ACRL/NEC Leadership Workshop
ACRL/NEC is happy to announce a unique professional development opportunity for our members.
On Friday, April 30th, we will present the workshop, “Learning to Lead: an introduction,” at Bryant University, Smithfield, Rhode Island. This workshop is limited to 24 participants and will be presented by leaders in the ACRL/New England Chapter at minimal cost.
http://www.acrlnec.org/leadership.php
We hope to see you there!
Barbara Kenney, President
ACRL/New England Chapter
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.
VLA Strategic Plan 2006 – 2009, VLA Board Meetings
July 2008 Update with Sept. additions
Funding flyer A flier that libraries can use to encourage patrons and board members to support the state aid initiative. You will need to add contact information for your lawmakers. This can be found at www.leg.state.vt.us/legdir/legdir2.htm
VLA Annual Meetings and Board Meetings – Schedule and Minutes
VLA Documents and Policies
Vermont Public Librarians’ Compensation: A Survey and a Toolkit(VLC presentation 2009 handout)
Increasing Public Library Compensation (updated!)
Increasing Public Library Compensation (older report)
Vermont Academic Librarians’ Salaries and Benefits Survey, 2008: Final Report
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
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
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.
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”