Advocacy from a City Manager’s View
By Emily Sitz, Director, Southwest Kansas Library System
May / June Newsletter Excerpt
We had the pleasure of hosting Derby City Manager Kathy Sexton for the afternoon program of our Spring Assembly. Kathy is a native Kansan who took over the city manager’s position in 2006. The title of her program was “Advocacy from a City Manager’s View”. We thought it would be an important perspective to hear as public library’s move into the budget cycle and prepare to justify a budget to the municipality.
The Derby City Manager’s support for a responsive public library in a growing community was evident as she talked about how busy the library was especially at peak times. As so many of us are feeling the need now more than ever to convey our relevance to the community, Kathy encouraged libraries to “know thyself” and, moreover, to know thyself in the context of the community as a whole. What is your library’s mission and how does it coincide or, better yet, support the mission for the community?
Read more…
What's New With Library Websites
By Janelle Mercer, Assistant Technology Consultant
May / June Newsletter Excerpt
This spring several libraries have pumped up their websites by adding widgets, links, and information. Most of these improvements can be implemented on any library site whether you have a KLOW (Kansas Libraries on the Web) site, a site you do in house at your library, or one a community member maintains for you. If you are thinking of sprucing up your library’s website, Summer Reading is a great time to do just that especially with this year’s theme. Some of the libraries and ideas mentioned below should give you several ideas.
Two of our libraries have added an avatar, or online personality to their library's websites. These libraries used a site called Voki,
www.voki.com. Through this site they were able to create an animated avatar with a recorded message. Both libraries decided to add a library welcome message. To check it out go to Hamilton County's practice site at
http://hamilton.mykansaslibrary.org or Stanton County's website at
http://www.stantoncountylib.info. To see the animation and hear their greeting press the play button on the avatar. If you are interested in adding a Voki to your site and have a KLOW site, go to the SWKLS practice KLOW site at
http://swkls.mykansaslibrary.org and follow the instructions. These instructions can also be adapted to be used on other platforms.
Read more…
Copyright—Did you know?
Under federal copyright law, libraries cannot be held liable for copyright infringement committed by the public on unsupervised reproducing equipment, but only if a notice is posted on the equipment. The prescribed wording for the notice is:
NOTICE: The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, U.S. Code) governs the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material; the person using this equipment is liable for any infringement.
Reproducing equipment refers not only to photocopiers, but also to computer printers and other equipment capable of making copies.
The situation is MUCH more complicated if library staff members make photocopies for the public. Producing copies for the public involves more liability on the library’s part. The legal notice required for such a service is much longer and patrons requesting copies should sign to say that they have read the notice. Library staff must be aware of what types of materials might be covered by copyright, when infringement may be occurring and staff must refuse a copying order when it may violate copyright law. If your library operates copying equipment for patrons and you have not posted the prescribed wording you can contact, Sara McFarland, smcfarland@swkls.org , and she will send you the wording.
CONTINUING EDUCATION GRANTS
The importance of training and education to Southwest Kansas
Libraries System member libraries has been consistently recognized and expressed
by member library directors and boards, system board members, staff and
administration. It is fitting that SWKLS budgets funds to offer grants to
supplement what libraries are able to provide, in financial support for
southwest Kansas library employees and trustees who want to take advantage of
educational programs. The grants provide financial aid toward improving the
library skills of the recipient and enabling him/her to become better informed
about library management and services. Personnel and trustees of taxing county
libraries and libraries contracting for two or more services including
Continuing Education and Training are eligible to apply. SWKLS offers two types
of continuing education grants.
Continuing Education Grant Application Form
Searching Just Got Better!
SWKLS recently added the Faceted Search module to VERSO. What does this mean for libraries and their patrons? Faceted Search is an information navigation and discovery tool. It allows a user to filter or narrow his or her search results based on categories or “facets” found within the search results set. Read more…
Google and LIFE Sponsoring Website
Google is hosting an image archive for LIFE magazine, not just the amazing published photos, but also the millions of archived photos that nearly no one has before seen. The dates of these photos range from the 1750s to the present. In November about 20 percent of the photos had been scanned and Google expects to finish the project in just a few months.
