Now you can read or listen to the fantastic stories of your colleagues and celebrate the many ways libraries transform lives.

• Listen to some of the library stories on our YouTube channel
• Read the rest of the stories on our presentations page from CAL ‘09

The Colorado Association of Libraries (CAL) recently honored the Colorado State Library’s Plinkit service with its “2009 Library Project of the Year Award” at the association’s annual conference in November.

This award recognizes a creative and innovative project which furthers library service within the state of Colorado.

Christine Kreger, Plinkit Service Coordinator said, “Libraries today are all about building community and being accessible to their patrons. I am honored to be a part of a project like Plinkit that offers small libraries across Colorado the opportunity to put their library online and to connect to their communities 24/7.”

Kreger shared the honor of accepting the award with two other staff members. Software developer and system administrator Stephen Gregory ensures that the Plinkit system is solid and humming. Service administrator Jim Duncan watches finances and guides with strategic direction.

At the award’s dinner, three other state library staffers were cited for their contributions and support of the Plinkit service: Mark Ferguson, Sharon Morris and Gene Hainer.

Two people meet in nonfiction and fall in love. A boy finds salvation in his local library and becomes the first in his family to attend college. A suburban mother of four relies on the library’s expert reference service to start her own business, and later is named “Entrepreneur of the Year.”

Come visit the State Library’s booth at the CAL exhibit hall to share YOUR story! You can write it, type it, or tell it (we will have flip cameras). Read fantastic stories of your colleagues and celebrate the many ways libraries transform lives.

Need more reason? Submit YOUR story and become eligible to win one of these fabulous prizes!

• A “flip” digital video camera
• Library stories journals
• A tricked-out messenger bag
• Summer Reading Fun Pack

State Library at CAL schedule (PDF)

• * Share with you the latest services and resources we can offer Colorado libraries
• * Hear how libraries have transformed your lives

CSL at CAL 2009 – Schedule (PDF)

Since these are the two largest sources of CAL income, the association’s finances are as strained as everyone else’s. As a result, the board is investigating options that will allow CAL to continue to serve our members and the Colorado library community.  This includes issuing a Request for Quotes (RFQ) for a management company that may prove to be a less expensive alternative to our current situation.  We want to stress that no decisions have been made, but as good librarians we simply want to have all the information as we plan for CAL’s next step.

What can you do to help?  Renew your membership.  Register for the conference. Encourage your friends and colleagues to do the same.  Share your ideas with board members. Together, we’ll weather this storm and position the association for a sustainable future.

Submitted on behalf of the CAL Board

Come to the Colorado State Library booth at the 2009 CAL Conference and tell us how libraries have transformed your life. We can attest as to how they have transformed our lives!

View our “library love stories” (PDF)

The meeting began with lunch and a meet and greet with librarians from around the state.  Attendees were treated to a tour of Penrose Library; the tour highlighted the rare book collection and the Research Center. The August Brown Bag was another great opportunity for instruction librarians to come together and share best practices!

During the “cool tools show & tell” Carrie Forbes demonstrated the use of the SMART Board for library instruction, which she says is a great way to keep students interested during the sessions.  Lynne Fox (UC Denver Anschutz Medical Campus) presented on Pan-Opto which is being used at Anschutz to record classes.  Lyda Ellis (UNC) presented on the use of Jing and Screenjelly, two screen capture tools that are freely available on the web; she also showed Embedr, a free tool that allows a user to create video playlists from video sites on the web.  Lorrie Evans (UC Denver) showed how UC Denver librarians are using Google Docs to create and embed surveys.

If you are a CAL member interested in joining COLIG please visit our Web page http://www.cal-webs.org/interestg9.html.  The next meeting will be on Friday at the CAL Conference from 11:30-12:15.  COLIG hosts two Brown Bags each year, one in May and one in August.

The Colorado Association of Libraries’ 2009 Power On annual conference is just a month away and we are looking for volunteers to help make this our best conference yet!  To help those of you who may still be wondering if you’re the person we’re looking for, consider the following:

• If you get a charge out of working in a fun, friendly environment…you might be a CAL volunteer.
  If answering questions and solving problems gives you a warm fuzzy feeling inside …you might be a CAL volunteer.
• If your day is made by making computers bend to your will …you might be a CAL volunteer.
• If greeting people and pointing them in the right direction brings a smile to your face…you might be a CAL volunteer.

Anyone registered for the CAL conference can be a CAL volunteer!  After you’ve registered, just click on the volunteer link and tell us what you’d like to do and when you’re available to help.  There are volunteer
opportunities at the registration desk, cyber café, ticketed events, exhibits hall, preconferences, and workshops.  You can even ask to be scheduled with a friend. 

New this year!  All CAL volunteers will receive a $10 refund off their conference registration fee!  (Refunds will be issued at the conference.)

Sign up today – we look forward to seeing you!

Recently, I was asked to do a presentation on the instructional role of the school librarian and the impact this has on public librarians. The audience included MLIS students and the program faculty at a state university. It was a great experience and I really enjoyed it. My first question to the group was, “What is the instructional role of the public librarian?” There was complete silence in the room and I could tell that the students were thinking, “Don’t call on me—don’t call on me!” Finally, a few hands went up and I received comments like: Providing books to our patrons; working with children and YA’s to get the right person matched with the right book, helping school age kids find what they need when it isn’t at their school library. Finally, one person said that she thought it was really important to make certain the people using databases and other library resources, or accessing library materials were able to find those materials again even if the librarian wasn’t present. BINGO! That’s what we all need to do—we need to make certain that as information professionals, we provide “instruction” or help and assistance so that our clients can function independently as learners.

The school librarian’s role is similar but the new AASL Guidelines developed by school library information professionals include a different focus. The goal, as public librarians, of helping patrons become independent learners, is the same, but for the school librarian, the factors of the standards and the teacher come into play. The school librarians must work closely with the teachers to develop inquiry lessons that address the content standards and the standards for the 21st Century learner. Together they must create lessons with higher level questioning that will provide an opportunity for the students to share what they know, ask intriguing questions about what they don’t know, investigate the answers to those questions, construct new meanings, create new knowledge, and communicate this new knowledge and their new understanding to others.

This is not easy but as instructional leaders in the school, librarians will be able to accomplish this daunting task. The trick is convincing the teachers and other members of the learning community that this is what needs to be accomplished in order to help the students achieve their academic potential.

As this discussion was taking place, I noticed that one MLIS student was sitting there and mumbling something under his breath. I asked him what he was saying and he replied, “Well it would be nice if the school librarians would let us know what the teachers’ assignments are.”

KABOOM! That was like an elephant in the middle of the room and brings up a good point. We must work together in helping our students and our patrons become independent learners—School librarians need to talk to their public librarians and public librarians need to talk with their school librarians—Maybe they could even meet with each other for coffee, lunch, or dinner, and discuss the school curriculum, the order of school assignments that the students have, and how the two organizations can work together. This will lay the ground work for continued collaboration throughout the year.

As discussions go when there are different types of librarians in the room, we shared information about our two state associations. This state had an organization for the school people and one for the public librarians. They didn’t mention the special or academic librarians, which was interesting. Their model was similar to what we had in Colorado with CLA and CEMA. The audience was extremely interested in our model having all types of librarians, and asked me how it worked.

I was proud to share with them the great organization we have in Colorado and how we all collaborate and work together. One of their concerns was that they have two different conferences and basically have a hard time knowing what each organization is doing. I told them about our upcoming conference, the keynote speakers including Camila Alire, ALA President, and Ann Martin, outgoing president from AASL. I explained Governor Ritter would be coming to receive a legislative award and would be speaking to all of us as a group at our business meeting. Although they were quite excited for us, I’m sure they won’t be able to hop on a plane and join us, although I did invite them. They are sending us positive thoughts for a dynamic conference, with excellent keynote sessions, and numerous opportunities to network. They wistfully expressed that it would be wonderful to have all of the information professionals in their state at one conference so that they could actually communicate with each other.

So take advantage of what we are truly fortunate to have….a professional opportunity to join the other information professionals in Colorado by attending our annual conference. I encourage you to take advantage of this great time we have of to talk, share, communicate, and network with each other at our upcoming conference. If you haven’t registered yet, please do and join us as we explore how we continue to “Power On” into the 21st Century. Registration is available at: http://cal-webs.org/conference.html

]]> http://www.coloradolibraries.org/2009/10/12/the-instructional-role-of-librarians/feed/ 0 http://www.coloradolibraries.org/2009/10/08/cal-paralibrarian-news-october-2009/ http://www.coloradolibraries.org/2009/10/08/cal-paralibrarian-news-october-2009/#comments Thu, 08 Oct 2009 15:39:07 +0000 CAL http://www.coloradolibraries.org/?p=518

The CAL Conference 2009: Power On! Avenues for the Future will soon be upon us with amazing opportunities for continuing education, professional development, and networking. The CAL Paralibrarian Division Board endorses the following sessions that are sure to be of special interest and benefit to Colorado’s paralibrarians:

Friday, Nov. 20th, 10:15 AM – Planning, Implementing, and Re-Designing Projects in Libraries

Friday, Nov. 20th, 1:45 PM – Web 2.0 Tools, Diversity, and YOUR Library

Friday, Nov. 20th, 1:45 PM – Innovative Library Strategies for Immigrant and Refugee Integration

Friday, Nov. 20th, 3:15 PM – Top Twelve Innovations in Colorado Libraries

Friday, Nov. 20th, 3:15 PM – Rural connections : Get ‘er done in a 2.0 world.

Saturday, Nov. 21st, 10:45 AM – Make Big Money In Your Pajamas? How E-Learning and Distance Education Can Really Help You and Your Library, Even If Small, Rural, Understaffed Or Strapped for Money and Time.

Saturday, Nov. 21st, 2:00 PM – Putting Information Into Health Literacy

If you will be going to the CAL conference, please attend the Paralibrarian Division business meeting on Friday, 11:30-12:15. (Room number to be announced.) New officers will be inducted at the meeting and we are giving away a CAL membership as a door prize! We hope to see you there!

Mark your calendars now for the Paralibrarian Division’s Spring Workshop and “Come to the LUAU” (Libraries Using Advocacy for Understanding) which will be held March 31^st at the Community College of Aurora. More information to come!

Submitted by Lynda Hoffmann and Jennifer Luper, CAL Paralibrarian Division