Training for New Staff

The first Orientation for New Library Staff of the year will be offered on Friday, March 7th from 10:00am - noon. Designed for new library staff and volunteers, but open to all who would like to attend, this workshop provides introductory, baseline information about working effectively in a public library and in the Mid-Hudson Library System. The workshop will cover:
· The role of the public library in our communities
· How your library fits into the NYS library structure
· Your role as a library representative
· Helping patrons find what they want
· Overview of the online catalog, HOMEACCESS databases and interlibrary loan
· System wide resource sharing concepts and issues

Following the Orientation, Circulation Essentials will be offered from 1:00 - 3:00pm so you can get the basics in Millennium Circulation. Circ Essentials is designed for new library staff, but open to all who would like to attend. This workshop provides introductory, baseline information about Millennium including common circulation and patron data entry tasks. The workshop will cover:
· Patron Records: how, when and why we create patron records
· Checkin and Checkin for the book drop
· Checkout: Dealing with it all - from pop-up messages to missing parts
· Holds: How they work and what you need to know to keep on top of the process
· Fines and fees: How fines work, how to create and add manual fines, waiving fines and fine history
· Printing notices: Pages, bills, overdues, hold pickup
· Entering items at the circ desk
· Neat tricks-things to save you time and work!

Register for each workshop individually through the MHLS web calendar: http://calendar.midhudson.org/

MHLS Announcements
MHLS will be closed Monday, February 18th. There will be deliveries.

Quick Answers for Patrons on the Go! [http://midhudson.org/answers/] - launched in 2007 and hosted by MHLS, pulls together what was identified as the most frequently asked reference questions by over 100 member library staff from all five counties. A new bookmark to help advertise the site to patrons is arriving at your library today. Area newspapers have picked up on the site and have posted articles about it, if you haven’t already, please consider adding a link to this resource on your library’s web site to help connect patrons to quality answers to their questions. The graphic for the site is available on the MHLS “Standardized Buttons & Graphics for your library’s web site” page found at http://midhudson.org then Administration & Management then Technology or get there directly at http://midhudson.org/admin/web/buttons.htm

MHLS Libraries
The Kinderhook Memorial Library [http://oklibrary.org/] has done a nice job of incorporating a calendar of events onto their homepage using the free Google Calendar product. Kinderhook is also an early adopter of distributing an e-newsletter using a company called Constant Contact [http://www.constantcontact.com] which allows them to email an attractive communication to patrons in their service area. Kinderhook started using the service after seeing the NorthEast-Millerton Library’s e-newsletter using the same company. The Stone Ridge Library is also using this product very effectively. If you’d like to see what their e-newsletters look like email Rebekkah Smith Aldrich, MHLS Coordinator of Member Information at rsmith@midhudson.org.

The Julia L. Butterfield Library’s (Cold Spring) web site is currently featuring LibraryThing - “Meet the world's largest book club. Find people with eerily similar tastes.” LibraryThing is a free, online service to help people catalog their own personal books – over 23 million books are currently cataloged! You can access your “catalog” from anywhere. Because everyone “catalogs” together, LibraryThing also connects people with the same books and comes up with suggestions for what to read next. It’s a social network for book-lovers! [http://www.librarything.com/]

Professional Development
Reminder: The Small Libraries Roundtable will meet on Wednesday, February 20th at the Palenville Branch Library from 10:00am – 12:00pm. The topic of the meeting will be fundraising. Register online at http://calendar.midhudson.org/

Next Generation Library Technologies - A conference sponsored by the Southeastern NY Library Resources Council on Wednesday, May 7, 2008 from 8:30am - 4:15pm at the Henry A. Wallace Visitor and Education Center at the FDR Presidential Library and Home, Hyde Park, NY. This conference will examine several innovative technologies and directions for libraries, including user interfaces designed to better reveal library collections, an organization’s internal documents, as well as information buried deeply in the web. In addition, they will take a look at the ever-increasing popularity of open-source software for libraries, in particular integrated library system software. Speakers include:
- Keynote speaker: Marshall Breeding, the Director for Innovative Technologies and Research at the Vanderbilt University Library (http://staffweb.library.vanderbilt.edu/breeding/) will speak on User Interfaces and Open-Source Software for Libraries
- Judi Briden, Digital Librarian for Public Services, University of Rochester River Campus Libraries, will talk about the developments to date of the University of Rochester's eXtensible Catalog Project, funded by the Mellon Foundation. http://www.extensiblecatalog.info/
- Abe Lederman, the President and Chief Technology Officer of Deep Web Technologies, Inc, will talk about Federated Search.
- Joshua Ferraro, the President of Technology for LibLime will discuss Open-Source Support by LibLime (http://liblime.com/open-source/why-your-library-needs-open-source)
- In the late afternoon John Stromquist, Executive Director of the Westchester Academic Library Directors’ Organization (WALDO), will talk about ILS Open-Source Software for Academic Libraries
The fee for this conference varies by SENYLRC membership category: $40.00 for SENYLRC Governing Members; $50.00 for SENYLRC Affiliate Members; $60.00 for Non-member organizations in the 8 county region of Southeastern NY (Columbia, Greene, Ulster, Dutchess, Orange, Putnam, Sullivan, and Rockland); and $70.00 for Nonmember organizations outside the region. To register, go to http://www.senylrc.org/reg/

Programming
Sue Scott, a librarian at the Marlboro Free Library has been running a very well received program for seniors. Friday mornings seniors are grabbing the library’s Nintendo Wii controllers to compete in “lively” virtual bowling matches. With arm movements that mimic the actual holding, aiming and releasing of a bowling ball, participants manipulate the video controller to score strikes and spares complete with sounds that emulate the real thing.

Administration & Management
Library directors, check your mail. Almost 4,000 public and academic libraries are being asked to participate in the 2008 ALA-APA Library Salary Survey. This year, the survey asks for salary data for six librarian titles. The deadline is Friday, Feb. 29, for completing the web-based survey. Survey letters with instructions are addressed to the attention of the library director or human resources manager and are in envelopes with the ALA-APA logo. In order to thank participants, all responding institutions will be given 30-day access to the ALA-APA Library Salary Database - http://cs.ala.org/websurvey/salarysurvey/login/login.cfm - as well as a discount on the printed survey.

PAGE 3: "Around the System for January 2008 "

PAGE 4: February 2008 Calendar: http://calendar.midhudson.org/

Member Libraries are welcome to submit items of interest and job openings to the MHLS Bulletin: bulletin@midhudson.org. The MHLS Bulletin is available on line at http://midhudson.org/bulletins/main.htm.