Librarian Rhapsody- Shoalhaven Library Staff
I just love to see library people doing fun, creative, and interesting things!!
Check out this excellent library in Australia as they deliver an annual report in a truly unique style: song!
If anyone in CMLE wants to try a unique annual report, check in with us here at HQ!! We aren’t going to sing (really: you’re welcome for that!), but we will always be available to help you plan out some fun work to show off your achievements!
I love bookmobiles, and the idea of librarians using horses to provide great service is just cool!
(This article is from Smithsonian.com, by
“Their horses splashed through iced-over creeks. Librarians rode up into the Kentucky mountains, their saddlebags stuffed with books, doling out reading material to isolated rural people. The Great Depression had plunged the nation into poverty, and Kentucky—a poor state made even poorer by a paralyzed national economy—was among the hardest hit.
The Pack Horse Library initiative, which sent librarians deep into Appalachia, was one of the New Deal’s most unique plans. The project, as implemented by the Works Progress Administration (WPA), distributed reading material to the people who lived in the craggy, 10,000-square-mile portion of eastern Kentucky. The state already trailed its neighbors in electricity and highways. And during the Depression, food, education and economic opportunity were even scarcer for Appalachians.
They also lacked books: In 1930, up to 31 percent of people in eastern Kentucky couldn’t read. Residents wanted to learn, notes historian Donald C. Boyd. Coal and railroads, poised to industrialize eastern Kentucky, loomed large in the minds of many Appalachians who were ready to take part in the hoped prosperity that would bring. “Workers viewed the sudden economic changes as a threat to their survival and literacy as a means of escape from a vicious economic trap,” writes Boyd.
This presented a challenge: In 1935, Kentucky only circulated one book per capita compared to the American Library Association standard of five to ten, writes historian Jeanne Cannella Schmitzer,. It was “a distressing picture of library conditions and needs in Kentucky,” wrote Lena Nofcier, who chaired library services for the Kentucky Congress of Parents and Teachers at the time.
Continue reading Horse-Riding Librarians Were the Great Depression’s Bookmobiles
“Transform your library by participating in International Games Week. This event is an annual celebration of games, play, libraries, and learning that is free for libraries!
This event has only one requirement – you have to have some sort of game-related activity in or around your library, on or around the official dates, October 29th through November 4th. That’s it! The games can be videogames on a library console, tabletop games, social games, party games – whatever you think will work for your individual library and community.
To register, fill out the form at http://bit.ly/IGW2017Register and tell us a bit about your library.
Subscribe to our website, http://games.ala.org, to get weekly updates on a range of topics to help inspire ideas, discussion, and of course learning around games and play. Registrants will also have access to promotional materials to help promote the day.”
Sian Brannon, Ph.D.
Associate Dean for Collection Management, UNT Libraries
Editor, Public Services Quarterly
(From School Library Journal)
“Is your library ready to code? The American Library Association (ALA) and Google want you. As part of Phase III of the Libraries Ready to Code initiative, ALA and Google are forming a cohort of 25-50 school and public libraries, which will receive resources and support to create youth coding programs to serve their communities. In turn, participating libraries will help inform the creation of a toolkit to be used to inform coding programs at libraries nationwide.
The $500,000 initiative—announced at Google Chicago June 22, during ALA’s annual conference—will involve a competitive application process set to open in mid-July and run until the end of August 2017. Both school and public libraries are encouraged to apply, according to Marijke Visser, associate director of ALA’s Office for Information Technology Policy (OITP).
Continue reading ALA, Google Seek Libraries to Apply for Coding Pilot this Summer
Public libraries are invited to apply to receive a programming kit for “The Vietnam War,” a 10-part documentary film by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick that will air on PBS stations beginning Sept. 17. Apply now to bring a programming kit for “The Vietnam War” to your public library.
Fifty public libraries will be selected, through a competitive application process, to receive the kit, which will include a programming guide and a copy of the full 18-hour documentary series on DVD, with public performance rights. The kit will help libraries participate in a national conversation about one of the most consequential, divisive and controversial events in American history.
Recipients will also receive promotional materials, online resources developed to support local programs, opportunities for partnership with local PBS station(s), and more.
Participating libraries will be required to host at least one program related to the film before Jan. 1, 2018, along with other promotional and reporting requirements.
View the full project guidelines: https://apply.ala.org/thevietnamwar/guidelines
Or begin your online application: https://apply.ala.org/TheVietnamWar
Applications must be received by Aug. 1.
In an immersive narrative, Burns and Novick tell the epic story of the Vietnam War as it has never before been told on film. “The Vietnam War” features testimony from nearly 80 witnesses, including many Americans who fought in the war and others who opposed it, as well as Vietnamese combatants and civilians from both the winning and losing sides. Learn more about the film at http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/the-vietnam-war/home/.
The project is offered by the American Library Association (ALA) Public Programs Office in partnership with WETA Productions in Washington, D.C.
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Sarah Ostman
Communications Manager
Public Programs Office
American Library Association
