Online Update

Index

AncestryLibrary available for trial
RFID informational program will be April 5
Member/Staff News
Wisconsin Rapids staff recognized for history project
New Juvenile Court Resource Booklet available from DCLRC
WAAL announces Information Literacy Award
Friends of UW-Madison libraries to host used book sale
CEs

Because of a vendor change, AncestryPlus, one of our current genealogy databases, is being replaced later this year by AncestryLibrary. We'll send out information about this change within the next month, but if you'd like a "sneak preview" of Ancestry Library it's available now at http://ancestrylibrary.proquest.com.

If you're asked for a password, please contact Stef Morrill, Library Technology Coordinator, at (6089) 245-5799 or by email and she’ll provide this information.

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RFID informational program will be April 5

On April 5, 2005, SCLS library staff will have an opportunity to learn more about Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) at an all-day event at SCLS Administration. Three vendors of RFID products will be there to share information and to answer library's questions.

RFID is a method of identifying unique items using radio waves. Typically, a reader communicates with a tag, which holds digital information in a microchip. There also are chipless forms of RFID tags that use a special material to reflect back a portion of the radio waves beamed at them.

Specific times have not yet been determined, but more details about the schedule will be sent soon to scls-announce.

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Member/Staff News

Joyce Buckley, Library Assistant, retired Feb. 5, 2005, after 10 years at the Stoughton Public Library.

The Stoughton Public Library received a $19,000 energy grant from the Stoughton Municipal Utilities to upgrade the lighting in the Children's room and the Carnegie Room. This project also includes energy saving changes to the skylight lights.

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Wisconsin Rapids staff recognized for history project

Andy Barnett and Don Litzer, McMillan Memorial Library in Wisconsin Rapids, recently received a positive review in Walt Crawford's Cites & Insights (Vol. 5, No. 4, March 2005, p. 20), under the heading of “Substantial Articles” for their article titled “Local history in e-books and on the web: one library’s experience as example and model.” (Reference & User Services Quarterly 43:3, Spring 2004: 248-257)

Crawford writes of the Barnett and Litzer article: “A description of an innovative low-budget project to make a library’s special local history holdings usable, which in this case means digitizing them -- and a carefully-done study of actual use of that local history collection (at the McMillan Memorial Library in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin). It’s a dynamite story, really about etext and the library as digital publisher more than it is about ebooks. Highly recommended both as a careful study and as an example and model for what many more libraries can, should, and will be doing now and in the future.”

To download a PDF of the issue, go to http://cites.boisestate.edu/civ5i4.pdf.

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New Juvenile Court Resource Booklet available from DCLRC

A new Dane County Juvenile Court Resource Booklet is available for purchase from the Dane County Legal Resource Center for $2. The booklet covers delinquency, termination of parental rights, adoption, and protective services, and includes an FAQ, reading lists, and useful web links.

A PDF version of the booklet is available for download free of charge at www.countyofdane.com/juvenilecourt/pdf/jc_resource_booklet.pdf.

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WAAL announces Information Literacy Award

The WAAL Information Literacy Committee recently presented the second annual WAAL Information Literacy Award to Abigail Loomis, coordinator of UW-Madison’s Library and Information Literacy Program.

Abbie has a long tenure of service in library instruction and a commitment to the advancement of information literacy not only on the UW-Madison campus but also on a state and national level. She has made significant contributions to establish, promote, advance and educate people about information literacy standards. As a result, she has impacted a great number of students, faculty, and staff at her institution as well as numerous teaching librarians and academics within the WAAL community and beyond.

She was a charter member of the WAAL Information Literacy Committee, and was instrumental in drafting and formalizing WAAL's Information Literacy Competencies and Criteria for Academic Libraries in Wisconsin, which state libraries continue to employ within their instruction programs and as they work to develop library assignments and courses. The Association for College and Research Libraries (ACRL) looked to the WAAL Information Literacy Competencies as a guide when developing its national information literacy standards.

Through her work on the WAAL Information Literacy committee from 1997-2001, Abbie helped plan and sponsor many programs covering different aspects of instruction. She has been a frequent presenter at WAAL conferences, sharing techniques as well as her philosophical perspective. She also helped develop the committee's Best Practices, which promote an exchange of instructional practices and ideas with librarians statewide.

She also was actively involved in writing the proposal to bring ACRL's Immersion Program to Wisconsin and helped organize the 2001 Wisconsin Immersion Program held at Edgewood College that year.

The UW-Madison librarian played a key role in helping make information literacy a required component of the UW-Madison undergraduate curriculum via the CLUE online tutorial. CLUE and the library instruction classes are campus-wide endeavors that reach more than 4,000 students annually. In her role at the UW-Madison, Abbie collaborates with librarians and campus faculty to develop instructional resources that address all subject areas, and to tie together the instruction programs within the General Library System.

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Friends of UW-Madison libraries to host used book sale

More than 15,000 books are on sale during Wisconsin's largest used book sale that runs through Saturday, March 5, at 116 Memorial Library, 728 State St. The sale, sponsored by the Friends of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries, is the 19th of its kind and draws visitors from throughout the Midwest. Books are donated primarily by faculty, staff, students, and Madison-area residents, and proceeds help fund an annual lecture series, special purchases for the library collections and a visiting scholar support program.

The sale is open to the public until 7 p.m. today (Friday, March 4), and from 10:30 a.m. until 2 p.m. Saturday, March 5 there is a special $2-a-Bag-Sale -- visitors can bring a bag and fill it for $2 (or buy a bag for $1 at the sale).

For more information, visit the Friends Book Sale Web page at http://giving.library.wisc.edu/friends/book-sales.shtml or call (608) 265-2505 (friends@library.wisc.edu).

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Continuing Education -- www.scls.info/ce/