Thanks to a Gates grant, registration, lodging, food and travel will be covered for one staff member per library (2 staff members may attend if your library serves a population of 100,000 or more). We will make the hotel reservations for you based on the registrations received.

Attendees of this conference can expect to:

*gain a better understanding of broadband and its importance to their community, their library members, and their library
*learn about the importance of the Colorado Public Library Technology Standards
*gain an increased comfort level with technology planning and the benefits of applying for e-rate
*help build a collegial technology community for Colorado libraries

Registration will remain open until Sunday July 24th at 5 PM. Please register at your earliest convenience for this wonderful opportunity! Once again, The Colorado State Library is excited to be able to offer you the BEST!

The Marmot Council of twenty library directors elected four new members to the Marmot Executive Board. Eve Tallman (Director of Mesa County Public Library District) continues in the role of Treasurer. New Board members include President Barb Brattin (Director of the Wilkinson Public Library in Telluride); Vice President Nancy Gauss (Director of the Savage Library at Western State College); Gayle Gunderson (Director of the Fowler Library at Colorado Christian University); and Sherry Holland (School Librarian in Steamboat Springs School District).

About Marmot

The Marmot Library Network (www.marmot.org), based in Grand Junction (CO), is a non-profit organization providing information technology services to public, academic, and school libraries. Marmot hosts software and a database shared by 20 institutions comprising 90 library sites in Colorado; and provides internet, hardware, and software support services.

For instance, certified technology plans are only required for those seeking Priority 2 services. If you are applying for telecommunications or Internet access only, you are no longer required to submit a technology plan for certification. (Although no longer required for all libraries, technology planning is a crucial part of an organizations strategic planning, and highly recommended).

Priority 2 services include internal connections and basic maintenance of those connections. (Internal connections are the equipment and wiring necessary to receive services in the classrooms and rooms in libraries.)

For more information about eligible services and what qualifies as Priority 1 or 2 please see the 2011 eligible services list (PDF).

WebJunction will also be offering a free webinar detailing form 471 on March 15, 2011. Registration is currently open for that webinar.

Questions?
Public Library Technology Plan questions should be forwarded to:
Christine Kreger
Kreger_c@cde.state.so.us
303-866-6946
http://www.cde.state.co.us/cdelib/technology/erate.htm

All other e-rate and school library e-rate questions should be forwarded to:
Delilah Collins – collins_d@cde.state.co.us or 303-866-6850.
http://www.cde.state.co.us/edtech/erate2.htm

Flip Camera Donation Program
Public libraries are using lightweight, pocket-sized Flip Video cameras to collect community stories, record library events, and share knowledge. The camera’s one-button operation and a flip-out USB arm allows staff or volunteers with little technical experience to record, edit, and upload quality high-definition video to the web. The bundle includes two UltraHD 260 video cameras and one tripod for an admin fee of $175.
Want some great examples of how to use Flip cameras in your library?

• Check out our recorded webinar, Flippin’ Out at the Library, to hear Kelly Czarnecki explain how the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library uses Flip cameras.
• Watch a video made with a Flip camera: Royce Kitts’ section of the webinar wasn’t recorded due to technical difficulties, so he made this fun video to share how the Tonganoxie Public Library in Kansas uses Flip cameras.
• Read our Learning Center article, Digital Storytelling: A Tutorial in 10 Easy Steps for expert tips on creating professional digital videos to share your library and community stories.

TechSoup’s donation program helps stretch your library’s budget. You can save 80-96% on brand-new software donated by top companies, including Microsoft donated software and refurbished computers. Products are available to all public libraries that are listed in the IMLS database and/or have a valid 501(c)(3) nonprofit status and to nonprofits with a 501(c)(3) designation.

Free TechSoup Webinars

• Is FileMaker Right for Your Organization?
  Thursday, November 18, 2010, 11:00 a.m. Pacific (Noon Mountain / 1pm Central / 2 pm Eastern)

  Does your data live in several spreadsheets that all have to be maintained? Perhaps a database is in order, but how do you get from managing several spreadsheets to having the information live in one organized place? If your library has a 501(c)(3) nonprofit designation, you may be eligible to request this product. FileMaker Pro integrates a database engine with a graphical user interface allowing the database to be modified by dragging new elements into layouts, screens, or forms. FileMaker templates and wizards can help anyone proficient at Excel create a basic database in less than an hour.

• Manage your Data, Donations and More with CiviCRM
  Thursday, November 18, 2010, 11:00 a.m. Pacifpic (Noon Mountain / 1pm Central / 2 pm Eastern)

  Do you wish your current database allowed you to track donations, volunteers, emails, and events? CiviCRM  is a free, libre and open-source software constituent relationship management (CRM) solution. It is designed specifically to meet the needs of advocacy, nonprofit, and non-governmental groups. Attend this free webinar and hear from Dave Greenberg from CiviCRM who will explain what tools are available within CiviCRM and some best practices around setup and maintenance. We’ll also learn how Jeff Porter is using CiviCRM at the Prader Willi Foundation.

• If you missed our webinar last month, The Story of an Open Source Library, you can visit the archives to watch this and other past webinars and read the follow-up questions and answers on our open source community forum.

Last year, OITP’s America’s Libraries for the 21st Century Subcommittee launched the “cutting-edge” contest to showcase libraries that serve their communities with novel and innovative methods and to provide the library community with some successful models for delivering quality library services in new ways.

Christine Lind Hage, chair of the subcommittee, said the wide response to the 2009 call was so inspiring, the subcommittee knew another contest was in order. Last year, three libraries were cited for their outstanding work.

“These winners showed that libraries of all sizes can do innovative projects that are worthy of replication across library types,” Hage said.

“With all the creative technological work being done in libraries, I’m sure that this year we’ll see some exciting apps, projects or services that we’ll want to showcase.”

Nominations should be sent to the American Library Association, Office for Information Technology Policy, 1615 New Hampshire Avenue NW, 1st Floor, Washington, D.C. 20009 or to ainouye@alawash.org by November 1, 2010.  Details for the nomination process are available on the OITP website.

The survey portal is www.plinternetsurvey.org – respondents can find FAQs and other support, and then head to “start survey.”  That is also where you will find the 4 issue briefs (Broadband, Community Access, E-government, and Employment), as well as state summaries for Employment and E-government. The survey closes November 5, 2010.

Why participate in this survey?

• At the national level, the data have been used by NTIA, the FCC, Congress, ALA, and B&MGF to help make the case that libraries are critical community anchor institutions that should be included in any broadband plan initiatives; help libraries secure BTOP funds; and work with policy makers to secure LSTA funds for libraries. The data is also being combined with a range of geocoded data so that policymakers can see how libraries make a difference in their communities through their public access technologies.
• At the state level, 72% of state librarians said they currently are using or are likely to use the data for state-level testimony and to develop messaging related to public library technology resources. The data is used to develop state-level issue briefs, data summaries (employment and e-government), and other tools to help state libraries advocate on behalf of their libraries.
• At the local level, survey administrators have worked with a number of libraries to get stories out about the importance of libraries in their communities. They have also been working with the National Association of Counties to take the message to local governing bodies and decision makers. You can see several media stories using PLFTAS data at www.ala.org/ala/research/initiatives/plftas/2009_2010/media.cfm.

StoryBlocks.org is a project of the Colorado Libraries for Early Literacy (CLEL), an advisory group to the State Library. CLEL received a federal grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to create the videos and Web site. The goal is to build awareness and to encourage parents and others to engage with children from birth on early language and pre-literacy skills. The methods used in the videos are based on brain and child development research that show the impact that songs, rhymes and stories have on very young children.

Eight Colorado public libraries helped to fund the project:  Arapahoe Library District, Denver Public Library, Douglas County Libraries, Fort Morgan Public Library, Lafayette Public Library, Salida Regional Library and Westminster Public Library. Donations also came from two non-profit organizations: Friends of Food for Thought and Library People and one anonymous donor.

View press release (PDF)

For more information on StoryBlocks.org, contact Patricia Froehlich, youth services senior consultant at the Colorado State Library, 303-866-6908.

CJ O'Hara, Keith Dedman, Mark Noble

After 3 guys worked on it part time for 3 months, the Western Slope Libraries Catalog is now live. We started with open source VuFind, developed at Villanova U and first implemented in Colorado by CSU.

This month the team is fine-tuning relevance ranking, correcting links to electronic books, evaluating new catalog enrichment options, and developing an admin console to support a variety of  configuration options for our multi-type consortium.

This summer Marmot will work with members to brand, configure, and launch library-specific flavors of the catalog. Academics and schools should all be ready in time for fall term; publics will launch throughout the summer.

We’re certainly taking advantage of the openness of open source to do cool things for library users that no sane vendor would want to do in a commercial product. Give us a call at 970-242-3331 to hear more about it.

Like its public library counterparts, Horizon Middle School is now able to offer its students improved access to the online catalog and library account information, library databases and homework resources, and much more!

The Horizon Plinkit site is also the first to utilize RSS feeds from Delicious (a social bookmarking site) to manage the homework websites area. Websites were hand selected and organized based upon Colorado’s K-12 Academic Standards to provide students access to brief annotated lists of quality websites. The dynamic incorporation of Delicious RSS feeds will allow us to update or make changes to the resource lists as needed in one place rather than manually updating this and future Plinkit sites. Our goal is to use Delicious to manage recommended web resource lists on all Colorado Plinkit sites.

Plinkit is an award-winning website creation and hosting service originally developed by the Multnomah County Library with an LSTA Grant using open source software called Plone. The Colorado State Library is one of nine states/organizations participating in the Plinkit collaborative. Colorado currently hosts 29 library sites.

Please contact Christine Kreger (kreger_c@cde.state.co.us or 303-866069546) at the Colorado State Library for more information on Plinkit services available to your library or visit http://colibraries.org.