I am an Administrative Assistant and Web Content Coordinator for the Colorado State Library at the Colorado Department of Education.
The Water 2012 Initiative kicked off with its first author event this week with a presentation from author and photographer Pete McBride. Pete traveled and photographed the entire Colorado River through seven states and two countries and documented his journey with Jon Waterman in the Colorado River: Flowing Through Conflict. One of McBride’s challenges was “to 
find fresh perspectives while focusing on the beauty within the tragedy of such an overtaxed system.”
McBride certainly finds that balance. He starts his journey at Snowmass Mountain and ends it in Mexico where the Colorado is mostly non-existent. Although the future of the Colorado River seems dire, McBride is optimistic that the delta can be saved. Justice Greg Hobbs interviewed McBride and offered his legal perspective on some of the issues. (Photo attached.)
The second Water 2012 event took place at the Colorado Stock Show. In the children’s educational area on the 2nd floor, a booth was set up by Water 2012 staff to educate school children about the importance of water in our communities. Kids spun a wheel that landed them information on how much water you find in a vegetable or fruit or allowed them to win a free prize. On some days over 700 kids visited the booth! (I have a photo I can send you on this.)
Published by
Michelle on
January 18, 2012 in
Children's Services, General, Public Libraries, Resource sharing, School Libraries, Teen Services, funding and programs.
Tags: children, Colorado, grants, libraries, news, newsletter, resources, Summer Reading, teens, youth services, YS, YS News.
Check out the first issue of the new monthly newsletter for youth services librarians! YS News will feature articles on learning development, summer reading updates, timely tidbits like grant opportunities and interesting resources, children’s and teen literature news, and an exchange of what’s going on in CO libraries.
See the first issue here (PDF)
Would you like to see a topic covered in the newsletter? Want to 
share info about your programs? Or perhaps contribute an article? Contact the State Library’s Youth & Family Services Consultant, Beth Crist, 303-866-6908.
Published by
Michelle on
December 20, 2011 in
Public Libraries and funding.
Tags: 2012, application, CSL, CSLP, Dream Big, grants, mini-grants, Public Libraries, SRP, State Library, Summer Reading.
Public libraries may now apply for a 2012 Summer Reading mini-grant! The Colorado State Library will award a limited number of mini-grants of $200 each for public libraries to support, enhance, and promote the Collaborative Summer Library Program (CSLP) statewide summer reading themes in their local communities.
The themes for 2012 are “Dream Big – READ!” (children), “Own the Night” (teens), and “Between the Covers” (adults). Priority will be given to libraries below 10,000 Legal Service Area population and libraries in non-metro locations. Per IMLS guidelines, the mini-grant funding should be spent on books.
To be eligible for a 2012 mini-grant, libraries must have submitted the 2011 summer reading report AND be registered for the 2012 statewide summer reading themes.
APPLY NOW!
DEADLINE: Friday, January 31, 2012
Questions:
Beth Crist, 303-866-6908
Youth & Family Services Consultant, Colorado State Library
The Project Management webinars with Pat Wagner are getting full, so please REGISTER NOW for all 3 sessions!
- Project Management Foundations: What’s the Big Fuss?
January 18, 12:00-1:00pm
- Project Management Case Studies: Who Forgot to Measure the Bookcases?
February 1, 12:00-1:00pm
- Proof of Concept: Applying Project Management Principles to Your Workplace
February 15, 12:00-1:00pm
This three-part series is for anyone who works in a library at any level. Although it is meant as an introduction, experienced project managers might appreciate the refresher and discover new ways to present information to their teams. We encourage you to attend all three, but we welcome you attend whichever programs you can.
The Libnet email list is moving from a Marmot server to a State Library server on Thursday, December 15th and will be unavailable from 10am to noon on that day. What you need to know:
- The change will happen automatically; you will not need to resubscribe, and all archived messages from the “old” Libnet will still be available for viewing.
- The address for sending Libnet messages will change from libnet@marmot.org to libnet@cvl-lists.org. Please update your address books after noon on Thursday.
- Libnet’s information page will change from http://email.marmot.org/mailman/listinfo/libnet to
http://www.cvl-lists.org/mailman/listinfo/libnet.
- The only noticeable change to Libnet after the move will be an enhancement: it will accept HTML formatted email messages (bold, different fonts, etc.).
Please direct any questions to Jim Duncan, Director of Networking & Resource Sharing at the Colorado State Library.
Published by
Michelle on
December 1, 2011 in
Continuing Education, Front Range, General, Public Libraries, School Libraries, Western Slope and programs.
Tags: CLEL, CSL, SRP, Summer Reading, training, workshops, youth services, YS.
The State Library offered 6 interactive, informative youth services workshops in Rifle, Eagle, Pueblo, Englewood, Boulder, and Dolores in October and November. A total of 132 attendees (an unfortunately timed snowstorm near Pueblo lessened attendance) from 47 library jurisdictions came to learn about the 2012 summer reading program and early literacy, and to network with colleagues.
Kathy Barco, Children’s Librarian at the Albuquerque/Bernalillo County 
Library System in New Mexico, presented the lively morning session highlighting the 2012 summer reading program theme of night time at all 6 sessions. Colorado Libraries for Early Literacy (CLEL) members Jana Ackerman, Lisa Chipouras, Laura Baldassari-Hackstaff, Melissa Depper, and Becky Campbell offered informative, useful afternoon sessions on early literacy, including an overview of the newly revised Every Child Ready to Read program.
Handouts from the workshops are available, including Becky Campbell’s early literacy presentation. Continue reading ‘Fall Youth Services Workshops a Success!’
Following the popular ‘unConference’ model, AskColorado/AskAcademic (ASK) held its first UnWorkshop on Oct. 13th. Unconferences are loosely structured gatherings in which participants drive the content. Forty librarians attended, and loosely wrangled by members of the ASK Quality Assurance Committee, introduced themselves and offered topics for discussion and learning. Participants then gathered in small groups and discussed topics such as how to effectively assist students when classes log into the service; best practices for working with college students; managing excitable customers, and more. 
ASK has held an annual workshop for the past seven years, but this was the first unworkshop. While new to participants, the majority were excited about the format. Continue reading ‘AskColorado/AskAcademic Holds First UnWorkshop’
There is a power outage affecting the area near the Colorado Talking Book Library, so it will be closed today, Wednesday November 9th. The online catalogs including Pandora are still available for browsing. CTBL will reopen tomorrow, Thursday November 10th, at 8:00am.
The deadline for completing the 2011-12 Colorado School Library Survey has been extended to November 30, 2011. Participation by all public school libraries is vital!
We have made substantial revisions to the survey based on respondents’ comments to better reflect the current state of school libraries, and we look forward to getting the input of all Colorado public school librarians! The data gathered in the annual school library survey provides library professionals with important information for planning, evaluating, and budgeting.
For questions regarding the survey, or to obtain your username and password, feel free to call Library Research Service at 303-866-6900 or email lrs@lrs.org to get your information.
On behalf of Sarah Koehn Frey, Director, Northern Saguache County Library District:
On October 13 I attended a preconference workshop at the CAL conference entitled “Project Compass: Libraries at the Front Lines of Workforce Recovery”. The presenter was Jennifer Pratt, who is the Chief of Library Development for the State Library of North Carolina.
Jennifer navigated through enough of the Project Compass website to really pique our interest. I need to do much more searching to find all that is available there, but I’m happy to know about this resource and can direct patrons to it. During the presentation I was sitting beside Maria DeHerrera of the Costilla County Library District. She and I represented 2/3 of the three poorest counties in Colorado, so we were especially interested in how our libraries can be of help to our unemployed patrons. Continue reading ‘Workforce Recovery at the CAL Conference’
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