Public libraries in the U.S have been promoting summer library programs since 1898.  Reading regularly during the summer helps students to prevent “summer set-back” where students can lose reading gains of the previous school year.

 The State Library has been giving out the grants since 2004.   Library sites receive $200 to spend on books and materials to support their summer library programming and provide a local match of 25% of the grant.  The statewide summer reading theme for 2010 is “Make a Splash, READ!”  The teen theme is “Make Waves @ your library.”

For a map of all library sites receiving a grant: http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=109363614992294136015.000463611a1305f4ed830&ll=39.010648,-105.413818&spn=4.156806,7.03125&z=7

Does your library have a bookmobile? Celebrate the first annual National Bookmobile Day on Wednesday, April 14, 2010!  ALA has free resources your library can use to promote your bookmobile.

In this and future posts I’ll tell the story of how we selected VuFind from a list that included AquaBrowser, Encore, Drupal SOPAC, and WorldCat Local. I’ll write about testing and launching open source software originally developed at Villanova University. We might blaze a few interesting trails, taking software currently running in university libraries, and adapting it to our multi-type consortium on the Western Slope.

“We’re getting open source!”

VuFind was a very much a dark horse until a few stars aligned. When I joined Marmot last October, it was not clear we could implement let alone enhance an open source solution. When I visited Colorado State University to learn about the first implementation of VuFind with Millennium, I was encouraged that CSU could help Marmot get started. After we hired a new web developer, and identified a contract developer to expand our capacity for a few months, we had everything we needed to take VuFind seriously.

Lucene at the heart of VuFind is no stranger to supporting public and school libraries as well as academics. Lucene powers Encore by Innovative Interfaces, LS2 PAC by The Library Corporation, and many other web apps. The remarkable thing about VuFind for Marmot was how well it met overlapping and conflicting needs of 19 separate Marmot institutions in spite of its academic roots.

Mary Katherine told me how much fun she and CJ were having looking at the code where MARC tags and subfields get handled for indexing and faceting. “I can’t remember the last time I actually enjoyed reading MARC documentation and chasing down fixed field codes.”

Some of the fun comes from feeling in control, from the optimism of being able to solve unique local problems without waiting for a vendor to weigh our priorities with those of a thousand other ILS customers. Mary Katherine can see what’s happening inside the system instead of being shut out of a vendor’s black box. CJ can make changes without filing a bug report. Marmot library users will love the results.

All FCC Forms 471 electronically filed or postmarked by that date and time will be considered IN WINDOW.

GCPL will receive this year’s $1,000 award honoring its innovative and creative “artist-in-residence” program. Beginning in the summer of 2008, with the financial backing of the Friends of the Library, the GCPL offered a Poet-in-Residence to the community, who held a series of workshops for people of all ages on writing, reading, and appreciating poetry of many varieties.

This is the second year in a row that a Colorado library has won the EBSCO Award (it was John C. Fremont Library District in 2009).

View the press release (PDF)

Read a full review of The Maltese Falcon here. For a full list of books available from the SWIFT Book Club, look here.

Experienced trainer Carol Wagstaff (Douglas County Libraries) and Colorado Libraries for Early Literacy (CLEL) will review ECRR resources and coach you through how you can use ECRR techniques and plan a literacy-enhanced storytime. Come prepared to practice dialogic reading and give parent tips.

The workshop will be limited to 25 participants and priority will be given to Western Slope libraries. Additional registrants will placed on a waiting list.

Registration fee: $15.00
Location: Montrose Public Library
Date & Time: March 19, 2010, 8:30am-3pm
Questions: Patricia Froehlich, CDE – State Library, 303-866-6908

Register Now!

Beginning Feb 1, they will all use the same web-based customer-support and communication technology, InstantService.

In the last few years, libraries have seen an explosion in online communication tools available for reaching and serving patrons. The use of IM, text messaging, online chat and related technologies are becoming embedded in the fabric of libraries’ online service offerings. Given this changing landscape in technology and the evolving need for libraries to flexibly serve their patrons, the AskColorado community and AskColorado Steering Committee have endorsed a migration to this new software platform, InstantService.

AskColorado

On February 1, Colorado’s statewide virtual reference provider will begin using the software developed by InstantService. In addition to serving some well-known companies across a range of industries, InstantService is currently used by Florida’s AskALibrarian virtual reference service. The Florida AskALibrarian service, which has 102 participating libraries of all types, has been using InstantService for nearly a year and raves about the company’s service. The AskColorado Software Selection Committee, which was comprised of library representatives from public, academic and school libraries from across the state, chose InstantService after reviewing several vendor options.

InstantService offers the expected, basic function of live chats with a librarian, but the (NEW!) integration of email to provide patrons with a communication option if the AskColorado service is busy or closed for a holiday IS A SIGNIFICANT improvement to the former software system.

Additional features and functions:

• fully integrated staff service module, which will allow libraries to offer different communication channels to their patrons while interacting with and responding to patrons at a single service point;
• entirely web-based, compatible with more operating systems and browser platforms than the previous software;
• works on both PCs and Macs;
• the ability for participating libraries to add an embedded IM widget box within their web sites, similar to Meebo.

Looking forward to the spring…text messaging will be added as an option so that patrons can communicate with the AskColorado library service using a handheld device like a cell phone.

If you have any questions, or would like further information about joining and supporting the AskColorado Collaboration, please feel free to contact Susie Whiteford [swhitefo@denverlibrary.org]of Denver Public Library, currently Chair of the AskColorado Steering Committee.

And if your library is already a member of AskColorado, welcome to a bright new era of virtual reference service and sophisticated electronic communications with your patrons!

The Colorado Library Consortium (CLiC) is offering financial assistance to library staff enrolling in the certification program.  CLiC will reimburse selected individuals for half the registration cost (up to a $175 value).  The deadline for submitting the financial assistance application  is February 28th.  Contact Judy Van Acker, 719-640-5979, with questions.