Congratulations to Ellen Kaye of Putney, VT!

The VLA Scholarship Committee is pleased to announce the first MLIS scholarship has been awarded to Ellen Kaye of Putney, VT. Ellen has demonstrated great dedication to Vermont libraries and communities through both her pursuit of her MLIS from Simmons College and her work on The Commons newspaper in Windham County. Both her professional work and her school work garnered great praise and she has been described as “an excellent student and very dedicated to library services and the issues that face libraries” and “a great candidate for working in libraries” who has “great energy.” Congratulations, Ellen!

VLA thriving at VTComicCon

comic book reader's license
VLA had a presence at Vermont’s first ComicCon. We had a good time, made a good impression and helped sponsor one of their special guests. We tabled for two days. Our table had a few things
– Mr. McFeeley from Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood (aka David Newell) who did a story time with puppets and his book twice daily. He was a wonderfully gracious man and the kids loved him.
– A Banned Graphic Novels exhibit. We brought graphic novels from our own libraries and put them up on book stands along with a printout of why each graphic novel was banned or challenged.
– Handouts of good “If you liked…” suggestions for graphic novels to read. We have copies of them in PDF or Word format if anyone would like them for their libraries.
– Stickers! We used these as a model and printed out a bunch of them. Very popular.
– Minicomics! One of the publishers had a stack of these and let us use them as giveaways at the booth, also very popular.
– Our Comic Reader’s License (seen above). This was a frame like a driver’s license with a whiteboard area where people could write their names. It hung on a movie screen stand and we had a chair behind it. We took people’s photos, uploaded them (with permission) to the VLA Instagram account and then later edited them and put them on our facebook account in a VLA ComicCon album so people could tag and share them.
It was really fun seeing so many people all dressed up and having a good time celebrating reading (among other things) and we’re sure to do it again next year.

Cindy Weber to represent VLA at Career Development Facilitator Program

The Vermont Library Association Board is pleased to announce the selection of Cindy Weber, director of the Stowe Free Library, as Vermont’s representative to a Career Development Facilitator (CDF) training offered by the American Library Association and the National Career Development Association. Vermont is one of 22 states selected to participate based on an application outlining our plans for implementing the program statewide. Participants from each state will become certified Career Development Facilitators, with an emphasis on guiding other librarians in providing career and job-seeking help to their communities as well as assisting librarians with their own career development needs.
VLA and Cindy Weber will be working together to identify a cohort of librarians in the state to help share this material widely. The VLA Board is looking forward to being able to help our members serve this function in their communities more confidently and to contribute to the economic vitality of our local families and communities. The training includes such topics as development and maintenance of a career resource center, labor market information, career planning processes, basic helping and facilitation skills, informal and formal assessments, program promotion, ethical and scope-of-practice issues, professional portfolios, and up-to-date job search resources.
The training consists of two days of workshops in Chicago in January 2015 prior to the ALA Midwinter Conference and then an online course for 14 weeks. See the ALA press release on the selection of participants here. Look for future announcements on the VTLibraries mailing list or contact Cindy Weber for more information or to express interest in future trainings: cweber@stowelibrary.org or (802) 253-6145.

New anthology benefits the Vermont Library Association

Cover of Please Do Not Remove by Angela Palm We are honored to have been selected by author and editor Angela Palm as the beneficiary of 10% of the net profits of Please Do Not Remove, a new anthology of poetry and prose inspired by library checkout cards. Please Do Not Remove is published by Wind Ridge Books of Vermont, a non-profit organization which donates 10% of net profits to the authors’ non-profit organization of choice. Contributors to Please Do Not Remove include Vermont writers Gary Margolis, Jessica Hendry Nelson, Jericho Parms, Karin Gottshall, Tim Brookes, Daniel Lusk, Lene Gary, Erika Nichols, Penelope Cray, Angela Palm, Rob Friesel, Hillary Read, Shelagh Connor Shapiro, Kate Sykes, Niels Rinehart, Malisa Garlieb, David Dillon, Tamra Higgins, Mary Jane Dickerson, and Emily Arnason Casey.
Shop local and pick up a copy! Support local bookstores while also supporting the VLA. To schedule a reading, contact angelacathleen@gmail.com. Click here to download a flyer for your library.

UVM offers print journals (request by August 15)

The Bailey/Howe Library at the University of Vermont is offering print journals to any Vermont library that would like them, or any part of them. Our space crunch is such that we are removing the print editions of journals that we have complete replications for online in our JSTOR collections. Any libraries that have interest in runs of journals, or even just a volume or two to replace missing issues, are welcome to request them. We hope to move our physical journals out of Bailey/Howe sometime in August.
If you are interested in any of these titles, please send an email BY AUGUST 15 to the Bailey/Howe Serials Department at bhser@uvm.edu. Please be sure to be precise about the titles, volumes, and issues you would like. NOTE: Many of our journal titles are held in two places with more current issues shelved in Bailey/Howe, and older issues shelved in our storage facility (the LRA, or Library Research Annex). That is why many titles are listed twice, with the two locations represented.

History of VLA websites

screen shot of old VLA website
Anyone who has been around VLA for a while might be interested in looking at the past fifteen years of VLA websites, courtesy of the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. From March 2001 until today!

Slides from VLC academic library show & tell sessions.

tribbles!

Green Mountain Library Constortium Seeks Volunteer Listen Up! Vermont Coordinator

Spread the word! Contact the GMLC Executive Director if you’re interested at gmlced@gmail.com

Duties of the Listen Up! Vermont Selection Committee Coordinator:

  1. Ensure new content appears in the collection on a regular basis
  2. Ensure that the Listen Up! Vermont collection spending remains in budget (given by GMLC ED)
  3. Ensure that all purchases conform with the Green Mountain Library Consortium Selection Policy
  4. Ensure that the Listen Up! Vermont collection is meeting the needs of its users – for example, noting popular titles and subjects and maintaining a reasonably low wait period for titles
  5. Responsibly spend any grant funds procured for content, maintaining a record of purchases for grant reporting
  6. Ensure that the cataloging for the content on the Listen Up! Vermont site meets our state and consortium’s appropriate guidelines, including the proper cataloging of Dorothy Canfield Fisher, Green Mountain Book Award, and Red Clover titles
  7. Organizes and facilitates the Listen Up! Vermont Selection Committee’s meetings, communications, and purchases, including periodic updates of the “Staff Picks” Collection
  8. Recruits members for the Listen Up! Vermont Selection Committee, if necessary

Press Release: John Swan Lecture with Dawn Sova

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Press Contact: Raymond Brior
Phone: 802-635-1495
Email: Raymond.Brior@jsc.edu

January 14, 2014,

Vermont Library Association with the Department of Libraries presents The Bi-Annual John Swan Intellectual Freedom Lecture with Dawn Sova

Monday, January 27, 2014 at the Pavilion Auditorium

109 State Street
Montpelier, VT 05609
6:00-8:00 PM Free and Open to the Public

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