[Libs-Or] December LTLO

[Ferol Weyand]

Letter To Libraries Online

An Electronic Newsletter from the Oregon State Library.......Volume 20, Issue 12, December 2010



Library Board News


STATE LIBRARY BOARD MEETS IN LEBANON
The State Library Board will hold their December meeting at the new Lebanon Public Library<http://www.lebanon.plinkit.org/> in Lebanon. The Board will tour the new library which has drawn rave reviews for its outstanding design and new RFID technology. In their business meeting the Board will take up a number of issues including an appeal of a Ready to Read Grant to the Rainier Public Library that was denied by State Library staff. The Board will also hear a request from Hood River County for assistance to plan the reopening of the Hood River County Library as a special library district. Voters in Hood River County approved the new district at the November 2nd general election. The Board will also deliberate on whether to begin to ask for partial support payments for L-net from public and academic libraries in 2011-12. Oregon Administrative Rules require that the Board consider this in the last quarter of every year. Also on the agenda are elections to Board Advisory Councils and proposed amendments to the Board's bylaws. The meeting will begin at 10:00 a.m. An Open Forum is scheduled for 11:30 a.m. Anyone may address the Board in the Open Forum on any topic.
State Library News


LEARNING EXPRESS LIBRARY ADDED TO STATEWIDE DATABASE LICENSING PROGRAM OFFERINGS
On November 8th the State Library announced that all Oregon libraries that qualify for the Statewide Database Licensing Program<http://oregon.gov/OSL/LD/technology/sdlp/index.shtml> program have access to LearningExpress Library<http://www.learnatest.com/lel/>. Not sure what LEL is? In short, it is a test preparation and computer skills database, and then some. For example, there are practice tests to help adults and students at all levels hone reading, math, and writing skills. Studying for the SAT, CDL, GRE, or nurses' exam? There's assistance for that, too. Need help writing a resume or learning Microsoft Excel? Try an LEL course or eBook. If your library has not set up access to LearningExpress Library, read the "How to Sign Up" section on OSL's support<http://www.oregon.gov/OSL/LD/technology/sdlp/LearningExpress/> page. It's as simple as identifying which authentication method you prefer and sending that information to LEL's customer service. A representative from LearningExpress will send you a personalized URL; post that to your website, and you're set to share this resource with patrons. The State Library will offer several onsite trainings in the spring. In the meantime, you can familiarize yourself with the product by exploring tutorials in the Help section<http://www.learnatest.com/LEL/index.cfm/help> or participating in a free webinar<https://learningexpress.webex.com/mw0306lb/mywebex/default.do;jsessionid=SGSyMmrBpJ0vnnC3tbdZv5Q3rz2RTJN7sdThk1mTc7BWPWT8r98k!952820625?nomenu=true&siteurl=learningexpress&service=6&main_url=https%3A%2F%2Flearningexpress.webex.com%2Fec0605lb%2Feventcenter%2Fprogram%2FprogramDetail.do%3FtheAction%3Ddetail%26siteurl%3Dlearningexpress%26cProgViewID%3D4>. Questions? Contact MaryKay Dahlgreen<mailto:marykay.dahlgreen at state.or.us>, Darci Hanning<mailto:darci.hanning at state.or.us>, or Jennifer Maurer<mailto:jennifer.maurer at state.or.us> in Library Development at the State Library.

MARYKAY DAHLGREEN APPOINTED TO LITERACY LEADERSHIP STATE TEAM

MaryKay Dahlgreen, Library Development Program Manager, has been appointed to the Oregon Department of Education Literacy Leadership State Team. The Team, which will meet from November through January, is charged with creating a State Literacy Plan that will allow Oregon to pursue funding under the Striving Readers Comprehensive Literacy program to advance the literacy skills for students from birth though Grade 12.

STATE LIBRARIAN APPOINTED TO THE STATE ELECTRONIC PORTAL ADVISORY BOARD
Governor Kulongoski has appointed State Librarian Jim Scheppke to serve on the new Electronic Portal Advisory Board. The Legislature created the new Board in the 2009 legislative session. The Board includes state agency staff, legislators and members of the public. The Board is charged with advising on key decisions and strategic choices about how the State of Oregon manages and operates web portal services. For a number of years the State has provided the Oregon.gov <http://egov.oregon.gov/> portal site. Beginning in 2011, Oregon.gov will be transitioning to a new platform provided by a third party portal provider. A procurement process is currently underway to identify the provider. The Advisory Board will have a say in the award of the contract, the transition plan, and the new services that the portal will offer.

READY TO READ GRANTS COMING THIS MONTH
The 2010-2011 Ready to Read Grants will be mailed to public library directors by the end of December. Included in this mailing will be a list of the libraries receiving grants this year, descriptions of the projects they plan to implement with their Ready to Read Grant in 2011, and a sample press release. Legislators will have to make many difficult funding decisions next year. The State Library is encouraging public librarians to inform legislators about how the grant is benefiting children and young adults locally at their library.

TBABS LOGO AVAILABLE FOR LINKING

If you would like a visual reminder of Statewide services for print-disabled patrons, think about putting a direct link to Talking Book and Braille Services on your library's website. The new and improved Talking Book and Braille Services (TBABS) logo is available now for your website resources section. To receive a .jpg copy of our logo, please send an email to Elke Bruton<mailto:elke.bruton at state.or.us> and she will be happy to send it to you. Linking to the TBABS website from your library's website makes a nice transition for our shared patrons to access library services.
Other Library News


WEST ORIENT MIDDLE SCHOOL LIBRARY LAUDED BY AASL

On Monday, November 8th, American Association of School Librarians President Dr. Nancy Everhart visited West Orient Middle School in Gresham to recognize and congratulate Erin Fitzpatrick-Bjorn for creating an outstanding library program that empowers "every student with the skills needed to be a Learner4Life." During a school assembly, students paraded banners with their favorite books, sang a song about reading, enjoyed a tribute about "Mrs. F-B" from a local rapper, and heard about the value of a strong school library from Dr. Everhart and Mrs. Fitzpatrick-Bjorn. In an effort to draw attention to the value that quality school librarians and library programs bring to students and their learning, Dr. Everhart has embarked on a Vision Tour<http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/aasl/aboutaasl/aaslgovernance/aaslpres/visiontour.cfm>. Her goal is to visit an outstanding school library program in every state. Mrs. Fitzpatrick-Bjorn was selected by the Oregon Association of School Libraries<http://oasl.info/> as the 2009 Outstanding Secondary School Librarian, and as such, was chosen to represent Oregon on the Vision Tour. The Oregonian ran two articles<http://www.oregonlive.com/gresham/index.ssf/2010/11/gresham_middle_school_library.html> related to the event, and the latter<http://www.oregonlive.com/gresham/index.ssf/2010/11/west_orient_middle_schools_lib.html> drew attention to the declining state of school libraries in Oregon due to years of undervaluing librarians' contributions to student learning and to budget woes that have squeezed librarians out of schools.

ANOTHER SUCCESSFUL HORNER LIBRARY STAFF EXCHANGE
Brandon Barnett (Multnomah County Library, Nancy Hoover (Marylhurst University Library) and Amy Lee (Fort Vancouver Regional Library) completed a three week visit to Oregon's sister province of Fujian, China, on November 5th. The trip was sponsored by the State Library in cooperation with the International Relations Round Table of the Oregon Library Association as part of the Horner Library Staff Exchange project. Since 1998, 25 librarians from Oregon and Fujian have participated in the exchange, named for Dr. Layton Horner, who made a donation to the State Library that still provides some funding for the project. In April of this year, three librarians from Fujian spent three weeks in Oregon. The three Oregon librarians visited with professional colleagues in the provincial capital of Fuzhou and in the second largest city of Xiamen. They took a side trip to the mountain resort town of Wuyishan to attend the annual conference of the Fujian Library Association. In addition to touring libraries, the Oregon librarians also made presentations at the conference and at several libraries. State Librarian Jim Scheppke joined the group during their first week and UO University Librarian Deborah Carver and her colleague Robert Felsing joined the delegation for a few days in Xiamen at the invitation of the Xiamen University Library. The Horner Exchange librarians kept a blog<http://horner2010.wordpress.com/> where they recorded many impressions and observations about what they discovered on their trip. The State Library and the Fujian Provincial Library will be negotiating a new Memorandum of Understanding to undertake a new round of Horner Exchange visits, hopefully in 2013.

STATE LIBRARIANS CALL FOR NLS BOOKS TO BE READABLE ON SMARTPHONES
At their fall meeting in Kansas City, the Chief Officers of State Library Agencies, made up of state librarians from the 50 states and the District of Columbia, passed a resolution calling upon the National Library Services for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS) to make its new digital talking books readable on the iPhone and other smartphones. The resolution was in response to a letter that quoted the director of NLS as being reluctant to move in this direction. The director indicated that he believed that blind iPhone users are a "tiny ... minority" of blind readers and he cited concerns about the security of Apple devices that might compromise NLS' digital rights management software. COSLA is aware that every other major country now makes it possible for blind smartphone users to read talking books. The Association for the Blind of Western Australia (ABWA) has created an iPhone app that will read digital talking books from Australia and other countries. The COSLA resolution calls on NLS to work with Apple and with ABWA so that blind iPhone users in the U.S. can use the new app, and that NLS cooperate with other manufacturers of smartphones to allow NLS books to be read on their devices as apps become available. Contrary to what the director of NLS believes, iPhones are becoming very popular with blind people because they include features that make them usable by the blind right out of the box. The same is true of iPads. At a recent National Federation of the Blind conference in Kansas, the Kansas State Librarian reports that about a third of the attendees were iPhone users.
P.S. (From the State Librarian)


I am certainly enjoying reading e-books from Library2Go on my new Sony Reader. I got a deal on the Reader - only $99. It doesn't have the bells and whistles of other ebook readers, but it works fine for me. I loaded it up with public domain books from Project Gutenberg that are now on Library2Go. These are higher quality versions of the classics than you might find elsewhere.

Even though I love my old books, I still try to keep up with new books, mostly from the Salem Public Library. None of these favorites from my reading this year were e-books, but I'd bet next year there will be an e-book or two on my list.

Here are some recent books that I would like to recommend for your enjoyment and enlightenment:

Fat of the Land: Adventures of a 21st Century Forager by Langdon Cook (Skipstone, 2009)
I savored this NW writer's account of collecting his own food in our neck of the woods.

Farm City: the Education of an Urban Farmer by Novella Carpenter (Penguin, 2010)
Carpenter had to practice foraging of a different kind (it was dumpster diving, actually) in order to raise her pigs in a ghetto neighborhood in Oakland. What a wonderful, inspiring tale of growing your own food in an unlikely place.

Four Fish: the Future of the Last Wild Food by Paul Greenberg (Penguin, 2010)
I guess I read a lot about food this year. This book was fascinating and well-researched and should be of special interest to Oregonians.

Chop Suey: A Cultural History of Chinese Food in the United States by Andrew Coe (Oxford, 2009)
Okay, okay, this is the last food book on the list. How "Chinese" food in America morphed from the real thing.

The Poker Bride: The First Chinese in the Wild West by Christopher Corbett (Atlantic Monthly, 2010)
Another aspect of the 19th century wave of Chinese immigration to America - young women sold into slavery and prostitution, and how one of them survived.

Country Driving: A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory by Peter Hessler (Harper 2010)
I have thoroughly enjoyed Peter Hessler's three books on contemporary China, and this one was great preparation for my recent trip to Fujian.

The Lunatic Express: Discovering the World via its Most Dangerous Buses, Boats, Trains and Planes by Carl Hoffman (Broadway 2010)
What armchair traveler can resist a title like this! And Hoffman delivers ... a very enjoyable read.

Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America by Robert Charles Wilson (Tor 2009)
I seldom pick up a contemporary novel, but I picked up this one, and was entranced by it.

The MLS Project: An Assessment after Sixty Years by Boyd Keith Swigger (Scarecrow 2010) If you're a librarian, and you love heresy, like I do, read Keith Swigger's book about how the effort 60 years ago to standardize the education required of a librarian has not turned out so well.

The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education by Diane Ravitch (Basic, 2010)
More heresy from a former assistant secretary of education. Ravitch renounces her belief in the market-driven, accountability model of education reform in the face of overwhelming evidence that it doesn't work.

The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett (Bloomsbury, 2009)
And speaking of overwhelming evidence, this book proves beyond any doubt that inequality of incomes makes for the worst outcomes in health, well-being, and happiness - and that's bad for everyone, the well-off as well as the poor. If you read only one book on this list, read this one.

Happy holidays and happy reading to you all. - Jim Scheppke
Contacts at the Oregon State Library


Library Development: 503-378-2525, MaryKay Dahlgreen<mailto:marykay.dahlgreen at state.or.us>, Mary Mayberry<mailto:mary.l.mayberry at state.or.us>, Darci Hanning<mailto:darci.hanning at state.or.us>, Ann Reed<mailto:ann.reed at state.or.us>, Jennifer Maurer<mailto:jennifer.maurer at state.or.us>, Katie Anderson<mailto:katie.anderson at state.or.us>.

Talking Book and Braille Services: 503-378-5389, Susan Westin<mailto:susan.b.westin at state.or.us>.

Government Research Services: 503-378-5030, Robert Hulshof-Schmidt<mailto:robert.hulshof-schmidt at state.or.us>.

State Librarian: 503-378-4367, Jim Scheppke<mailto:jim.b.scheppke at state.or.us>.

LTLO Editor: 503-378-2464, Ferol Weyand <mailto:Ferol.Weyand at state.or.us> . Letter to Libraries Online is published monthly by the Oregon State Library. Editorial office: LTLO, Oregon State Library, 250 Winter St. NE, Salem, Oregon 97301-3950, 503-378-2464, editor: Ferol Weyand<mailto:Ferol.Weyand at state.or.us> . Letter to Libraries Online is available free of charge and is available only in electronic form on the publications page at the Oregon State Library's homepage: http://www.oregon.gov/OSL. Opinions expressed in the articles are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Oregon State Library. News items or articles should be sent to Ferol Weyand<mailto:Ferol.Weyand at state.or.us> , or mailed to LTLO, Oregon State Library, 250 Winter St. NE, Salem, Oregon 97301-3950.

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Ferol Weyand
Administration
Oregon State Library
250 Winter St NE
Salem, OR 97301-3950
Ferol.Weyand at state.or.us
Phone: (503) 378-2464

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