience. Applicants also must
present the library's educational goals for the event and how these fit
with the local community's education goals.
READ ACROSS AMERICA
Don’t forget Read Across America on Monday March 2, 2005. The National
Education Association, along with a variety of partner organizations,
including the American Library Association, sponsors this annual event
children to read. The Read Across America website
(http://www.nea.org/readacross) provides a variety of resources and
ideas.
PS. (FROM THE STATE LIBRARIAN)
==============================
[In case you were not able to attend our Centennial Celebration on
January 27th, I wanted to share the remarks I made about the beginnings
of the State Library. Here they are in somewhat shortened form.]
100 years ago this month, House Bill 6 was introduced in the 23rd
Legislative Assembly to create an Oregon Library Commission. The bill
had its first reading on January 10th and by February 13th it had
passed the House and Senate with only two votes in opposition. One
historian has noted that a number of legislators, in order to support
the bill, had to be assured that it had nothing to do with women’s
suffrage.
How did House Bill 6 come to be introduced a century ago? Most of the
credit belongs to a remarkable librarian, Mary Frances Isom, who was
one of the first trained librarians to come to Oregon. In 1901, she was
hired as a book cataloger by the Portland Library Association which ran
a private subscription library for affluent Portland families.. Within
a short time she became the library director and she led the Portland
Library Association to establish the first tax-supported free public
library in Oregon in 1902, serving all of Multnomah County, only the
third county library in the U.S. at that time. Mary Frances Isom was a
visionary, and she saw the need for the State of Oregon to see to the
development of library services for all of the citizens of the state.
She wrote: “is it not fitting, as the only free library in the state,
that we should use our active influence to bring such an organization,
properly equipped with a trained library organizer at its head, whose
work should be to encourage libraries already started, to establish new
ones, and to answer fully the demands which come to this library
”
It was Mary France Isom who drafted House Bill 6, modeled after similar
legislation that created the Wisconsin Free Library Commission. She
support for the bill. After the bill passed, Isom traveled to Wisconsin
to study the work of the Wisconsin Free Library Commission, and there
she met a young librarian named Cornelia Marvin who impressed her with
her six years of library development experience, but even more so with
her drive and determination. Isom did not go to Wisconsin in the
spring of 1905 to recruit Cornelia Marvin. But when she returned to
Oregon she received a letter followed by a telegram from Marvin
indicating her willingness to take a $600 reduction in her annual
salary to become director, then called Secretary, of the Commission.
She was appointed by the Commission in May and began her work on August
1st.
Twenty-three years later, on the eve of her retirement, and her
marriage to Governor Walter Pierce, Cornelia Marvin reflected on that
day in 1905:
I began my library service in Oregon with a clear field, large
opportunity, and two thousand dollars a year to be devoted to the cause
of library development in a state with no state library except a law
library, no free books available for any person in Oregon except for
those fortunate ones who lived in Portland, Salem, and Eugene, and only
one of these maintained a tax-supported library.
The Oregon Library Commission took up quarters in the Capitol and later
in the Supreme Court Building. The work of the Commission was equally
devoted to the development of both school and public libraries, and
Marvin led the Commission to great success in both endeavors. By 1907,
the tax supported free public library in Multnomah County had been
joined by free public libraries in Salem, Eugene, Baker City, and
Dallas. By 1909 there were 14 free public libraries, and by 1913, when
the Oregon Library Commission was renamed the Oregon State Library,
there were 41 free public libraries. When Cornelia Marvin retired at
the end of 1928, there were 82 free public libraries serving nearly
every community in Oregon, an amazing achievement.
there is of course much more to our story that I wish I had time to
share with you. Let me just mention that over the years we have taken
on two other equally important missions, in addition to our original
library development mission. Early on we became the source of
information and research assistance for all state agencies, the
talking book and Braille library for Oregonians who were blind or had
other disabilities that prevented them from using printed books from
their local library.
Let me close by once again paying tribute to two remarkable women who
truly were the founding mothers of the Oregon State Library, Mary
Frances Isom and Cornelia Marvin Pierce. They, more than anyone,
deserve our appreciation and our gratitude as we celebrate the State
Library’s Centennial year. As librarians, they both were driven by the
same core value. Cornelia Marvin, in her blunt-edged manner, put it
this way: "The librarian must assume that every person, not actually in
a state of coma or idiocy has some interest or need which requires the
intelligent use of books." Today we would put it this way: that good
libraries are essential to the quality of life of all Oregonians. So
let that be the core value that we continue to work for, and to
celebrate, in the State Library’s Centennial year. -- Jim Scheppke
===============================================================
STATE LIBRARY CONTACT INFORMATION
Technical Support 503-378-4246
MaryKay Dahlgreen
marykay.dahlgreen at state.or.us 503-378-2112, ext. 239
Pam Horan
pam.horan at state.or.us 503-378-2112, ext. 224
Ann Reed
ann.reed at state.or.us 503-378-2112, ext. 254
Jim Scheppke
jim.b.scheppke at state.or.us 503-378-4367
Robin Speer
robin.d.speer at state.or.us 503-378-4243, ext. 221
Val Vogt
val.t.vogt at state.or.us 503-378-2112, ext. 222
OSL's home page
http://www.osl.state.or.us/home/
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LETTER TO LIBRARIES ONLINE (ISSN 1059-3195) is published monthly by the Oregon
State Library. Editorial offices: LTLO, Oregon State Library, 250 Winter Street NE, Salem,
OR 97301-3950. Editor: Robin Speer, 503-378-4243, ext. 221 or e-mail
robin.d.speer at state.or.us
LETTER TO LIBRARIES ONLINE is available free of charge and is available only in
electronic form at the Oregon State Library's Homepage:
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the authors and not necessarily those of the Oregon State Library. News items or
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