STATE LIBRARY BOARD MEETS AT MIDLAND BRANCH
The State Library Board will meet at the Midland Branch of the Multnomah County Library on February 15th. Branch Manager Javier Gutierrez, who is a member of the LSTA Advisory Council, invited the Board last year to see some of the changes that have been made to address the increasingly multi-cultural community that the branch serves. The Board will also hear a report from Caleb Tucker-Raymond of the MCL staff who coordinates the L-net program, and will see a demonstration of the new Oregon School Library Informations System 2.0 by the State Library’s School Library Consultant, Patty Sorensen. In their business meeting, the Board will decide how to rebalance the Library Services and Technology Act budget, after learning at the end of 2007 that the Congress has cut funding for the program in FFY 2008. The Board will need to consider reductions to the budget they approved in December to bring the program budget into balance. The Board will also hear recommendations from the Talking Book and Braille Services Advisory Council about plans for the new digital talking book program that will launch in January 2009. Because of underfunding by the Congress, there will be a shortage of digital talking book players. The Advisory Council will recommend how to deal with the shortage so that TBABS customers will not have to wait too long to receive a new player. The meeting will begin at 9:00 a.m. on February 15th. An open forum is scheduled for 11:00 a.m. Anyone may address the Board in the open forum.
STAFF CHANGES IN LIBRARY DEVELOPMENT
After 23 years with the Oregon State Library, Val Vogt, the Library Development
consulting assistant is retiring. Her last day at the State Library will be
January 30th. Val has done an excellent job providing assistance to libraries
around the state and will be missed. Mary Mayberry is now the consulting assistant
in Library Development and has been working with Val during January to become
familiar with the variety of responsibilities. Welcome to Mary.
iSCHOOL TO EXAMINE THE BENEFITS OF FREE ACCESS TO COMPUTERS IN PUBLIC LIBRARIES
The University of Washington Information School, working with the Urban Institute, a non-partisan economic and social policy research organization, will examine the impact of free access to computers and the Internet on the well-being of individuals, families, and communities. The IMLS project will be carried out with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Public libraries, with support from the government and private foundations, have provided free access to the Internet and computers since the 1990s. Libraries have also provided access to digital resources, databases, networked and virtual services, training, technical assistance, and technology-trained staff. However, little research has been done on the relationship between free access to computers and the benefits to individuals, families and communities. Working with libraries, users, and communities, and an expert committee of library leaders, researchers, and public policy organizations, the research team will develop methods of measuring the benefits of free computer access. These indicators may help guide decision-making and be used to generate public support for public access computing.
AMERICAN INDIAN YOUTH LITERATURE AWARDS
On January 15 the American Indian Library Association (AILA) announced the 2008 recipients of its American Indian Youth Literature Awards. This new literary award was established in 2006 to identify and honor the very best writing and illustrations by and about American Indians. Award winning titles present Native Americans in the fullness of their humanity in present and past contexts. Winning titles are selected in three categories: picture book, middle school, and young adults. Each winner receives $500 and a custom-made beaded medallion which will be present at ALA’s conference in Anaheim, CA. Go to the AILA website (http://aila.library.sd.gov/default.asp) for descriptions of the 2008 winning titles, authors, and awards event.
The 2008 American Indian Youth Literature
Awards go to: Picture Book: Crossing Bok Chitto: A Choctaw Tale of Friendship
and Freedom by Tim Tingle, illustrated by Jeanne Rorex Bridge. Cinco Puntos
Press, 2006.
Middle School: Counting Coup: Becoming a Crow Chief on the Reservation and
Beyond by Joseph Medicine Crow. National Geographic, 2006.
Young Adult: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman
Alexie, Little Brown Publishers, 2007.
In February the Oregon Association of School Libraries (OASL) and the State Library are launching version 2.0 of the Oregon School Library Information System, or OSLIS, as it is more widely known. OSLIS 1.0 was launched ten years ago, believe it or not, in 1998. We have been working with a contractor on OSLIS 2.0 for about a year. It is a total redesign of the site, using a content management system for the first time. We have also tried to make it more interactive and appealing to students.
OSLIS has been a great success story and perhaps the most important thing that OASL has accomplished in the past decade. It is available to all K-12 students in Oregon, in public and private schools, and remotely from home, and of course to homeschooled students. It gets a lot of use. In November, for example, there were an average of 92 visits to the site per hour. OSLIS combines access to licensed library databases, from the Statewide Database Licensing Project, with learning resources for students and teachers. The most popular feature on the site is still the Citation Maker which is used by students and teachers in Oregon and throughout the U.S. to easily create bibliographies.
OSLIS has received a huge commitment of mostly volunteer time from OASL members over the past ten years. It would take too long to name everyone who has made a contribution, but certainly the OSLIS Committee Chair, Sheryl Steinke, who is retiring from the Committee next year, deserves a great deal of thanks for the many years of devotion she has shown to OSLIS. Thanks are also owed to Patty Sorensen, our School Library Consultant, who led the process to create OSLIS 2.0. Another OSLIS partner that deserves a mention is the iSchool at the University of Washington, which provides a graduate student to handle day-to-day customer service and maintenance of the OSLIS website.
Coincidentally, a company called Google was also launched ten years ago. Professor Siva Vaidhyanathan of the University of Virginia (author of the excellent book Copyrights and Copywrongs) is working on a book called The Googlization of Everything. I find that title to be very apt. A recent article in the Times of London discusses the negative impact that some educators feel Google is having on education. Professor Tara Brabazon at the University of Brighton calls Google “white bread for the mind.” Definitely filling, but often, not very nutritious. “It’s fascinating to see how students have changed,” she comments. “We can no longer assume that students arrive at university, knowing what to read and knowing what standards are required of the material they do read.” Brabazon has resorted to banning the use of Google and Wikipedia in her classes.
At least here in Oregon we got the jump on Google by launching OSLIS a decade ago. For Oregon students, there is an alternative to “the Googlization of everything.” And we have many very dedicated teacher librarians to thank for it. – Jim Scheppke
Technical Assistance: 503-932-1004.
Library Development: 503-378-2525, MaryKay
Dahlgreen, Val Vogt, Darci
Hanning, Ann Reed, Patty
Sorensen, Katie Anderson.
Talking Book and Braille Services: 503-378-5389, Susan
Westin.
Government Research and Electronic Services: 503-378-5030, Robert
Hulshof-Schmidt.
State Librarian: 503-378-4367, Jim
Scheppke.
LTLO Editor: 503-378-2464, Robin
Speer.
Letter to Libraries Online is published monthly by the Oregon State Library. Editorial office: LTLO, Oregon State Library, 250 Winter St. NE, Salem, Oregon 97301-3950, 503-378-2464, editor: Robin Speer.
Letter to Libraries Online is available free of charge and is available only in electronic form on the publications page at the Oregon State Library's homepage: http://www.oregon.gov/OSL. Opinions expressed in the articles are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Oregon State Library. News items or articles should be sent to Robin Speer, or mailed to LTLO, Oregon State Library, 250 Winter St. NE, Salem, Oregon 97301-3950.
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