News from MMLC:
Mideastern Michigan Library Cooperative On-line Newsletter
503 South Saginaw Street, Suite 839, Flint, MI 48502 . 810-232-71192007
February 2008
At Community District Library
The Friends of the Corunna Branch of CDL are having a used book Valentine basket fund-raiser.
Click Friends of the Library to learn more.
At Genesee District Library: Black History Month Brunch. Saturday, Feb. 23, 2008 10 a.m. at Genesys Conference and Banquet Center, Tickets $25, contact GDL at 810-732-5570. ABC12’s Matt Franklin is the Master of Ceremonies.
Keynote speaker: Dr. Benjamin Carson, Sr., M.D.
Books by Dr. Carson
At Public Libraries of Saginaw: African American History Month - February 1 - February 29 Wiley and the Hairy Man Children's Puppet Show Children will be thrilled when the library's own puppeteers, Linda Bryant and Rhonda Butler, present a puppet show based on this popular African-American folktale.
At Vernon District Library:
Did you know that the Vernon District Library in Vernon, Michigan is in the process of building a new library? The exterior and landscaping is done and we're now working on the inside. Donations and volunteers have kept this project going and all that are involved are proud to have helped! |
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Calendar of events and meetings.
March 13, 2008 4:30 p.m. MMLC Board meeting, MMLC office, 5th Floor Meeting Room
April 1, 2008 9:30-11:30 a.m. MMLC Advisory Council Meeting. GDL HQ.
April 23, 2008 NLC Mini Rural Conference Petoskey, please call MMLC office for details.
State News:
PAC-HUG Grants Part 2. We expect to be receiving credits from Dell for some of the computers that were purchased under the grant. As soon as we get the information we will pass it along to the libraries that are affected.
QSAC Workshops Return: The QSAC workshops are back and better than ever! The workshops will be held quarterly in 2007/08. They will cover the ideas behind quality standards, how to use the certification for publicity and advocacy and a hands on session on how to complete the QSAC questionnaire. Following are the dates and locations: Three workshops are available:
April 22, 2008: Mid-Michigan Library League, Cadillac
July 15, 2008: Plymouth District Library
July 25, 2008: Flint Public Library.
Workshops are free and .3 CEU’s are available. Workshops are from 1:30 p.m. to 4:45 p.m. Register at http://www.michigan.gov/ldds.
Library news from the national perspective:
National Library Legislative Day 2008: National Library Legislative Day 2008 events are scheduled for May 13 and 14 in Washington, D.C. We are looking for librarians, trustees, friends of libraries and other library advocates to join the Michigan delegation. Briefing Day registration starts bright and early at 8:00 am Tuesday, May 13 (the program begins at 9 am). Visits to Michigan congressional offices will take place Wednesday, May 14, finishing in time to get a flight out Wednesday late afternoon/early evening. As in previous years, Gale Cengage has graciously offered to provide lunch on Tuesday, during the briefing day.
Additional information and registration materials are available at ALA's web site at http://www.ala.org/ala/washoff/washevents/nlld/nlld2008.cfm#sched . If you are planning to attend or have questions, please contact Elaine Harrison at the Library of Michigan at eharrison@michigan.gov or 517-373-1395. She is keeping the list of Michigan attendees and will coordinate office visits. Also, if the Holiday Inn on the Hill is full when you call, check with Elaine. She has some extra rooms reserved.
Our goal is to have a library representative from each legislative district visit with their congressperson to talk about libraries in their own district. Representatives want to hear from their constituents on how national library issues and funding impact their community. Please join me in taking our message to Washington. With Gretchen Couraud and the Michigan Library Association working diligently on statewide library legislative issues, we can complement that effort by getting our important message across in the nation's capital! Nancy Robertson, State Librarian
I have participated in this for several years and encourage you to think about going. Roger
 Scieszka named National Reading Ambassador
Popular children’s author Jon Scieszka was appointed by the Library of Congress January 3 as the first National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. Scieszka, the writer of The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs and the Caldecott Honor-winning The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales, will use his two-year term to promote reading and to reach out to reluctant readers through the media, personal appearances, and project development.... Note: Jon was a speaker at the Thunder Bay Literary Conference that Alpena County Library sponsored several years ago.
Instant boot-up
Device VM has a product that circumvents the everlasting Windows boot-up. The company has released a tiny piece of software that, when integrated with common computer hardware, gives users the option to boot either Windows or a faster, less complex operating system called Splashtop. Depending on the settings, a person using the software, based on the open-source operating system Linux, can start surfing the Web or watching a DVD in less than 20 seconds, and, in some cases, in less than five....
Technology Review, Jan. 16
Make the most of Google Calendar
Christina Laun writes: “Google Calendar is fast becoming the application of choice for users all over the world. With great functionality and integration with Google’s other products, it’s no wonder its popularity is growing. But chances are good that you’re not maxing out all the features of Google Calendar that you could be. Here are a few ways you can try to add to your Google Calendar experience.”...
Virtual Hosting blog, Jan. 14
 New ProQuest search widgets
ProQuest has made available portable search boxes that allow instant searching of most ProQuest platform databases on any page of a library website. Jenny Levine explains the process: “You can specify a database to be searched, include your proxy server’s address, add specific terms to the search for automatic ‘and’ functionality, and even change the color and border of the box. The ProQuest examples are all for an academic library, but this works just as well for school libraries (classroom project pages), public libraries (municipality sites, park district pages, parent network pages), and even special libraries (intranets).”...
ProQuest, Jan. 10; The Shifted Librarian blog, Jan. 21
The 101 best free games on the Web
Saving pennies can put you on the cutting edge, as today’s gaming freebies are résumés for tomorrow’s greats: The PlayStation 3 downloadable hit Everyday Shooter got its start as potential PC freeware—until Sony scooped it up after a gangbusters Game Developers Conference showing. Darren Gladstone and Scott Sharkey group these 101 games into the genre categories of action, adventure/RPG, arcade, fighting, puzzle, shooters, simulations, and strategy....
1UP.com, Jan. 14
Search-engine freshness: A study (PDF file)
Dirk Lewandowski of Hamburg University of Applied Sciences analyzed the update strategies of search engines Google, Yahoo, and MSN/Live.com by testing the updates of 40 daily updated pages and 30 irregularly updated pages. He found that the search engines change in up-to-datedness over the years and that none has an ideal solution for index freshness. A major problem is the delay in making crawled pages available for searching, which differs from one engine to another....
Journal of Information Science (forthcoming)
You think you have overdue problems!! See below:
Truckful of library materials recovered from patron’s home
An Akron woman faces felony charges of theft and receiving stolen property after police hauled more than 1,000 missing books, movies, music, and toys belonging to Akron–Summit County (Ohio) Public Library, some of which had disappeared as early as 2000, from her home in a pickup truck in mid-December....
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