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

Discount Pricing for ALA Midwinter

Hello all,

planning on going to ALA Midwinter this January in Boston? ALA has offered the Green Mountain Library Consortium access to a discounted rate, depending on the number of people entering into this group pricing.

If you are going, please let me know by replying to me at schase@stowelibrary.org by Monday, December 7; if we have enough folks interested in going in order to access the pricing, I will let you know ASAP. Let me know of your interest even if your library is not currently a GMLC member library — academic librarians, especially.

Thanks!


Stephanie Chase
Director
Stowe Free Library
Post Office Box 1029
90 Pond Street
Stowe, Vermont 05672
802.253.6145

Information for Legislative Gatherings

This year the Vermont Library Association’s Government Relations Committee is recommending regional legislative gatherings during November, December and January, when the legislature convenes.

We invite you and your library to participate in these informal gatherings. While the format varies, the gatherings provide an opportunity for Legislators, librarians, and trustees to talk about library issues and the key part that libraries play in Internet access, job searching, and education. It is also an opportunity for us to hear about the legislative process and the agenda before the Legislators.

We need to meet with Legislators this year to thank them for their continued support for the new patron confidentiality law and to remind them that state funding for public libraries continues to be an important issue. Our goal is to keep this at the top of their agenda when state finances are stronger. We also want Legislators to ensure ongoing support for the Department of Libraries’ services to public libraries.

Download the legislative gathering packet.

VOKAL, The Vermont Koha Project

Hello all,

As many of you know, for the past 18 months, a group of 30 libraries have been working on installing, modifying, and developing our own version of the open source integrated library system Koha. Named vokal (Vermont Organization of Koha Automated Libraries) and administered by the Green Mountain Library Consortium, this project is working to bring the benefits of open source and the Koha ILS to Vermont by bringing libraries together to pool resources and support.

The group is currently entering the end of Phase I, the initial development phase. By the end of the summer, 11 libraries in the group are planning to be running individual installations of the vokal Koha ILS, testing it and creating documentation. It is our plan that, at the end of this phase, we will have a version of Koha easily accessible to libraries in Vermont. We hope this will be the case by the end of 2009.

Read more

Round Four of Listen Up! Vermont

Hello all,

We’re gearing up for signups for Round Four of Listen Up! Vermont, the downloadable audio book service from the Green Mountain Library Consortium provided by OverDrive.

Round Four begins July 1 for staff training and access, with public access available on or about August 1. You can look at the current collection at http://www.listenupvermont.org; let us know if you would like to try and download a title, and we will send you a library card number.

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Vermont Koha ILS Project

Some of you around the state may have heard word of a group of libraries working together to create a customized “Vermont” version of the open source integrated library system (ILS) Koha.

It’s true, and the group is more than happy to welcome new members who are interested in the development phase of the project as well as those who might be interested in joining a consortium model ILS down the road. If you are unhappy with your current system, looking at a forced upgrade, or looking to automate, the Vermont Koha Project might be of interest to you.Read more