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ArizonaLibrary Association Newsletter
Promoting library service and librarianship in all types of Arizona libraries.
Playing on the title of the popular movie and novel of a similar name, this year’s theme Click it Forward highlights the ways in which Arizona libraries and library staff contribute to the profession, community, and to the world through innovations in technology, programming, services and a myriad of other ways that enhance the world in which we live.
Held November 15th -17th, at the Radisson Fort McDowell, this year’s conference should inspire and motivate all who attend.
In the spirit of Click it Forward, we can all make this year’s annual conference the best one yet by giving back to our profession. We know that Arizona librarians are dynamic, creative, and productive. So why not tell others what you’re doing for your libraries and its users and show how other librarians can do the same?
The Conference Committee is looking for a wide variety of Programs, as well as Pre-Conferences, Roundtable Discussions, and Posters, so there’s something for everyone.
The Call for Proposals is now open, so what are you waiting for?
Visit the conference website at www.azla.org to submit your proposal online. Proposals for general Programs and Pre-Conferences will be accepted through Friday, April 16th, and proposals for Roundtable Discussions and Posters will be accepted through Friday, May 15th.
Have questions about submitting a proposal? Please contact the Conference Program Committee Chair Susan Smith at susan_smith@tempe.gov.
Do you need ideas, or want to suggest one to see what others think? Simply go to http://2010azla.ideascale.com where you can submit an idea, vote on other suggestions, or provide comments.
By: Nancy Deegan
Conference Committee Co-Chair
Central Arizona College Library
From the President of AzLA...
The Dim Side of a Bright Idea
The rumor mill is working overtime. The word on the street is that there’s a 10-15-20 or more percent cut coming down. There’s talk of more furloughs, reduction of hours, facility closures, maybe even “staff reductions.” Whatever decisions are made, the result will no doubt be major cutbacks in resources and services for your users. Being the creative and ingenious types that we are, many of us go into library recovery mode. Eureka! Single-handedly you’ve figured out how to keep the library alive until help arrives!
You make your way to your supervisor’s office with great idea in hand. Confidently, you lay it all out. He nods. She smiles. "Terrific idea, John/Jane Doe, but......" Your euphoria has been dashed. You can't even here what comes after the "but." "That was a fabulous idea! How could they just reject it/me like that?" Before you get your bindery tape in a bunch, don't take it personally.
Your idea may have been the most innovative, cost-effective one to come along in decades, but your organization may end up paying for it for decades too. For quite some time now, libraries have worked to make a dollar's worth of services out of a fifteen cent budget. At any and some times all costs, we've found ways to keep the doors open; get books on shelves, and put on programs with budgets that would reduce other organizations to selling the shelves and fixtures.
Our internal and external customers are both grateful for our efforts. One seemingly more than the others in some instances. Our external users boast about how we manage to retain such high caliber services during such tough times. For our internal customers we are a vision, a vision of one less irate phone call or one feather in the organizational cap. When the financial crisis is over they smother us with accolades, but often leave us in the cold when it comes to restoring funding. "Hey Library, you're awesome. Love the way you do that five loaves of bread and two fishes thing. By the way, you're so good at it, why don't you just keeping doing it for the next five years or more. Then we can see if we can restore positions, and budgets."
Librarians who have been around the stacks a time or two have seen this happen time and time again. They have learned the lessons of being first on the budget hit list and dead last in the recovery line. While most of us are deeply wounded by cuts to services; fighting fervently to prevent them, at some point, we all must make a decision a limb or a life, programs or hours, hours or facilities, facilities or people, short term gains or long term sustainability.
So even though it may feel like the dimmer has been switched on your bright idea, the truth is that library leaders are trying to conserve some energy to light the future.
By: Cynthia Landrum
AzLA President
Library News from A-Z
West meets East - Prologue
There are many benefits to being a member of the Arizona Library Association, but the best kept secret to its membership may be the Horner Fellowship. The Horner Fellowship is a partnership between the Arizona Library Association and the Japan Library Association that provides Arizona librarians with an amazing professional development opportunity – to visit Japan and discover how libraries in another culture function and operate. As the 2009 Horner Fellow, I took advantage of this opportunity to explore how the libraries of this technologically-oriented society provide services to their users and whether they witness the same information literacy issues that we do here in the United States.
My trip was off to a rocky start when the baggage loading equipment literally ran into my aircraft, causing a dent sizable enough to cancel my flight out of Phoenix. I eventually arrived in Tokyo, however, and my hosts from the Japan Library Association helped me feel comfortable and at home. I was especially grateful that Mr. Miura, the JLA chair, had arranged an escort – and translator as needed – to meet me each morning to ensure that I got to each of my destinations without any problems. The transportation system in Japan can be both wonderful and terrifying to a new visitor.
Over a two week period in November, I toured 15 institutions, attended the annual Library Fair & Forum conference, explored the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum and saw the active volcano Mt. Unzen with Katsuko Hotelling (retired librarian from Arizona State University), visited numerous temples and shrines, traveled to Tokyo, Yokohama, Nagasaki Prefecture, and Kyoto, and met incredible librarians who were willing to give up their precious time to meet with me. By the end of my trip I was both mentally and physically exhausted – and I’d do it again tomorrow if given the chance!
As you can imagine, I have extensive notes from my visits making it difficult to summarize everything I learned in a single newsletter article. Instead, over the next few months I will be providing you with some insights as to what I learned. I’ll be covering some of the common themes that emerged relating to relationships, technology, and information. I hope you find them interesting and informative.
By: Nancy Deegan
2009 Horner Fellow
Central Arizona College Library
_____________________________
2010 AzLA Service Awards
Congratulations to all the recipients of 2009 AzLA Service Awards! Thanks to all the nominators, the AzLA Conference organizers, sponsors and my fellow Service Awards Committee members for making the luncheon a special occasion for those receiving the awards. It was a huge success and truly a memorable experience for all the recipients.
It’s now time to start looking ahead to the 2010 AzLA Conference. In these hard times of library cuts and layoffs, wouldn’t it be a wonderful gesture to recognize those that have accomplished so much this past year and made great strides to improve libraries and the library profession. Make someone’s year and nominate them for an AzLA Service Award, the deadline to submit a nomination is July 30, 2010.
Along with the great educational opportunities at the conference, OK offers some wonderful sites to visit. Within a few blocks of the OK Convention Center…
• Downtown Art Walk complete with audio “art talk”
• Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum
• Myriad Botanical Gardens and Crystal Bridge Tropical Conservatory
• Oklahoma City Museum of Art (includes Dale Chihuly pieces)
• Ronald J. Norick Downtown Library
• Oklahoma River Cruise
• Bricktown Entertainment District
Have you been censored?
MPLA member Val Nye and Kathy Barco are seeking your stories of censorship in libraries! They have a call for essays for an ALA publication to be titled True Stories of Censorship Battles in American Libraries. Deadline for submissions is 31 March 2010. Details at: http://www.mpla.us/events/censorship.pdf
Please join fellow library staff at the AzLA Spring Forum to be held in Yuma on Friday, April 23. Ruth Barefoot, from “The San Jose Way”, will be presenting practical information and highlights from their innovative customer service model. You won’t want to miss this informative workshop!
We are also working on a special lunch spot (sure to be a treat!), and we’ll end the day with a tour of some of Yuma County’s new Libraries (which utilized many of the “San Jose Way” elements). We hope you can attend!
More information will be in the April newsletter, but if you just can’t wait, you are welcome to call Susan at (928) 373-6462. The forum is sponsored by the Academic Library and the Yuma County Library District.”
Thanks!
By: Susan M. Evans
Director
Yuma County Library District
Children's Author / Illustrator Network Scheduling Information & Dates
Listed authors/illustrators are not endorsed or sponsored by AZLA or Mary Wong. Listings are provided as a service to teacher librarians interested in scheduling school visits with authors and/or illustrators.
Arizona Authors By Appointment (anytime during the year)
March 29 - April 2 David Schwartz. Go to www.davidschwartz.com for info. Contact Mary Wong to schedule.
Spring 2011
TBAJack Gantos. Go to www.jackgantos.com for info. Contact Mary Wong to schedule Contact: Mary Wong
623-486-2582
For further information or to schedule a visit, leave a message with daytime & evening telephone numbers.
Notice: Listed authors/illustrators are not endorsed or sponsored by AzLA or Mary Wong. Listings are provided as a service to teacher librarians interested in scheduling school visits with authors and/ or illustrators. For the policy governing listings on this page, see the AzLA Autor-Illustrator Listing Policy on the website. Go to www.azla.org and click on Publications; scroll down to the policy.
YA KORNER
We all know it. Technology and teens go hand in hand. But in the land of realistic fiction, it doesn’t seem that way sometimes. Below are a handful of titles that incorporate this reality into their stories. Perhaps your readers will see themselves in the story too.
Very LeFreak by Rachel Cohn
Veronica enters rehab for tech addiction after her classmates and professors hold an intervention.
NuGrl90 by Cheryl Dellasega
The first in the Bloggrls series—Sadie has moved to a new town after her parents’ divorce. She uses her blog as a means to connect with her old friends.
Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
He was w1n5t0n in his online life when the government cracked down into a police state. w1n5t0n decides to use his hacking ability to set things right.
Future Diary by Sakae Esuno
Loner Yukiteru keeps a diary on his cell phone, but one day it begins to tell the future setting him up as one of the 12 future diary holders who are to fight to death.
Train_Man by Hidenori Hana
Geek meets girl on the train. Immediately posts on the Internet for help on talking to the cute girl. Follows advice given and keeps the forum involved every step of his relationship. (There are multiple adaptations of the story—a novel and 3 different graphic novel series)
Cheater by Michael Laser
When brilliant high school student Karl Petrovsky gets talked into participating in an elaborate cheating operation at his school, he ends up involved in a bigger problem than he ever anticipated.
Rob & Sara.com by P.J. Petersen and Ivy Ruckman
Love via e-mail. Rob and Sara meet in an online poetry chat room.
The Dating Game by Natalie Standiford
Three girls create a website/blog to play matchmaker, but really they’re trying to determine who’s more sex-crazed—boys or girls?
Gossip Girl by Cecily Von Ziegesar
Who is gossip girl, the anonymous website owner that digs up all the dirt on the teens at the NY private school life? XOXO, I’ll never tell.
Not a whole lot is out there yet, but I have faith that more will be published soon! Publishers have been incorporating the social networking sites into their marketing techniques. Soon we’ll probably see more books like Cathy’s Book by Sean Stewart and Jordan Weisman which uses the Internet and phones as ways to become more involved in the story.
By: Kristin Fletcher-Spear
Teen Librarian II,
Foothills Branch Library
Glendale Public Library
http://EmergingLibraryTechnologiesMadeClear.Here
2010: The Year of the E-Book?
The last few months have seen an explosion in e-book readers. Here’s a brief introduction to some of the biggest or newest players in the e-book reader market:
Amazon’s Kindle 2/Kindle DX (http://www.amazon.com/kindle): The Kindle 2 and DX use the eye-friendly E-Ink display. Amazon says the Kindle is the best selling item on their site and claims it is the most popular e-book reader. Readers can wirelessly download books from Amazon and have access to Kindle Applications for the iPhone, Blackberry, PC, and Mac, allowing you to sync your books between devices. The biggest drawback is Amazon’s proprietary e-book format and locked down purchasing system.
Barnes & Noble’s Nook (http://www.barnesandnoble.com/nook/): Released November 2009 to compete with the Kindle for the holiday sales, the Nook has some really nice features. Like the Kindle, it uses the E-Ink display for a reading screen, but adds a small touch-screen for menu navigation and searching. Readers can wireless add content from the Barnes & Noble bookstore. Two especially nice features are the ability to lend a book to someone else for 2 weeks, and the support of the open EPUB standard format.
EnTourage eDGe (http://www.entourageedge.com/): Introduced at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the eDGe brings a different take on the traditional e-book reader. It opens up like a book, featuring a dual screen – one using the E-Ink display, the other a color touch-screen. Additionally, the touch-screen portion has netbook-like functionality, running the Android operating system. This is a really interesting device, though with a price tag of $490, it’ll be in direct competition with Apple’s iPad.
Plastic Logic’s QUE (http://www.que.com/index.asp): The QUE was also introduced at this year’s CES. It has a full 8 ½ X 11 size screen, with touch-screen controls. It’s not E-Ink, but it is designed to “look and read like paper.” The QUE targets business users, supports the full Microsoft Office Suite as well as a much higher price tag ($649-$799). However, it also supports common e-book formats, including EPUB, as well as a beautiful design.
Apple’s iPad (http://www.apple.com/ipad): The iPad is a tablet computer, resembling a 10-inch iPod Touch in more ways than one: it has a touch screen, runs on the iPhone operating system, and any additional functionality will be added through applications from the Apple App store. What’s most interesting (for the purposes of this column, anyway) is Apple has designed a special iBook application and created a new iBookstore. Additionally, other e-book apps already available for the iPhone will also work for the iPad, making it one of the more versatile options for reading e-books.
Blio eReader (http://blioreader.com/): The Blio E-Reader is free software you can download to any computer, coming out in early 2010. By partnering with Baker & Taylor, Blio can also offer an impressive catalog of available titles. Additionally, Blio preserves the original printed formatting of the book, a serious drawback for educational uses of e-books (no page numbers on the Kindle!). Blio faces the stigma of reading on the computer, but with so many netbooks available, this stigma may not last for long. Blio will also sync content to unspecified mobile devices (though they have specified the iPhone).
I believe these new devices, both hardware and software, are taking e-books to the tipping point. Will 2010 be the year of the E-book?
By: Anali Perry
Arizona State University Libraries
Emerging Library Technologies is written by a team of librarians: Anali Perry, Assistant Librarian for Collections and Scholarly Communication at ASU, anali.perry@asu.edu; and Roseline Cristanelli, Currently a stay at home mother and the MCLC Tech Talk Program Coordinator, roselinewi@gmail.com. They blog at: mclctechtalk.wordpress.com.
On Saturday, Feb. 6, Evelyn Howley and I traveled to the Parker Public Library. We took 1-17 to I-10, and then got off I-10 at Exit 19 in Quartzsite. There we turned right and then followed the road to the right-hand turn onto Arizona 95. Once in Parker we turned left onto Agency Road. At Navajo Avenue we turned left and continued on to the Library, located at 1001 S. Navajo Avenue.
A post office was established in Parker in 1871 and was named after General Eli Parker. The townsite of Parker was laid out in 1909 after the town moved four miles north to the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe railroad line. Parker incorporated in 1948, and became the county seat of the newly formed La Paz County in 1983. Today the town has an estimated population of over 3300 people, according to Arizona Community Profiles.
The Parker Public Library can trace its origins back to 1956, when the Junior Women’s Club began a drive to collect books and funds. The Lions’ Club donated part of their youth center in Pop Harvey Park to house the Library. Federal aid allowed construction of a new building which opened in its current location on July 18, 1971.
The exterior of the building has a pueblo-style architectural feel. It is painted in shades of sand, salmon, and a deep red color.
Inside there is a foyer that leads into a central hub from which the other rooms radiate. To the right is the children’s room, decorated with a jungle motif. A large elephant-shaped stand is straight ahead, and the walls and ceiling are painted blue with white clouds. The green shelves and animal-themed chairs and area rug complement the theme.
The movie room is down from the children’s area. Cardboard cutouts of the Lone Ranger and Tonto look upon wall-mounted movie reels with film.
Next around the hub is the large Teen Theater. A central area rug with a film design lies upon the orange-red floor. Sofas and other comfortable seating provide a relaxing place to read or watch the television.
The adult collection is housed in a room painted in blues and greens. This room adjoins a diner-themed space with vending machines and coffee. A pass-through window looks out on the central hub. The floor is a black-and-white checkerboard. The Friends sell materials here.
This diner room leads to the Lifelong Learning Center. According to Webjunction, the Arizona Department of Housing awarded the library $127,500 for construction, and the Arizona State Library gave $20,000 for computers, furnishings, and materials. The Friends of the Parker Public Library donated $3,500 towards building the two study rooms. The Center is designated a quiet room and contains public PC’s and reference materials. The color theme here is a vibrant burnt orange.
This Library has done a great job of creating well-defined spaces with creative themes and color arrangements. It was worth driving there and back on a rainy day to see this wonderful place.
Libraries needing assistance in censorship issues should contact:
AzLA President: Cynthia Landrum
Glendale Public Library
5959 West Brown St.
Glendale, AZ 85302
Phone: 623-930-3566 clandrum@glendaleaz.com
Ann M. Boles
AzLA Intellectual Freedom Committee Chair
Yavapai County Free Library District
172 E. Merritt, Ste. E
Prescott, AZ 86301
Phone: 928-771-3191
Fax: 928-771-3113 ann.boles@co.yavapai.az.us
Executive Secretary
1030 East Baseline Rd., Suite 105-1025
Tempe, AZ 85283
Phone: 480-609-3999
Fax: 480-609-3939
Email: admin@azla.org
Arizona State Library, Archives,
and Public Records
Library Development Division
1100 West Washington, Phoenix, AZ 85007
Web site: www.azlibrary.gov
AzLA home page: www.azla.org
The Arizona Library Association is a nonprofit corporation chartered in Arizona.
Mountain Plains Library Association (MPLA) Jobline 605-677-5757 www.mpla.us
AzLA 2010 Calendar
March 23-27 2010 Public Library Association National Conference,Portland Oregon April 21 Arizona Library Legislative Day,State Capitol April 22 Executive Board Meeting,Yuma Public Library April 23AzLA Regional Forum,Yuma Public Library June 24-28 American Library Assoc. Annual Conference,Washington D.C. June 29American Library Assoc. Library Advocacy Day,Washington D.C. July 16Executive Board Meeting,Pima Air & Space Museum, Tucson October 15Executive Board Meeting,Fort McDowell Library November 15-17 2010 Conference,Radisson Ft. McDowell in Fountain Hills, Arizona
Arizona Library Association Newsletter
To submit articles or publications send them to the administrative office at admin@azla.org
The AzLA Newsletter (ISSN:0515-0272) is published 10 times yearly with two combined issues, July/August and November/December. The DEADLINE for submission of materials is: 10th of the month following month's issue. Send items by e-mail (or by regular mail, if necessary) to editor above.The deadline for newsletter submissions is: The 10th of the month.
Sumission guidlines: All items should be brief; informational; fewer than 500 words; include a title; be written with a library auidience in mind [i.e., send articles, not press releases--which are written for the public] and be signed by the submitter's name, library affiliation, and phone number. the editor reserves the right to edit all articles for style, content, and length.
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