Grand Rapids Area Library Branding is Featured in ALA Direct

Did you see it? Grand Rapids (Minn) Area Library was highlighted in this week’s ALA Direct newsletter. Kudos to Grand Rapids Area Library and Director, Marcia Anderson, for developing and actively using a branding campaign that highlights their fantastic programs and services. Since 2006, Grand Rapids Area Library has been using the “@ your library” brand to identify upcoming events and offerings at the library. It has been an incredibly successful campaign, with a weekly column in the local newspaper devoted to the @ your library information. Read more here.

YouTube’s Copyright Workshop & Center

Struggling to explain copyright to your students, staff or faculty? You might try guiding them towards a host of resources on copyright available through YouTube. YouTube’s Copyright Workshop provides a great deal of information on copyright as it is used and applied on YouTube. If the patron’s need is more general, and not specific to YouTube, try directing them towards YouTube’s Copyright Center which is broader in focus and explains the basics of copyright.

Image: Copyright graffiti by opensourceway http://www.flickr.com/photos/opensourceway/5537457973/

Minnesota Book Award Winners Announced

On Saturday, April 16th, the Friends of the St. Paul Public Library held their 23rd annual Minnesota Book Awards Gala, with around 750 people in attendance. During the event, winners from eight categories were announced, along with one winner of the Readers’ Choice Award. The winning titles include:

Award for Children’s Literature

Michael Hall My Heart Is Like a Zoo

 Award for General Nonfiction

Michael Nordskog and Aaron W. Hautala, photography The Opposite of Cold: The Northwoods Finnish Sauna Tradition

 Award for Genre Fiction

Wendy WebbThe Tale of Halcyon Crane

 Award for Memoir & Creative Nonfiction

Bonnie J. RoughCarrier: Untangling the Danger in My DNA

 Award for Minnesota

Mary Lethert WingerdNorth Country: The Making of Minnesota

 Award for Novel & Short Story

John Reimringer Vestments

 Award for Poetry

Lightsey Darst – Find the Girl

 Award for Young People’s Literature

Pete HautmanBlank Confession 

The Readers’ Choice Award

Laurie HertzelNews to Me: Adventures of an Accidental Journalist

Be sure to check out the books in more detail here.

Google Docs Adds Pagination

If you use Google Docs, you’ll be happy to know that as of April 12th, Google Docs has added pagination options. This means that in your Google documents you now have the option of using features like visual page breaks and headers and footers. In addition, “native printing” is now available if you use Google Chrome; allowing you to print directly from the browser rather than having to convert the document to a PDF. The native printing option means that the document will appear on the printed page just as it does on your screen. To learn more, please visit http://tinyurl.com/43l5o8h.