Black Lives Matter: Community Read - free without wait-lists or holds

I thought this might be helpful for our staff assisting customers or just wanting resources for themselves.

From Overdrive:

Knowing that our library partners want to provide antiracism and social justice titles to their patrons, we are launching a new program called Black Lives Matter: Community Read. The titles included in our Black Lives Matter: Community Read program are focused on #ownvoices and are intended to help patrons read, listen, learn and grow as they expand their knowledge of race relations. Donated by OverDrive, titles will be made available to United States and Canada libraries at no cost and patrons will be able to check these books out without waitlists or holds.  

Blackhttps://company.overdrive.com/2020/06/30/now-available-free-to-libraries-without-waitlists-or-holds-black-lives-matter-titles-to-read-listen-learn-and-grow/

The titles included in Black Lives Matter: Community Read are provided at no cost to your library and you will be able to use these like any other OverDrive titles for curation or promotion in various reading rooms, featured lists, and other programs at your discretion. Be sure to also visit the Resource Center to get a marketing kit that you can use to promote these titles to your community.

Access and Equity resources on WebJunction.org

Our access to WebJunction includes their list of resources for libraries that are looking for ways to "stand in solidarity, to take action, and to ensure library services and programs are equitable and safe for all."  

WebJunction has their page sorted by the following categories.  Some items are articles, some are webinars, and some are links to other pages.  There is a wide variety of information for library staff.

Take a look, there is a lot of great information.

On WebJunction

Statements and Resources from Libraries

Online Resources

For Supporting Youth

Creating Diverse Collections

Articles

Booklists and Books

Multimedia

On Accessibility

https://www.webjunction.org/explore-topics/access-equity/see-also.html?utm_source=SFMC&utm_medium=email&utm_content=June+17+2020+Crossroads&utm_campaign=&utm_term=WebJunctionCrossroads_COMM

Return to Work Safety Videos and Quiz

In preparation for returning to the library we are asking all staff to view a series of videos that will help keep you and everyone else safe while at work.  

View the videos below, and then complete the quiz and send it to your supervisor to show that you completed this requirement.  If you have any questions, please speak with your manager or supervisor.

Wearing a cloth mask properly  (1 min 42 sec)  

Hand washing ( 1 min 26 sec) 

Glove removal (1 min 12 sec)

Preventing Coronavirus at work  (2 min 28 sec) 

Clean your workspace (1 min 16 sec)

Quiz:  to access the quiz, click on the link below.  Once you are in Google Drive, Select File, then Download, and Microsoft Word. 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uyOv9tEKyil5Hcd6GcoI2yfyKz87D6WBZ6mubJiapXI/edit?usp=sharing

Copyright-free stories for gamification, storytimes, and displays

www.gutenberg.org

This is s great site for public domain stories that are not protected by copyright laws because their copyrights have expired.  You can use these stories for programs, learning gamification, and even displays.  Be careful about images and other versions of the stories though (films, tv programs) which may still be covered.

Do you need to have a meeting? A helpful decision tree.

http://www.tipsographic.com/project-management-should-we-have-this-meeting/

ALA no longer bundling registration

Found this today on the ALA website:

Starting with this Midwinter Meeting, we’re introducing a new way to reward people who register for both Midwinter and the Annual Conference & Exhibition in any given year. After the 2017 Midwinter Meeting, registrants will receive a personalized discount code applicable to Annual Conference registration. The discount code will be valid through noon (Central), February 15, 2017. (The discount will be equivalent to the past Bundle Registration savings.)

Midwinter Meeting registrants will have access to Annual Conference registration and housing on February 1st, 24 hours before those open to everyone else, and will be given plenty of advance notice of their priority registration date and time.

Why the change? Many reasons, but first and foremost, to make it possible for more members to save money. Under the old program, after September, there was no opportunity for members who, for fiscal or budget reasons, may not have been able to take advantage of the opportunity to bundle. This new way of discounting registration will allow anyone who attended Midwinter to earn the discount. The old system also presented challenges with opening and closing the system and tracking data between registration and housing. The new system eliminates those challenges and should provide members a better experience. The usual blocks of housing will be reserved. Everyone will now need to register separately for each conference, and we recognize that for some people, this will be less convenient. We hope that the improved efficiency of priority housing and the greater flexibility of discounts for attendees of both events will help mitigate any inconvenience. Be assured that we’ll evaluate this new approach to see how it works in 2017.

For more information and details:  http://www.ala.org/conferencesevents/bundle

MLA/DLA 2016 Conference Notes - "Legal Resources for Public Librarians"

I took an informative course called "Legal Resources Training for Public Librarians." Many of the poor and indigent come to the public library looking for legal information. Often they expect us to know the answers to the legal questions they seek. As librarians, we cannot give legal advice, but we should be able to provide good resources. Please keep in mind that there is a misperception that the poor have access to free representation in court; this is only true in regards to criminal matters, not civil. It is our duty to help them as best we can.

With that in mind, here are some good online sources:

• Maryland Courts.  mdcourts.gov.   Best starting place.
• The Maryland People's Law Library.  peoples-law.org.  Think "Wikipedia" for Maryland law - but maintained by the Maryland State Law Library. Try the "Get Help" link.
• Google Scholar.  scholar.google.com   Best for finding cases nationwide and for legal articles.
• Maryland State Bar Association Lawyer Referral Services.   msba.org/public/lawyer-referral.aspx    For finding a lawyer.
• Code of Maryland (aka Michie's)  https://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/mdcode/  In case you don't have it in print at your location.
• Maryland Legal Aid. http://www.mdlab.org/   Private, non-profit law firm providing free legal services to low-income people statewide.
• Family Law Assistance. http://mdcourts.gov/family/familylawassistance.html    Family Services Programs & Self-Help Centers

Morgan Stanton
Edmondson Avenue Branch

MLA/DLA 2016 Conference Notes

Over the next week or so I hope to post responses from the staff members who attended the MLA/DLA Annual Conference last week.  The theme this year was Libraries:  Unlocking Potential.  Stay tuned for conference notes, interesting facts, amusing quotes, and whatever else our attendees have to share!

MLA/DLA Annual Conference - Boldly Go Where No Libraries Have Gone Before

MLA/DLA Annual Conference

May 6-8, 2015

The Place to Find What’s Free, Online, Collaborative, and Shared (aka Crowdsourcing)

Joyce Valenza presented the “Hack Library” during Friday’s lunch and reception.  A school librarian and professor at Rutgers, Joyce explained that when we hack libraries, we are doing “…playful problem solving of a problem by understanding it as part of the system.”  A motto to librarians that hack is, “Nothing is ever complete.” 

When we think the best answers are only from scholars and databases, we learn from Joyce that there are free, online resources built in collaboration with several people and are meant to be shared.  “Crowdsourcing” resources have credible and insightful information from and about us.  Yelp:  http://www.yelp.com/ and Yahoo! Answers:  https://answers.yahoo.com/ are crowdsourcing mainstays.  Two unique crowdsourcing resources to try out are:

Ask.fm:  http://ask.fm/

Whisper:  https://whisper.sh/

Even Tom Croft, the graphic designer at the Frederick County Public Library, shared great resources during his program that he uses on the job:  some are free, and some come at a low-cost that also happen to be crowdsourced:

Dafont:  http://www.dafont.com/

Dafont has freeware, shareware, demo versions, and public domain fonts that get submitted in by “font authors.” 

Videvo:  http://www.videvo.net/

Videvo has free photo stock and motion graphics.  You can make a free account, find graphics by subject, and download for fair use.

Joyce Valenza’s presentation is available at http://www.slideshare.net/joycevalenza/hacking-libraries.  Joyce’s blog is the “NeverEndingSearch:” http://blogs.slj.com/neverendingsearch/.

Who’s ready to crowdsource?  

Paul Chasen, Statewide Coordinator, Maryland AskUsNow!

Computers in Libraries Conference 2015

Computers in Libraries 2015: Cool Tools to Use Today

by Rebecca Starr

Computers in Libraries 2015, held in Washington, D.C. at the end of April, was abuzz with the latest technology, fun new apps, and innovative strategies to bring both to your community. While the total list is quite exhausting, here are some of my favorite tools that can be used on-the-job or shared with your patrons.

Educational

Mary Ellen Bates introduced these websites in her presentation, “Super Searcher Tips and Tools”:

●     Microsoft Academic: When Mary Ellen is tackling a search about which she knows very little, she will type it into this search engine to find dominant keywords, authors, and authoritative websites.

●     Instya: This cool search tool scours multiple search engines and social media sites at once.

●     Google Trends: This site is great for those obscure “Most Popular Searches” questions. It also houses great data visualizations of searches from around the world.

Finally, for those of you who answer technology questions or teach classes, be sure to visit NYPL TechConnect’s website. They host all of their presentation handouts and tutorial videos here!

Creative

In her presentation “A Thousand Voices: The Power of Storytelling”, Diane Cordell offered these digital tools to help patrons of all ages tell stories of their own:

●     Zooburst: This application let you create digital 3D pop-up books! (If you closed this post now in favor of playing with this tool, I wouldn’t blame you.)

●     Shadow Puppet: Upload images, add text, and set them to narration to create your own video story. One classroom used this application to create a listening center.

●     Thematic: Create a narrative using your images and text...think Medium, but for photos. Here’s a cute example.

●     Storybird: Users of this social media-esque site can create stories using illustrator-developed work and share them within the Storybird community.

Just For Fun

Gary Price, the co-founder of INFODocket, shared some of his favorite apps, both old and new:

●     TinEye: This app allows you to upload an image and conduct a reverse image search. It may be handy with those “What is this?” questions where someone just has a photo.

●     AudioNow: Users can listen to radio stations from around the world on their phone for free. This site lists all of the phone number for different radio stations.

●     PhotoMath: Take a picture of a math problem and this app will solve it and show its work.

●     Office Lens: This scanner for smartphones “clears up” images that are otherwise hard to read (such as receipts and whiteboards).

To view additional presentations, head over to the Computers in Libraries website. I highly recommend this conference for all librarians and IT professionals.