Category: Resources    

Has your library been trying to serve community needs through your website? What website statistics are most important? Are users on internet explorer or firefox or another browser? Is traffic to your website coming from search engines, email messages, or direct referral?

Libraries are great places for people to access the internet, but how does the internet and all of its search engines know your library? Have you tried to search for your library on Google, Bing, or Yahoo like some potential library users might? Do you get the results you want? Is all of the information listed complete and accurate? What does your library’s profile look like? Have you read your user reviews? How do customers find your website?

How do local media websites list your library? Have you searched PennLive http://businessfinder.pennlive.com/PA-Harrisburg-17101?s=library

How do users know the content on your website? Do they know you have databases and other great information? How do you get traffic to your website? Here’s one idea: http://www.google.com/grants/new/index.html

Do you have other ideas? Please share them. There are a lot of questions.

At a DCLS meeting, staff shared a great document of websites useful for providing Reader’s Advisory service to kids and teens.

Check it out and share it with your staff who work with children: Readers Advisory Websites for children

Some demos of vendors who provide downloadable audio and books will be scheduled at Lancaster as a part of the regional project.

For details, ask the district consultant in your district.

BOS is getting ready to begin purchasing items with its LSTA grant for Technology materials. Read all about it here: http://pa-cumberlandcountylibraries.civicplus.com/index.aspx?NID=1075 and fill out BOS’s survey to recommend the most valuable technology books to purchase with these grant funds.

Novelist is no longer provided to our libraries via POWERLibrary.
Thanks to DCLS staff at MOM for reviewing these alternatives. Try one of these today:

Amazon.com

What Should I Read Next?

Gnod.net : Divided into nodes, displays as a cloud.

Bookseer.com : suggestions from Amazon and Librarything

whichbook.net : Sliders help you select by plot topics and themes.

Allreaders.com : not a great site design, but does quick fairly current searches by author, title, plot, setting, character.

bookbrowse.com

Please add more ideas to the list by using the comments area below. :)

Thanks to NWP for adding this suggestion too: www.fantasticfiction.co.uk

The District purchased a site license so librarians from our area can gather in one room to enjoy and discuss the virtual conference:
http://ebook-summit.com

Register Here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/virtualebooksummit
What: ebooks: Libraries at the Tipping Point will bring together public libraries, academic libraries, and school libraries (K-12) in a day-long virtual conference environment.

When: Wednesday Sept 29, 10am – 6pm EST
The room will be open at 10a.m. for orientation, setup and local discussion. 11a.m. is the first official “presentation” of the day. Breaks occur throughout the day and discussions will be held. Drop in for any part you can attend. Here’s the program: http://ebook-summit.com/program/

Where: CADM (in Carlisle, PA) Need directions: Click here

Who: ANYONE working for a library interested in learning about ebooks should attend. The speakers are well known professionals with lots of good information and we’ll have some great local discussions. Invite your professional network of school or college librarians to tag along with you too.

Why?: The program is full of exciting content and ideas for the future of digital items for libraries of all types: Find your inspiration: http://ebook-summit.com/program/

•Librarians and library administrators will learn about current best practices for library ebook collections and explore new and evolving models for ebook content discovery and delivery.
•Publishers and content creators will learn how to effectively identify and develop the ‘right’ content offerings for each segment of the relatively untapped library ebook market.
•Ebook platform vendors and device manufacturers will learn just what libraries need and want in this rapidly changing environment.

This virtual conference event is FREE for staff and invited guests of the Capital Area Library District. We’ll be watching it together as a group in the training lab.

More Details:
Will I get CE Credits?: Attendees can report 5 hours of CE credits for attending this day. If you can’t attend the whole day, feel free to drop by the classroom at any time to join the discussion. You’ll get CE credits for active time spent in class.
Will you feed me?: Brown Bags are encouraged; bring your own lunch or choose to bring a snack to share. Courtesy of CADM, there is water, coffee, and a very small place to keep foods refrigerated for the day as needed. District budget uncertainty means we won’t have a formal meal provided, but I’ll trade half my peanut butter sandwhich for half of your tuna sandwhich. :) lol

Register Here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/virtualebooksummit

Are there lots of patrons on the waiting list for the latest Stephanie Meyer novella: The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner: An Eclipse Novella (in the Twilight Saga) at your library?

Did you know that it is also available FREE online for people to read on their screen for a limited time at: http://breetannerbook.libredigital.com/index.html

I wonder how many will read it on a computer screen or mobile device with a capable internet browser in this format.

Will the fact that it is available right now, free to all who have an internet browser mean that your library buys less copies of it?

Do you have a method for getting information about ebooks to your readers? Could you add a temporary catalog record directing users who want it while it’s brand new to the website to read the digital copy?

Note that it says this: Please keep in mind that you can only read the book here – you won’t be able to download it to your e-reader or phone. And you can’t print it out.

Read this message from Susan Pannebaker for reference when considering electronic resource purchases.

To the POWER Library community,

Below is a restatement of a message which was sent to all libraries in February as a reminder that subscriptions to some POWER Library databases will end as of June 30.

Here is a list of the current resources available through the POWER Library interface and when the current contract for each ends.

NoveList and NoveList K-8 June 30, 2010
SIRS Discoverer June 30, 2010
Wilson Biography Bank June 30, 2010

ABI Inform December 31, 2010
AP Multimedia Archive December 31, 2010
Auto Repair December 31, 2010
Consumer Health Complete December 31, 2010
Contemporary Authors December 31, 2010
Infotrac Newsstand December 31, 2010
Wilson Web December 31, 2010

The results of this year’s budget process will guide the decisions to be made regarding databases for 2011, and we will let you know about those decisions as soon as the information is available. In the meantime, vendors of the databases which will no longer available after June 30
may be contacted at the addresses provided below if you are interested in direct subscriptions. In some cases discounted pricing will be provided to Access PA/POWER Library participants.

EBSCO
Please contact: Jillian Cole at EBSCO Publishing to subscribe to NoveList: jcole@ebscohost.com or 800-653-2726 Ext. 2599

ProQuest
Please contact: Mike Chmelewski, Sr. Field Account Executive at Proquest to subscribe to SIRS Discoverer: mike.chmelewski@proquest.com or 800-521-0600 x2524; also, Sharon Dugan, Inside Account Executive, sharon.dugan@proquest.com or 800-521-0600 ext 7208

Wilson
Please contact: Jo Seik, Sales Representative at Wilson to subscribe to Wilson Biography Bank: jseik@hwwilson.com or 800-367-6770 x 2274

Check out the chart that compares services:Library Journal article about downloadable audio.

Readers:
When customers ask you about the different ereaders, this site is a resource to direct them to for explanation of ereaders and some comparisons of features: ereaderresource.com Check out the basics for an overview.
Also please remember that anything with a screen with text or pictures can be used as a reader. Those popular apple products, mobile phones, netbooks, laptops, desktop computers, and even television (hooked up to your computer) can be a reader for content produced in digital format. Those may not give the “reading” experience or have the awesome e-ink, bookmarking, note-taking, portability, or size features, but there is a way to read the content if you have a computer and access to the internet.

As of the day of this posting, the public libraries in the three county Capital Area Library District do not offer any commercial service for downloading print ebook content to the popular e-readers, however, full text versions of many novels and works of reference and nonfiction are available online through Netlibrary, one of the resources in POWERlibrary. If you have your library card handy, login to see what is available: ebooks from Netlibrary

Listeners:
Library customers do have access to a public library sponsored collection of downloadable audiobooks at http://capitalarealibrary.lib.overdrive.com/

The OverDrive service just released an app for the iphone so users can skip the download to their personal computer and just download direct to their iphone. Let me know if you like it. App store: Overdrive
There is a mobile version of the site for those with other smart phone operating systems.

Digital media is changing the way content is provided in all parts of the industry. What should libraries do about it?

Comments always welcome; suggested solutions to meet short and long term needs will be applauded.

Check these out. Share them with staff.
What do you agree or disagree with from R. David Lankes presentations?
Link to R. David Lankes presentations online

Start a conversation. This space is available.

What will the impact of ebooks be on reading?
Here’s one way to think: Publishing and Books in 10 years
Here’s another: Killing bookstores?
Evolution of the book: Link to a fun timeline history

What do you think?

The official word from Office of Commonwealth Libraries announcing the resources that will be available in POWER Library Network 2010 is posted below for your reference. Please note that access to some EBSCO resources will no longer be available as of January 31. Try to make local changes to your websites and printed materials accordingly.

For our district, rest assured that the CALD Electronic Reference Resource Committee is hard at work to prioritize subject areas for electronic resources so we can make smart purchase decisions to supplement the state provided databases with local resources selected to best meet our library user needs. The committee will be taking a critical look at what resources we want to replace from the information providers that are not a part of the current state contract, including EBSCO, Oxford, and all of the others, but with a finite budget, there will be limits to what can be provided.

Look forward to the deployment of the new resources for POWER Library Network 2010. Be sure you think ahead to budget some staff time to get familiar with the state provided resources so we can promote the new 2010 offerings to our patrons.

January 28, 2010
Dear Library Community:
With this message the Office of Commonwealth Libraries is announcing the resources that will be provided under the POWER Library Network for 2010. This is the package of resources as of today, January 28, 2010.

POWER Library Network 2010
General Periodical Resources (H.W. Wilson)
Newspaper Resources (Gale)
Business Resources (ProQuest ABI Inform)
Contemporary Authors
AP Photo Archive

The detail on the content of the new resources will be announced next week. Any additions to this package will be announced as decisions are finalized.
Contemporary Authors and AP Photo Archive will continue to be available uninterrupted. Work is underway to make the technological connections to begin access to the announced content as quickly as possible.
The Office of Commonwealth Libraries regrets the inconvenience and anxiety this change and interruption in offerings will undoubtedly cause.

Below is the message sent by Susan from Office of Commonwealth Libraries about the coming changes to POWERLibrary.
Be sure that your library’s reference staff are prepared to explain changes to POWERLibrary.
The CALD Reference Committee is working on ideas for how we can determine which resources we will consider for purchase with local funds, but many of decisions will wait until the state announces the plan for POWERLibrary in 2010.

December 22, 2009

Dear Library Community:

I am writing to update you on the status of the POWER Library.

The contracts for the POWER Library databases will expire December 31, 2009. The Pennsylvania Department of Education issued an RFP for POWER Library Databases, and the proposals are currently being evaluated by agency staff. Our goal is to complete the selection process in time for the POWER Library continues into 2010 without interruption.

Because of the reduction to the Library Access line item in the 2009-2010 budget, the scope of the RFP was limited to the following categories:

• General full-text periodical database
• Newspaper index
• Business Reference
• Combination of the above databases
Within the current the economic conditions, we are hoping to continue to provide high quality databases of general interest to the public at large and to our K-12 students in particular. However, it is reasonable to expect most subject specific databases will no longer be available after December 31, 2009.

We have heard from all types of libraries about the importance and value of the scope of POWER Library offerings. We will seek to make additional databases available as options and opportunities present themselves.

Thank you for your input and your support of the POWER Library.

Susan Pannebaker

This is a link to a reference website I use frequently. Right now they are advertising Homework Day as Oct 21: check out Wolfram-alpha.com the computational knowledge engine

It was a pleasure hosting training sessions for OverDrive.
The service seems very easy to use from a patron perspective.

Here is the login information for Capital Area’s Virtual Branch website.

It is LIVE! Your library will soon put a link on your main website in order to provide access to the resource to your patrons.

URL: http://capitalarealibrary.lib.overdrive.com

To try the service at your library, if you are just sampling, please use the Always Available title collection for trying.

You will be able to check out titles using your own library card.

All titles will be returned to the collection prior to your site going live.

DIGITAL LIBRARY 101:
In Digital Library 101 we walked through the patron’s experience of browsing, selecting, and downloading titles. We also looked at a demonstration of burning a title to a CD and transferring to a portable MP3 / WMA device.

LISTEN TO A RECORDING OF CAPITAL AREA’S WEDNESDAY MORNING DIGITAL LIBRARY 101 SESSION:
Listen to the Recording here

ACCESS A COPY OF DIGITAL LIBRARY 101:
This is a PDF copy of the online training that was presented to 4 audiences: Digital Library 101

The presentation can be viewed and printed using Adobe Reader 5.0 or higher.

If you’d like additional training, just ask. Carrie, district consultant, can bring the training to your next staff meeting or host another session just for you.

Containing a range of useful materials, the Civics and Citizenship Toolkit for Public Libraries, is the perfect resource to help your library begin or enhance a collection for immigrants. The free collection comprises immigration and civics publications, handbooks, guidance on product usage, and multimedia tools. It can be found at: Citizenship Toolkit

* Public libraries only. Resources are limited and certain restrictions apply.

Order 1 copy of the new Ask Here PA poster (unveiled at recent AccessPA trainings) and a supply of bookmarks to promote PA’s 24/7 question answering service for FREE at: http://www.askherepa.org/promotions.htm

An Introduction to Library Databases from Mary Hollis, Reference Librarian, of the New Cumberland Public Library.

Mary Hollis taught a basic class on Library Databases and she has provided this handout information for anyone interested to view.

Please visit the following document for this information:
CCLS Library Databases Introduction

Museums, Libraries, and Archives are urged to apply for a free IMLS Connecting to Collections Bookshelf.

To help raise the conservation IQ of museums, libraries, and archives, the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), in cooperation with the American Association of State and Local History (AASLH), is offering 2000 free copies of the Connecting to Collections Bookshelf, a core set of books, DVDs, online resources, and an annotated bibliography that are essential for the care of collections.

View the following link for additional information: AASLH.

A Press Release can be found on the following site: IMLS.

A simple electronic application for the IMLS Bookshelf is available at the following link: MLS Bookshelf Application.

The IMLS Bookshelf will be awarded free in two application periods:

September 1 – November 15, 2007, with recipients announced in February 2008.
March 1 – April 15, 2008, with recipients announced in July 2008.