Email: RCallender@clicweb.org
Website: http://www.clicweb.org
Beth Jones at Jefferson County Public Library has allowed us to post a tutorial that they created concerning the historical background on Intellectual Freedom and libraries. This is a great tutorial for beginners that references the Bill of Rights, the creation of ALA, various Supreme Court Decisions, the US Patriot Act, and various Colorado State Laws. Kudos to Beth and the staff at JCPL for creating this and sharing with all of us! Click on the title to visit the tutorials page.
Have you heard about the MaintainIT Project through Techsoup? It is a 3 year project funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to promote technical support for public computers. They will be working with public libraries throughout the United States and Canada to identify best practices in dealing with tech support for Public Computing. The goal is to produce 4 cookbooks (manuals) on various topics and audiences. The first one, The Joy of Computing Cookbook, is already published and available for download at their website, http://maintainitproject.org/. Some of the topics covered are, Developing a Tech Plan, Practical Maintenance Techniques, Using Volunteers, and Staff training.
There is a lot of useful information here, especially for those libraries without a dedicated IT Staff.
The Sanborn Maps Tutorial is now available via the title link above. The first part of tutorial covers the history and use of Sanborn Maps and the second part covers the Building Colorado Story by Story: the Sanborn Fire Insurance Map Collection, the digital collection of Sanborn fire insurance maps made available through the University of Colorado Libraries’ Digital Asset Library (DIAL). There are approximately 350 maps (over 2000 sheets), representing 79 cities in 52 counties covering the years of 1883-1922. It is a wonderful collection and fun to look up your town and see what it looked like a hundred years ago in building by building detail.
Have you heard about the substitute teacher in Norwich Connecticut that was convicted by a jury earlier this year of “four counts of risk of injury to a minor”, the result of pornographic pop up ads showing up on her computer? She faced a maximum of 40 years in prison. The current status of case is that in early June, a Supreme Court judge overturned the January conviction and has ordered a new trial. The prosecution has not announced if it will pursue further charges. This case reads like a Law and Order episode with Defense computer experts not being allowed to testify, flawed testimony by the expert witness for the prosecution and lax computer security when it came to spyware or adware software. If you are interested in reading further, there is actually a good compilation of news stories and copies of actual court testimony available through the Norwich Bulletin. Click on the title above.
Don’t forget to take advantage of discounts offered to libraries via Tech Soup Stock, a division of Tech Soup. Depending on type of your library and your 501c status, you may be eligible to take advantage of heavy discounts on over 240 products from, Adobe, Microsoft, Symantec just to mention a view. For example, if you are a public library, you can get Vista Business Upgrade through this program for $10 which is significant savings over the retail cost of $299. How about for school and public libraries, a 10 license Norton Anti Virus pack for $35 total? Yes, in some cases, you do have to jump through some hoops to get the discount but if the discounts are as much as 90%, it just might be worth it. The program can be found directly via http://www.techsoup.org/stock/default.asp
A new group for Western Slope Librarians has formed and its new name is River Path Library Leaders (RPLL). Comprised mostly of libraries from the former Three Rivers and Path Finder Systems, this informal group has evolved from recent meetings in Aspen and Glenwood Springs. RPLL currently will have no dues, no membership list, just participation and promotion of libraries on the Western Slope. The intent is to provide networking opportunities, increased communication and promote training and other activities to Libraries in our region.
A listserv has been established as a first step in doing this and anyone may subscribe by visiting http://email.marmot.org/mailman/listinfo/rpll . With almost 40 subscribers already, spread from Granby to Delta and everywhere in between, I am excited about the potential for RPLL.
The next meeting of RPLL will be on July 30th in Glenwood Springs at a location TBD.
Stay tuned for further developments!!
Hi everyone,
Don’t forget to apply for a workshop subsidy or the Alex Project scholarships. Deadline for Greeley and Grand Junction workshops is fast approaching (March 2nd).
$100 is available to offset your expenses to the workshops and can be applied to registration fees, travel costs or even substitute pay if you are a school librarian: Financial Assistance Form
Free Books! Free Registration! Check out the Alex Project session presented by Karol Sacca and you could find an easy way to hook up adults with teen readers:
Alex Project Form
Wow, when Webjunction decides to do a remodel of their website, they do a remodel. I was playing around on it today, and it is so much easier to navigate and find things and the look is much more appealing also. Check it out at www.webjunction.org
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