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NELA News September 2009NELA News is a monthly e-newsletter of the New England Library Association Last Call for BallotsEvery NELA member should have received a paper ballot in the mail. If you haven’t mailed yours back it’s not too late. You have until 9-9-9 (September 9, 2009) to get them in the mail and postmarked. Every vote counts so please send yours in this week. Candidate information is on the web page at www.nelib.org/candidates and bylaws changes are included with the ballot. NELA Announces Emerson Greenaway Award Winner for 2009The New England Library Association and its Greenaway Committee is especially delighted to announce this year's recipient of the Emerson Greenaway Award for distinguished service to the library community in New England, Mr. Kendall F. Wiggin. Read the complete story of Ken’s accomplishments and more about the Greenaway Award in our Greenaway section. The Emerson Greenaway Award will be presented to Ken at the Sunday night banquet at NELA's annual conference in Hartford, CT on October 18, 2009. Congratulations Ken! Your library career demonstrates this well earned, and well deserved, honor. More Conference Highlights
If you haven’t planned your days or want ideas of sessions to encourage colleagues to attend, here are more highlights from the wonderful conference planned for this fall. A description of conference sessions is available. Conference HighlightsFor the Love of Books (and Other Materials)Even (or especially) in tough budget times, libraries should maintain a preservation program. Gregor Trinkaus-Randall, Preservation Specialist for the MA Board of Library Commissioners, addresses preservation concerns for print, AV and digital materials in active circulating collections and special collections. Learn about budget-minded training options, best practices and archival materials. Creating Our Varied Voices: A Teen Writing GroupNERTCL presents Lucretia Duwel, Head of Teen Services at Stratford (CT) Library, to discuss how she inspired teens to participate in Stratford‟s creative writing group, now eleven years old. Former and current teen members describe how their experiences led to the creation of the annual literary magazine, Varied Voices. A selection of student pieces are read as part of the presentation. OS Smackdown: This Time It’s Personal (Computing)Linux lands a hit with the latest Ubuntu distribution! Apple counter-punches with OS X updates! Microsoft is on the mat...but wait….is that Windows 7 in its back pocket? See what all the excitement is about as ITS panelists Wes “The Penguin” Hamilton, Scott “iEverything” Kehoe, and Rick “800-Pound Gorilla” Levine face off with demonstrations and discussions of the latest and greatest offerings in operating systems. Just don‟t be surprised if this match ends in a draw. NELA Annual Banquet: with Will Manley, author of Snowballs in the Book DropThe outside world often gets a kick out of making fun of librarians and the librarian stereotype. Turnabout is fair play. Will Manley, author, columnist and retired librarian, offers a therapy session for us to make fun of the outside world, and our patrons certainly give us much to laugh about. The Emerson Greenaway Award is also presented at the banquet. Will Manley’s books are available for purchase. Autographing follows the dinner. Planning for Better TimesHard times have hit us all, and we must learn to cope with adversity. Mary Rose Quinn, director of the Stevens Memorial Library in North Andover, MA and a commissioner for the MA Board of Library Commissioners, and Ron Van Winkle, Town Manager for West Hartford, CT, discuss the hard decisions that have to be made in times of economic strife and share ideas on how we can look down the road and begin to plan for better times. Library as Publishing AgentAcademic libraries of all sizes can and must strategically position themselves as campus publishers. One means of doing this is to implement an Institutional Repository, providing opportunities to showcase senior theses, dissertations, award-winning papers, and student and faculty peer-reviewed journals. The Academic Librarians Section (ALS) presents Marilyn Billings from UMass Amherst to explain how this works in her library. The Future of Technical Services is a Three Ring CircusRingmasters Jane Ouderkirk from Harvard Business School and Ben Ide from Mortensen Library, University of Hartford, discuss the evolving composition of technical services and the skills you need to stay relevant. Managing metadata and taxonomy, content and collections, and information lifecycle are the three performances comprising technical services in the next decade. Who competes in our arenas and how can we win (or should we)? Which of our acts is getting stale? What new tricks do we need? The program is sponsored by ALS. NERTCL Luncheon with illustrator Kevin HawkesKevin Hawkes has illustrated more than 25 acclaimed picture and chapter books, including Chicken Cheeks, Weslandia, Library Lion, and The Wicked Big Toddlah. His bold, vibrant artwork is instantly recognizable and lends exuberance to the stories it illustrates. A brief NERTCL business meeting is included in the program. Selected Kevin Hawkes books are available for purchase. Autographing follows the luncheon. Creating a Local HistoryLibrarians CAN be authors. Linda Taggart and Alison Zaya from the Nashua (NH) Public Library are co-authors with Steven Butzel from the Portsmouth (NH) Public Library of The Nashua Experience: a Three Decade Upgrade 1978-2008. With editor Carol Luers Eyman, also from Nashua Public Library, they share their experiences of researching, writing and publishing a local history. Discover how they selected topics, established a timetable, found funding, involved the community, worked with a publisher and sold the end result. One for All: Collaborative Collection Development in AcademiaIn 2006, Colby, Bates and Bowdoin Libraries in Maine received a grant from the Mellon Foundation to explore ways to reduce duplication and expand uniqueness of materials in their collections. Their combined approval plan with YBP is now up and running. This ALS program explains how they did it and how it is meeting the grant objectives. The panel includes Margaret Menchen from Colby, John Harrison from Bates, and Joan Campbell from Bowdoin. Author Luncheon with Alexandra StoddardAlexandra Stoddard is a philosopher of contemporary living, an interior designer and author of more than 25 best–selling books. In her most recent work, Things Good Mothers Know, she celebrates what mothers know, details what we would like them to know, and encourages them to attend to their own happiness in the quest to be better mothers. As a pioneering writer and lecturer on personal happiness for the past twenty years, Alexandra has inspired millions to break the “rules” and pursue fulfillment. She has hosted Home and Garden TV‟s “Homes Across America” and appeared at the National Book Festival, on Oprah, The Today Show, and Barbara Walters. Alexandra Stoddard’s books are available for purchase. Autographing follows the luncheon. Membership Advantages: As NELA members we receive special conference rates. NELA is now extending the same special rates to members of ACRL (New England Chapter of the Association of College and Research Libraries). They offered us reduced rates in the spring and we are returning the favor for the fall. If you or someone you know is a member of NELA or ACRL, be sure to check the members rate when you send in your conference registration. NELA News is a monthly e-newsletter of the New England Library Association. |