Author Archive: Web

Douglas Announces Gates Foundation Grant for Public Libraries

State of Vermont: OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR

For Immediate Release:
December 29, 2009

Contact:  Dennise R. Casey
(802) 828-3333

Montpelier, Vt. – Governor Jim Douglas today announced that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has established a critical grant partnership with the Vermont Department of Libraries and the Vermont Telecommunications Authority (VTA)  to help public libraries compete for federal broadband stimulus funds made available through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.  VTA, in collaboration with the Department of Libraries, plans to submit an application to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s (NTIA) Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) in early 2010.

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GoodSearch/GoodShop for Generating Funds

From a post by Teresa F. on the VLA Listserv:

Non-profits across the country are getting donations from web searches made through GoodSearch (a Yahoo search engine)and online purchases made through GoodShop (which connects to regular online retailers). The trick is getting your patrons to go through the GoodSearch/GoodShop sites to search or shop.

A number of Vermont organizations are already listed as beneficiaries. If your organization does not care to be listed, perhaps your own searches and purchases could benefit the charity of your choice. Go to http://www.goodsearch.com for more information, including coverage of the service by national media, lists of nonprofits currently enrolled, FAQs, etc. The donation check comes just once a year in December, for activity from the previous October through September.

If it were me, I’d change the library default browser to this browser and explain to patrons why to use it…it may even carry over into their home searching.

Helen

URGENT ACTION: Out of Work Librarians Need Your Help!

Act NOW to Include Libraries in the Jobs Bill!

As you know, libraries are helping unemployed Americans get back to work not only by helping them acquire needed job skills, but also by offering no-fee access to the Internet for online job searching, computers for working on resumes, resources for building small business plans, and much more. Unfortunately, these very services are threatened by budget shortfalls in state and local funding; due to these budget cuts, many libraries may be forced to cut services that are so incredibly necessary during these tough economic times.

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Save the Date: NETSL Annual Spring Conference 2010: Crosswalks to the Future

Mark your calendars for the NETSL Annual Spring Conference Program 2010: Crosswalks to the Future

When: Thursday, April 15, 2010

Where: College of Holy Cross, Worcester, MA

Keynotes:

  • Dr. Barbara B. Tillett, Chief, Policy and Standards Division, Library of Congress.
    “Building Blocks for the Future: Making Controlled Vocabularies Available for the Semantic Web”
  • Jon Orwant, Engineering Manager for Google Books, Google Magazines, and Google Patents.
    “Creating a trillion-field catalog: metadata in Google Books”

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Announcing VTCSL, a new listserv for Vermont College and Special Libraries

Created for the College & Special Libraries Section of the Vermont Library Association, VTCSL is a forum for announcements and discussion of topics relevant to academic and special libraries in Vermont.  It is open to anyone interested.

How to subscribe:

  • Send a message to: listserv@list.uvm.edu
  • The text of the message should read: Subscribe vtcsl firstname lastname  (Replace firstname with your first name and lastname with your last name)

Happy Holidays!

Charlotte Gerstein
VLA College & Special Libraries Section President