Did you know the workshops are up?

Find them here:

http://host4.evanced.info/swfln/evanced/eventcalendar.asp?df=calendar

You can register 30-days before a workshop. Be on the lookout for a timely email telling you so!

New Executive Director Appointed for SWFLN!

Bob Verbesey will step into the role of SWFLN Executive Director beginning October 1. Bob has spent all of his adult life working in libraries. He spent twenty-five years as the founding director of a public library on Long Island.  For the past five-and-a-half years, he served as the founding director of Ave Maria University’s library.

Bob received a B.A. from Fordham, an M.L.S. from Long Island University, and a M.S. in Policy Analysis and Public Management from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He also earned a Certificate in Library Administration from the University of Maryland.

He has taught library science and management as an adjunct at the graduate level at five universities — including the University of South Florida and Florida State University — for more than twenty years.  His articles have appeared in American Libraries, Library Journal and Library Administration and Management, among other library-related journals.

Bob has been active in local, state and national associations for thirty years, and has made presentations at over thirty-five conferences and workshops — primarily related to personnel management. 

Upon news of his appointment, Bob said: “I am so excited about this opportunity.  Barbara Stites got me involved with SWFLN eight years ago, shortly after I arrived in Florida.  During that time I have gotten to know and admire so many of the areas librarians and library managers.  My sole aim is to serve them.”  

SWFLN Board Meeting next date: Tuesday, October 20, 2009, at 3:00 PM

Tuesday, October 20, 2009, at 3:00 PM,

Library Conference Room 224

Florida Gulf Coast University

Check for Training!

Calendar of Training
Be sure to check here to find new training!

SWFLN’s wikis -want to have one to edit?

Check out SWFLN’s wikis:

http://swflnvolunteers.pbwiki.com/

http://swflnequipment.pbwiki.com/

These wikis give you direct publishing power to the SWFLN website. Did you want to become a member of any of these or have another created?  Contact Lee LeBlanc at lleblanc[at]fgcu.edu.

SWFLN’s Executive Director Retires at the end of the month

Sondra served as SWFLN’s Executive Director and will be returning to north Florida near Tallahassee.

If you knew Sondra, you know the good work she did for SWFLN’s members. Drop her a line or give her a call and wish her well. Friday is her last official day.

We wish her well.

-The SWFLN Staff-

Hurricane season is here!

From-

http://www.ii.fsu.edu/hurricanes/

Announcing a new website that helps Florida Public
Librarians work with local communities to better prepare
for and recover from a hurricane disaster:
Plus:  This site offers you a searchable
database of the BEST available resources.
• Service roles and how to implement them;
• URLs to an extensive set of resources;
• Planning guides and basic actions; and
• Evacuee assistance information.

See the flyer for more information- hurrFlyer

State Libraryy- Open Source Library System Software: Libraries Are Doing it for Themselves (A Free Webinar)

Open Source Library System Software: Libraries Are Doing it for Themselves (A Free Webinar)

Tuesday, July 21, 2009 from 3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. EDT

Registration is not required.  More information and access information is available online.

The link to this program will be available at 2:30 p.m. on July 21, 2009.

The first webinar in this series presented an introduction to and overview of Open in improving OSLS software – even if you’re not a programmer or a “techie!”

This webinar will describe all the ways to get involved with an OSLS project—even if you aren’t a programmer.  By the end of the webinar, you will understand why involving your organization in an OSLS project creates opportunities for delivering new services to customers and optimizing the work of your staff.

During this presentation, participants will:

• Learn how to get involved, contribute, and affect which features get developed.
• Learn how to participate in the OSLS community even if you aren’t a programmer.
• Learn what service providers are available in the areas of needs assessment, migration, support, hosting, training, and development.
• Learn about the role consortia can play in coordinating development projects, reducing support costs, and providing shared technical staff for individual libraries.
• Learn about “resource-sharing” where the resources are library people instead of library material.
• Hear about collaborative OSLS projects underway at the consortia and statewide level, all around the country.
• Hear about California’s Open Source Library Consortium and the benefits of becoming a member.

This free webinar is the second in an Open Source Series sponsored by Infopeople, Califa, and the Open Source Library Consortium.  The first two webinars will be presented by Lori Bowen Ayre, and will focus on Open Source Library Systems (OSLS). Subsequent webinars will be delivered by other instructors and will cover Open Source applications including Drupal, Flickr, and Open Office.

Take a sneak peak: Florida Electronic Library

Click on the image for more information.

State Library and Archives of Florida to Host Florida Public Library Broadband Webinars

State Library and Archives of Florida to Host Florida Public Library Broadband Webinars

 The extent to which Florida’s public libraries can adequately provide Internet based services and resources to their users depends, in part, on the quality and speed of their connection to the Internet.  These speeds, if fast enough, are termed “broadband.”  The State Library and Archives of Florida will host a series of online meetings to discuss broadband issues with Florida’s public library directors. 

 Join us on Tuesday, July 21, at 1:30 p.m. to discuss policy issues relating to broadband, specifically including:

• Why Florida public libraries need broadband
• The current state of Internet connectivity for Florida public libraries
• Funding opportunities for broadband
• Participating in the NTIA Broadband Technology Opportunity Program

Come back on Tuesday, July 28, at 1:30 p.m. to talk about:

• Sustaining broadband through the federal E-Rate program using the new Florida AT&T E-Rate contract

Attending the training is simple:

1. Determine if your computer is ready.

• Run the Wimba Classroom Setup Wizard at least 24 hours prior to the session.  The Wizard will ensure that you have the software and configuration you need to participate in the meeting.
• We will be using Voice over IP (VoIP) technology.  You can listen to the meeting through your computer’s speakers or headphones.  If you want to be able to speak you will need a microphone, but this is not required.  Computer headsets are the perfect way to speak and hear on VoIP, as the headset includes both headphones and a microphone.  There are many good models available for under $20.

 

1. Connect to the online classroom 15 minutes early to do a sound check.

• Go to http://67.202.209.252/launcher.cgi?room=fl_meeting2
• On the Participant Login page, enter:

Room ID: fl_meeting2 (this may auto-populate)

Name: (type your name in the space provided)

 Problems accessing the online classroom?  If you have any issues connecting, call Melissa Hooke at 850.245.6632 or check the Wimba Classroom Guide.  It has answers to most common questions.

 For additional information, contact Stephanie Race at srace@dos.state.fl.us or 850.245.6624.

Wikis?

Check out SWFLN’s wikis:

 http://swflnvolunteers.pbwiki.com/

http://swflnequipment.pbwiki.com/

These wikis give you direct publishing power to the SWFLN website. Did you want to become a member of any of these or have another created? Contact Lee LeBlanc at lleblanc[at]fgcu.edu.

Want a new way to learn about emerging technologies?

Hi All!

Would you like to be part of a SWFLN beta learning project?

Drop me an email -we’ll talk!

Kind regards,

Lee LeBlanc

“The Library Practitioner Certification Program”

from http://rurallibraries.org/index.html

Certification will help you prove that you are good at your job as it offers recognition and documentation of your library knowledge and skills. Certification will also demonstrate to others that you have a personal commitment to library work. Certification can also help differentiate you from others through your demonstrated competency and can give you evidence of your worth when you seek promotion or increased compensation.

-http://rurallibraries.org/webcasts/06-25-08/

Webjunction webinar: What happens when you look at your library through the eyes of your customers?

The Customer Focused Library
Event Type: Webinar
Date: 3/17/2009
Start Time: 2:00 PM
End Time: 3:00 PM
Library: WebJunction
Location: Wimba Classroom

Description: What happens when you look at your library through the eyes of your customers? Three public libraries and one academic library from the Chicago area did just that, as part of a LSTA grant-funded initiative on patron needs assessment. A retail-space consulting firm conducted a two-day study of patron behavior, touch points, and interactions at the four libraries. The results of those observations led to the libraries adjusting staff behavior, space layout, signage, and marketing tactics, in order to better serve and delight their patrons.

During this webinar, Gretel Stock-Kupperman, director of consulting and continuing education at Metropolitan Library System; Jamie Bukovac, director of Indian Prairie Public Library; and Detlev Pansch, director of Barrington Area Public Library, will share the details of what issues were surfaced by the study, and the best practices they have adopted from the retail world in order to better address patron needs.
Other: Times listed are in U.S. EASTERN TIME ZONE. Check out timezoneconverter.com to convert start time to your local time zone.

Registration is required for this webinar. You will receive confirmation of your registration by email, and an additional follow-up reminder before the webinar. Instructions for joining the webinar are located below, and will also be sent in the reminder email.

http://evanced.info/webjunction/evanced/eventsignup.asp?ID=1562

Arvchives of College of Dupage Webinars

Did you miss a College of Dupage Webinar?  Contact me for the link to these:

10/27/06 “Best New Technologies

2/9/07 “Next Gen Librarianship: Where Do We Go from Here?”

3/23/07 “Library Transformation: Making It Happen”

4/13/07 “The Best from the Web”

4/27/07 “Library Education: Facing New Realities”

5/11/07 “The Relevance of Libraries in a Digital Age”

6/1/07 “Copyright in the Digital Age

10/26/07 “Finding the Trends That Matter: Get Your Environmental Scan On”

2/8/08 “People Watching with a Purpose”

3/7/08 “Library Spaces: Future Needs”

4/11/08 “Trends, Fads or Folly”

5/9/08 “Tools of Engagement”

2/13/09 Targeting the Ages

FLA Annual Conference May 5th-8th

2009 Annual Conference May 5 – 8

May 5, 2009, Preconference Workshops
May 6 – 8, 2009, FLA Conference

http://www.flalib.org/conference_2009.php

“This is a great time to promote the importance of libraries. I have read that if libraries are storehouses of knowledge then librarians and other library staff members are managers of this knowledge. The 2009 conference will focus on exploring the many ways to achieve our goal of connecting our communities with the emerging knowledge of the universe.”

Mercedes Clement, FLA President for 2008-09

MaintainIT Project Webinars!

Register for these free webinars online at: http://www.maintainitproject.org/events

The MaintainIT Project, (www.maintainitproject.org), interviews librarians about how they maintain public computers. All of these experiences and tips are available for free on the website in articles, guides called cookbooks, and blog posts. Now librarians can learn from the experiences of others without reinventing the wheel.

Roadmap for Creating a Successful Marketing Campaign: TechSoup Talks
When: March 5, 11:00am – 12:00pm Pacific (Noon Mountain/1 PM Central/2 PM Eastern)
Want to learn from an organization that won an award for their creative marketing campaign? This nonprofit used Adobe InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop to create all the components of a fun and engaging product marketing campaign that was chosen as runner up in the Adobe-TechSoup 2008 Show Your Impact contest. Kami Griffiths will interview Lea Anne Armstrong from Evergreen to talk about their winning entry and how it was created.

IT Asset Management: A MaintainIT Book Club Discussion
When: March 10, 11:00am – 12:00pm Pacific (Noon Mountain/1 PM Central/2 PM Eastern)
How old are your computers? Are they still under warranty? How many software licenses do you have and do you need to buy more? It can feel overwhelming to keep track of serial numbers, vendor contact information, networking data, etc. Luckily, there are IT Asset Management solutions that can help and some of them are free! Kendra Morgan, TechAtlas Project Coordinator, will be a special guest for this discussion.

Technology Grants for Libraries 101
When: March 12, 11:00am – 12:00pm Pacific (Noon Mountain/1 PM Central/2 PM Eastern)
Discover the confidence and knowledge to successfully receive library grant funding. Find out where to easily locate grant opportunities, learn a step-by-step method for writing grant proposals, and discover real library grant success stories. Stephanie Gerding, an experienced trainer and author on library grants, will provide practical advice ideal for new grant writers.

Register for these free webinars online at: http://www.maintainitproject.org/events

Why did 3forTuesdays fail? Or did it succeed?

Instructions for opting in are at the bottom.  Or make the jump now.

There were many reasons my idea for using email to deliver Training Tips succeeded –with some pieces failing.  Rather than flood your email inbox with a lengthy explanation you can read the background on the 3forTuesdays training initiative here. It’s four simple points:

1. You can’t send regular mass emails before you have permission. Especially if you want to get buy-in. Who wants to get another e-mail they don’t have time for?
Over the past few months, I had to devise a way to launch a training initiative hopefully cutting through the information overload I know you deal with daily.

Would just sending an email be enough? Is seeing my email address novel enough to make you take action?  How do I reach as many people as possible in SWFLN’s membership?  What would stir members -positively and negatively to get them talking? What types of emails are members used to getting? Do I have enough authority and credibility that the training emails will be read and not just passed over?  Is this an effective use of SWFLN members’ time? What methods will give an me a way to compactly transmit information: email, print publications, RSS feeds, youtube videos, etc.. The idea was to find a mass way to push information out to members.

Turning over the questions come up with some interesting results.  To cut through several information filters, the choice came down to 1 of 3 options:

• push out training tips through emails, with little declarative purpose (time to execution was less than- 2 months).
• —set-up blog, post, teach members how to use RSS and help members develop strategies for processing and managing information (time to execution- 4-6 months).
• or 1) develop several information channels & containers and push information into those channels; and then 2) Advertise and help members access allowing them to pull in what information they want (time to execution- 6-8 months).

I worked out a simple Venn diagram. I listed the questions and these 3 options. Probably not surprising to you, each one had serious drawbacks.

These drawbacks ranged from the benign to nearly egregious -like never being asked if you wanted to opt-in to receiving emails from me.  Rolling out new initiatives can magnify what you thought were acceptable, drawbacks.  What seemed like permissible drawbacks to me may seem offensive and reprehensible to you. To launch a successful program, you have to account for a far larger range of effects than you initially think you do.

This closes off the first point: in conducting training I must pilot, whenever feasible, ideas that I think are spectacular; as you may not think the ideas for training are so spectacular.

2. I must clearly describe my goal and the benefit to you. Why you would want to receive these training emails?
The primary reason why you would want to receive these training e-mails lies in the fact that cultivating the ability to learn continuously.  This allows you to move in any direction you wish to go in for your career no matter what the shape of the economy is.

How is receiving an e-mail on training going to do that? Research shows that we can rewire our brains. The best way to do this is to expand small amounts of focused concentration.  Attending an all-day seminar or going to an intensive week-long crash course is valuable. But, what is more valuable? Shaping your every day thinking while engaged in everyday activities. This first step is very simple but powerful.  The benefit over time is a cumulative effect.  We slowly shift the mind into a continuously curious state. Research also shows this mindset fights Alzheimer’s disease.

Rather than removing learning from your everyday life we place it into your normal routine and help you cultivate those behaviors.  Learning then truly becomes a natural behavior that happens at every opportunity.

3. I must clearly describe my CE&ET role at SWFLN as it differs from the past and brings in a different set of learning philosophies.
In stating the obvious, learning, training or education should be second nature to all of us.

• Unfortunately, so many of us have such a poor view of education through no real fault of our own. A large part lies in the educational systems we get shoehorned into.  Far from being encouraged to pursue our natural ability to learn about any subject, we are boxed into and controlled by systems that are meant to educate us.  This would be great if we were born with the native ability to learn about any subject in any way.

• Unfortunately, we have to learn how to learn beyond the basics.  Educational systems are set up to educate massive amounts of people. These systems are not customized to the unique ways in which you learn. Does this mean then that large-scale education is always going to fail?  No, but its first role should be to help people learn, better.
  

• Fortunately, the core of our continuing education and training program will have more and more personalization as the central tenet.  In addition to providing training courses, there should be a connective web linking all the training programs together. There should be multiple ways to attend training: over the web, video, asynchronous tutorials, group wikis, and any other method that makes learning personalized for you. Sometimes you need specific answer; sometimes you want to learn a new skill.  Both can be achieved.
  

4. I resolve to make the best training decisions for you based on the feedback I receive.
Empathy is an emotionally intelligent behavior that I cite often. Why? I think it’s one the best traits you can develop.  Being empathetic allows you to listen and change; rather than just react.  To make the best training decisions for you, I’ll need to listen a lot. Feedback becomes ever more crucial.

That means your role as an active participant only increases.  I need you involved.  We’ll need to learn some things that may seem hard or not fun.  Doesn’t mean we don’t need it though. It just means that we’re always building our abilities through learning. Helping me make training decisions for workshops by spotting things you want to learn about will only make a stronger more relevant CE program over time.

Success will come to those who develop this trait.: simple, continuous learning efforts. Let’s push out there together.

Kind regards,
Lee LeBlanc

PS If you would like to opt-in, please leave a comment on this post with an email address. When you leave a comment, the SWFLN blog asks you to leave an email address. I’m the only one who can see it.  Once I have collected enough email address, then I’ll send out the training email -we may also try something else at that point too

SWFLN has a Youtube channel and a Twitter feed now.

We’ll be rolling out information through these channels in the near future.  From quick tutorials to quick updates, either allows you to use an RSS reader to pull in the information you want. Keep an eye out!

SWFLN on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/user/SWFLN

SWFLN on Twitter:

http://twitter.com/swfln

~Lee~

Ann & Luly

Award given at the Digitization Workshop.

–Originally uploaded by swfln

Upcoming Conference: Connecting To Collections: upcoming forums on securing Florida’s collections

Connecting To Collections: upcoming forums on securing Florida’s collections

Professionals from museums, libraries, archives, and historic and archaeological collections are planning a statewide assessment of Florida’s collections and developing strategies to educate legislators and public officials about their responsibility to preserve and conserve Florida’s collections. This is your opportunity to help plan the assessment, and to make recommendations on statewide policies to secure Florida’s collections. Come help shape this important initiative!

Forum 2 February 26, 2009 at DeBary Hall (between Orlando and Daytona Beach)
Forum 3 March 23, 2009 at Goodwood Museum & Gardens in Tallahassee
Each Forum is followed by a reception for area legislators. The Forum is free, but registration is required.
For more information and registration:
www.flamuseums.org/programming/c2c/

FAM has scheduled two of its professional development workshops on the same days as the Forums:
Managing an Archival Collection Without an Archivist on Staff
February 26, 2009 DeBary Hall Historic Site (between Orlando and Daytona Beach)

Trustee Day
March 4, 2009, in collaboration with Children’s Museum of Naples

Collections Care 101
March 23, 2009 Goodwood Museum & Gardens, Tallahassee
For registration form and further information go to
www.flamuseums.org/programming/workshops/

CONTACT:
Myriam Springuel
Springuel Consulting
www.SpringuelConsulting.com
Member: The Museum Group
www.museumgroup.com

Free & Upcoming Events

Virtual Worlds CE Series

Offered by The Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois, in partnership with the Illinois Alliance Library System, is pleased to offer the following non-credit continuing education courses on Second Life.

These courses are open to anyone interested in learning more about virtual worlds and establishing a library, museum or educational presence in Second Life.

For additional information and to register:
http://www.lis.uiuc.edu/programs/cpd/VW/

SPRING 2009 Courses

Second Life 101
Instructor: Puglet Dancer

Virtual World Librarianship
Instructors: Hypatia Dejavu, Abbey Zenith, Rocky Vallejo, JJ Drinkwater

Working with a Class in Second Life
Instructor: Bryan Mnemonic

Setting Up an Educational Presence in Second Life
Instructors: Lorelei Junot, Abbey Zenith, and Maxito Ricardo

Setting up Your Library or Museum in SL: An Applied Approach
Instructors: Daisyblue Hufferman, Krull Aeon, Sonja Morgwain

NEW COURSES

Second Life 102
Instructor: Puglet Dancer

Virtual Worlds and Libraries Seminar
Instructor: Maxito Ricardo

Instructional Tools for Second Life
Instructor: Hypatia Dejavu

–offered by: The Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois.