Category Archives: Public Libraries

Public Libraries Section & related news and events.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Educational Materials for Citizenship

From: Ted Albers, a community relations officer with the U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) in South Burlington. USCIS is the immigration-benefit and services arm of the Federal Government.

You may or may not be aware of some of the hard-copy and online resources that USCIS produces for immigrants who are preparing for the citizenship test. These materials are helpful to ESL and Civics educators as well. These resources are detailed on the websites below.

For libraries, the “Citizenship Toolkit” is probably the most useful for a library, and is a free resource if you register online (it costs $73 if purchased through the Government Printing Office). Even if a library does not serve immigrants, the Toolkit is helpful to social-service providers, students and others for understanding the legal immigration process.

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To learn about the contents of the Toolkit, and to register, please visit this website:
http://www.citizenshiptoolkit.gov/

Find the online civics and citizenship toolkit here:
http://www.uscis.gov/citizenship/organizations/civics-and-citizenship-toolkit

Find individual study materials for the Citizenship test (the ‘New test’) here. Most of these materials are in the Toolkit.
http://www.uscis.gov/newtest

A “Welcome to the US” guide in many languages is available here.
www.uscis.gov/newimmigrants

A host of other relevant resources are here:
http://www.welcometousa.gov/

For libraries that are in a position to purchase civics and English language materials:
http://bookstore.gpo.gov/collections/const-cit-day.jsp

ALA “American Dream” Resources are here:
http://www.americandreamtoolkit.org/

You can request a 1MB PDF file of a handbook Expanding ESL, Civics and Citizenship Education in Your Community by emailing me a ted.albers@dhs.gov

Ted Albers, USCIS Community Relations, Northeast Regional Office, South Burlington, VT
802-660-5007 Desk

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”

Read more→

Annual Public Library Report and Standards Application — due Monday November 23

Hello Everyone,

Just a friendly reminder for public libraries that the Annual Public Library Report and Standards Application is due Monday –  November 23.

To submit your report, go to http://collect.btol.com .  You received your login and password in the mail in October.  If you’ve lost this information, or if you need help with the survey, please give me a call.

I’ll be in my office all day Monday.

Thanks for your help with this.

Rob Geiszler
Regional Consultant
Vermont Department of Libraries
271 North Main Street
Rutland, VT 05701
(802) 786-3839

Listen Up! Vermont, Round 5 Sign-Up!

The GMLC would like to let you know that our next round of signups, Round Five, is coming right up — now is the time to let us know if you are indeed interested. This is the ONLY opportunity in 2010 to join; the next round will not be until January 2011.

If you are interested in participating, the fee for schools for 2010 is 3.25% of your materials budget, and for publics, 4.75%. Discounts may be available depending on your materials budget. For publics, this will also gain you access to the Recorded Books downloadable audio book program in September 2010.

To express interest in joining, please fill out the information required in the following form:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dGJlWGVUalNHb1JIbVhicklFTGpyX3c6MA

For each new library, there is also an administrative fee the GMLC must pay to OverDrive. This fee pays to set up your library on the OverDrive system, as well as supporting new rounds of training.

Questions? Please contact me at schase@stowelibrary.org. In order to participate, we must know of your interest by December 11.

Thanks!
Stephanie Chase

2009-2010 Public Library Funding & Technology Access Survey

The 2009-2010 Public Library Funding & Technology Access survey (available for completion at www.plinternetsurvey.org) conducted by the American Library Association (ALA – www.ala.org/plinternetfunding) and the Center for Library & Information Innovation at the University of Maryland (www.liicenter.org/plinternet) closes Friday, November 13, 2009.

Vermont libraries are responding. So far we only have a 52.1% response rate.  Last year’s response rate was 61%.  We know that you’re completing the Annual Public Library Report and Standards Application, but please take the time to complete all of these.

Read more→

2009-2010 Public Library Funding & Technology Access Survey

The 2009-2010 Public Library Funding & Technology Access survey (available for completion at www.plinternetsurvey.org) conducted by the American Library Association (ALA – www.ala.org/plinternetfunding) and the Center for Library & Information Innovation at the University of Maryland (www.liicenter.org/plinternet) closes Friday, November 13, 2009.
Vermont libraries are responding. So far we only have a 52.1% response rate.  Last year’s response rate was 61%.  We know that you’re completing the Annual Public Library Report and Standards Application, but please take the time to complete all of these.
Read more→