Sunday, June 25, 2006

Library In Progress...

The new Library at Burlington is coming along nicely with progress made every day toward an October move. The 9 million dollar building, which has a lovely view of the Mississippi River and the Highway 34 bridge to Illinois has not only the latest in technology and customer service, but also will continue to be a place for the history and genealogy buffs with a special room dedicated to just their research.

Governor Vilsack was part of a VIP, work-in-progress tour of the new facility, currently under construction. Kay Weiss reported that "he told us that he can't wait to go home to tell Christie that he'd been to a library that she has not". Thank you to the Vilsacks who have been strong library supporters during Governor Vilsack's time in office.


Kay was also nice enough to give us a little "so-far" tour last month...







Can't you just envision it now?!

Friday, June 23, 2006

From the desk of Kim...


This is your friendly weekly reminder to sign up for the free Libraries on the Prairie: Growing Rural Libraries workshop!

The two locations near our region are Davenport on July 24 and 25 (registration deadline is July 9) and Pella on July 27 and 28 (with a deadline of July 11). Deadlines are firm!

What’s in it for you?

-Travel expenses to the closest workshop are reimbursed to you. If you can’t make the session closest to you, you will still be reimbursed for the mileage you would have driven to the closest location. The reimbursement rate makes it certain that choosing a relatively close location will recoup your out of pocket expenses. Your room expense is also reimbursable.

-You will leave the workshop with a Technology Action plan!

-Up to 13 continuing education credits. If you’re done collecting credits for your next certification, you can save them for the next certification period. 11 credits will be awarded to everyone who attends (both days required) and an additional 2 credit for attending the evening session.

-The evening session includes two additional enticements…brownies, and a chance to win an expense paid trip to ALA in Washington D.C.

-Time to talk about where we’re going in our rural libraries…and how we’ll get there. Get the low-down from other libraries experiencing the same concerns, budget crunches and technology changes you are.

-Practical discussion on how, or if, a technology should be used in your library. Sessions on maintaining what you have and integrating what’s coming in a way that makes sense for your library.


For more information on the logistics of travel and reimbursement, and more information on what the workshop will offer you, visit



(at the State Library web site)

I’m signed up for Davenport…will I see you there?




Thursday, June 22, 2006

A New Service For Southeastern Libraries!


A few weeks ago feedback was requested about CD/DVD resurfacers and cleaners. Thanks goes out to all that took the time to contribute their two cents! The consensus, though, was that everyone with their own collections would find this useful to have, but just couldn’t afford their own machines, therefore, did not have machines of their own. In an attempt to cut down our own need to send out for repairs of disc media, we did some research and feel we’ve come up with the perfect solution, for not only us, but you!

Effective July 1st, we will be partnering with Scott County’s Library System to provide a cost-effective alternative to all of the libraries in Southeastern. Send us your tired, your scratched, your dirty disc media and we’ll take it out to Eldridge and clean and/or resurface them for you! The charge for this, for now, is $0.50 for a resurface and $0.25 for a clean/polish. This is a preliminary price for the next few weeks, until we are more familiar with demand and the cost of supplies needed to do all of this. The charge may need to be adjusted. We’ll then send it back to you that same week. We can either invoice you along with the service each time you send media, or we can do a monthly invoicing if this will be a regular need for your library. Long term, depending on demand, we might be able to work out a regular monthly billing for you.

We think this is great for all involved, and hope that you’ll take advantage of this. If someone else in your library is the “go-to” person for collection repair, please forward this information on!


Some things to consider:

-This has been thoroughly tested and does a wonderful job with both CDs (both music and audiobook) and DVDs. Even significantly scratched or scuffed media has been brought back to new life as a result of use.

-It is not recommended (by the manufacturer) to resurface a CD or DVD more than 3 to 4 times. After extensive resurfacing, your data can become unreadable, leaving the disc useless. You will receive a note on the level of resurfacing done to your discs so that you can track how many times a disc requires repair, and at what level. (If you are interested, small labels can be made available for you to stick on the inside of cases that indicate when your media was serviced, and what was done to keep track-just ask us about them!)

-When you get complaints like “this disc didn’t work”, or the ever popular “this disc doesn’t work on my machine”, you can send it to us for rehabilitation and keep your collection intact. Look at what you pay to replace a disc – or worse, the cost of simply not having that title or media in your collection. Every viewer/listener their DVD/CD, every DVD/CD its viewer/listener!

-Good machines for cleaning/resurfacing disc media are costly – it makes more sense for us to use one unit for everyone on an as-needed basis and charge only for what you use. It saves you time, money, and replacement woes!




Call Amanda at (800) 397-0029 or Email awright@sls.lib.ia.us with any questions or to start taking advantage of this!



Tuesday, June 20, 2006


Best Wishes Emma Lee

Emma Lee Lahmeyer will be retiring from the Keokuk Public Library on June 30th. She's been there for 32 years, serving as director for the last 8. Her latest project at Keokuk has been the addition of an elevator and accompanying space to accommodate the Keokuk Art Center, a unique blending of art and library in one building. A plaque in memory of Shirley Dick, former Keokuk Library Director and a major donor to the project is hung in the Art Center foyer. The dedication of the Center was held June 4th along with the acquisition and hanging of a major piece of art by Stan Weiderspan called "Convergence".
Emma Lee also oversaw complete renovation of the entire library. Good luck Emma Lee!

Congratulations!

...Replacing Emma Lee at Keokuk as director is Emily Rohlfs, formerly director of Fort Madison Public Library. Emily has had an exciting year in Ft. Madison which included, among other things, planning for a new library and automating the collection.

On a more personal note, on May 20th, 2006, Emily welcomed new daughter Hadley Kathryn into the world. Hadley weighed in at 7lbs. and 21 inches. Both mother and baby are doing great!

Congratulations!

Sunday, June 18, 2006

Staff Changes...


Resignations:
Ruth Peterson, Director, Wilton Public Library

(Wilton is hoping to have a replacement decision made by July 18th)


Cathy Geiger, Director, Hillsboro Public Library
Heidi Belzer, Director, Agency Public Library
Krista Kloster, Youth Services Librarian, Keokuk Public Library


(As of this posting, the director positions have not been filled)

New Hire:
Amy Peer accepted the Youth Services position at Keokuk Public Library

Other open Youth Services positions in the region include Fairfield, Ft. Madison and Kalona Public Libraries.


Welcome to Amy and good luck to those of you who are leaving!

Friday, June 16, 2006

Posted on behalf of the Library of Congress...

The Library of Congress Cataloging In Publication (CIP) Division is conducting a nationwide survey of libraries to determine the future of the CIP program. Please participate in shaping the future of CIP by completing the survey at

(Follow online instructions to survey)
Kim's note: In case CIP is a new term for you, CIP are those spiffy blurbs on the back of the title page, very handy for cataloging.

Saturday, June 03, 2006

In other news...


Our new administrator, Kim Kietzman, formerly of LeClaire Community Library has been replaced by Wanda Gardner. Wanda has previously served as director of the Decorah Public Library. Welcome Wanda!