WAPL 2007 Conference wrap-up & presenter materials

As a follow-up to MATS' blog coverage of the 2007 WAPL Conference, here's a link to the WAPL Post-Conference Resources page which provides access to presenters' PowerPoint slides, web sites and handouts.

We had a blast "blogging the con", and hope to round up more MATSians to blog the WLA Conference this fall!

WAPL 2007: Have You Heard About...

"recent finds in new technology trends and services, in libraries and
beyond... easy, free ideas" from:

• Beth Carpenter, Web Services Manager, Outagamie Waupaca Library System
• Nichole Fromm, Library Technology Project Support Specialist, South Central Library System
• Tasha Saecker, Director, Menasha Public Library
• Joy Schwarz, Web Coordinator/ILL Librarian, Winnefox Library System

Finally, a presentation with its own business card! Beth, Nichole, Tasha & Joy created a coolly compact and comprehensive -- yet nerdy -- handout, by placing a stack of business cards with their del.icio.us URL in the back of the room.

The most important thing was immediately establishing that most of the people in the room knew how to go "Oo oo!" like Horschack (as in "Welcome Back, Kotter"). There were also many longer, drawn-out "ooooo"s & occasional "aaahh"s, indicating that the sophisticated, perceptive audience was both highly impressed and deeply moved.

Your mileage may vary, but it's definitely worthwhile to check out the del.icio.us site and play with some of the recommendations -- start with those noted as five star: *****

WAPL 2007: Wiretapping the Internet

Wiretapping the Internet: Coming Soon to Your Library's Internet Provider
a presentation by Bob Bocher, Public Library Technology Consultant, Wisconsin Division for Libraries, Technology, and Community Learning

Topics that Bob covered:

• Wisconsin privacy statutes
• Historical background on wiretaps
• Federal DOJ activity
• NSA activity
• PATRIOT ACT and National Security Letters
• Net Neutrality

Any Wisconsin library that's supported by public funds is covered by the Wisconsin Library Privacy Law 43.30. Exemptions to statutory protections:

• consent of individual library user
• court order
• National Security Letters (NSL)
• administration of library services
• Internet browser cache & history
• patron behavior
  

Staff at every level need to know what to do if someone approaches them asking for patron information.

Bob will soon be posting his PowerPoint slides, and I'll link to them from here when they appear.

WAPL 2007: Wisconsin State Law Library WebTour

Wisconsin State Law Library WebTour: What's There, What's Where, What's New
a presentation by Connie Von Der Heide, Reference/Outreach Services Librarian, Wisconsin State Law Library
1-800-322-9755
wsll.ref@wicourts.gov

The Wisconsin State Law Library (WSLL) serves judges, court staff, attorneys, government employees, the public & librarians.

The WSLL web site offers 24/7 access to most of the resources of the Wisconsin State Law Library.

The Quick Links dropdown menu on the home page allows fast access to the "top ten" primary law sources like state statutes, circuit court records, etc.

The Legal Topics A-Z page acts as an index to over 400 different topics.

Among all the info one might expect to find at the WSLL web site, I liked that the Jury Duty page provides info helpful to those called to jury duty, such as why you were called to service, the steps of a jury trial, ten rules for jurors, FAQs and glossary of terms; it also includes info for employers.

There are links to over 350 municipal and county ordinances.

Legal forms of all kinds are available on the WSLL web site.

The Self-Help Family web site "provides a guide to divorce and legal separation in Wisconsin and takes you through a series of questions, filling in the forms necessary to start or finalize such an action. There is also information about whether you should try to proceed without an attorney and answers to questions you may have about the process."

Also provided are links to over 8000 electronic journals, loaded from LegalTrac, HeinOnline & BadgerLink online databases, available at http://wsll.state.wi.us/aboutlib/electronicresources.html

• Librarians may request a WSLL library card so that they may access all these journals remotely!
• To request a WSLL library card, email wsll.ref@wicourts.gov and include your name and work address.

UPDATE: Connie's handouts in PDF format are now available here :

• Wisconsin State Library WebTour
• Searching NXT Infobases

WAPL 2007: Let the Games Begin: Productive Activities for Teens @ Your Library

Peg Burington, Assistant Director & teen coordinator, Waupaca Area Public Library, along with SLAG (Student Library Advisory Group) members. Handouts will be posted at waupacalibrary.org

Doing YA programming

• Libraries should find productive teen activities – if either:
• you don't have teens coming or
• teens at library are not productive
• Teen advisory group has officers, raises funds makes purchase decisions for materials & games
  
• Apparent barriers can be overcome
• no time
• no money
• no support

Characteristics of YAs

• Seven developmental needs of young adolescents

1. Physical activity
2. Competence & achievement
3. Self-definition
4. Creative expression
5. Positive social interaction with peers & adults
6. Structure & Clear Limits
7. Meaningful participation

• Also: they travel in packs, they're brutally honest, they need positive influences in their lives

How To Make Programs Successful

• Schedule programs at regular time
• Include food in all programs, mention food in all PR
• Do distinctive handouts on die cuts, have volunteers fill them out and distribute at school
• Announcements at middle school
• Email kids to get them to show up
• Summer - activities every day, get one point per day for showing up, earn chances at prizes
  
• Hot Topics a good place to shop for program supplies & prizes (Goth stuff) – use a trusted teen to do the shopping

Activities

• Games
• Apples to Apples - good for short attention spans, educational
  
• Zobmondo - good for getting to know each other, exploring values
  
• Man Bites Dog
• Magic: the Gathering (tournaments every Wed. aft in summer with cards as prizes)
• Video games can be purchased used or donated
• Gaming policy developed by SLAG on website
• DDR - Dance Dance Revolution - Playstation 2
• Guitar Hero
• Studies show DDR meets all developmental needs of teens
• other PS2 games: Soul Calibur 1, 2, 3, Crash Bandicoot, Ace combat simulator, Madden 2007 football, Final Fantasy 12
  

• Other activities

• Genius pads - big sticky notes
• Read poster software
  
• Making buttons
• blurb.com - use your scanned images & photographs to make a book
• Magnetic poetry
• Goth sock puppets
  

Resource books

• Connecting Young Adults and Libraries 3rd ed (the bible)
• A Year of Programming for Teens
• Teen Volunteer Services in Libraries
• more information on YALSA web site
  

Collections

• take kids book shopping twice a year
• Have great browsing books, esp. "YALSA quick picks for reluctant readers"
• "Book of bunny suicides"
• Books about crafts, temporary tattoos, mehendi

Fundraising

• car washes with cookout
• washing windshields at truck stops
  
• selling book bags, book lights, food in the library, food fridge in teen room
• booths at community events
  
• don't say you don't have money - once teens are using library, you have a fund raising machine
• Waupaca got grants incl $15K from Community Foundation for YA furnishings
  

WAPL 2007: Genealogical Resources for Library Support Staff

Genealogical Resources for Library Support Staff
a presentation by Lori Bessler, Microforms Librarian and Outreach Coordinator, Wisconsin Historical Society

The Wisconsin Historical Society's newspaper microfilm collection is 2nd in size only to that of the Library of Congress.

Area Research Center network:

• The Society's Area Research Center network holds original records from the area near to the ARC's location
• each of the ARC locations have web sites, accessible from http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/libraryarchives/arcnet/
• items can be couriered from one ARC to another for use by your patrons
  

Use the MadCat catalog to find items owned by the library at WHS.
Use the ArCat catalog to find items owned by the archives at WHS.

Other services offered by WHS:

• photocopying services
• research services
• www.wisconsinhistory.org web site provides lots & lots of resources, including access to over 20,000 images & photos

The WHS Research Portal points to databases such as...

• Wisconsin Name Index
• Wisconsin Historical Images
• Turning Points in Wisconsin History
• Civil War Roster of Volunteers
• Wisconsin Corporations Index

Tips for beginning genealogical research:

• start with yourself & go backwards
• talk to your living relatives & get an oral history
  
• cite sources thoroughly so you can find the information later
• photocopy everything, instead of transcribing what you find
  
• use pedigree charts & family group sheets
• find reviews of genealogical software at Cyndi's List
  

Genealogical resources:

• census
• vital records
• newspapers

other good web sites for genealogical research:

• Online Searchable Death Indexes & Records -- a directory of online death indexes listed by state and county
• Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness -- volunteers have agreed to do a free genealogy research task at least once per month in their local area
• FamilySearch
• RootsWeb
• The USGenWeb Project
  

WAPL 2007: Never stand behind a sneezing cow

Wisconsin author Michael Perry entertained a full-house crowd at the Thursday luncheon.

Perry, whose new book is Truck: a Love Story, showed why he is in high demand as a library speaker. His remarks and readings showed him to be a gifted wordsmith as well as a family man, nurse, poet, raconteur, down-to-earth intellectual and a pretty funny guy.

He talked about his love for libraries and reading, recalling how his mother had taught him to value the time sitting quietly with a book, and remembering childhood trips to the library. Attendees also learned valuable lessons on many topics, including lambing, chickens and Ford F150s.

Perry's website is www.sneezingcow.com

WAPL 2007: Google Scholar & Google Books

Google Scholar & Google Books: Bringing a World of Information to Your Community
a presentation by Pamela O’Donnell, Academic Librarian at University of Wisconsin-Madison

Google Image:

• you can search by image size and image type as well as by keyword
  

Google Video / YouTube

• it's what our patrons are watching
• it's how they're accessing information

Google News

• it's constantly updated
• an RSS feed is available

Google Maps

• mashups take existing data and show it in a new context
• using Google Maps with literature - look at the places mentioned in the book Kite Runner; a way to make a book more relevant to students
• search for the pyramids in Egypt & view the satellite view to see the Sphynx's nose
• use the technology to engage with your audience / patrons
  

On Google, the link to More shows you choices based on your IP address; for example, when on the UW Madison campus it offers patents, scholar
Click on the "More Google" to see the full range of services offered by Google

Google Documents

• used for committee work
• committee members can edit documents jointly

Search operators:

• minus sign: to eliminate searches that don't deal with your topic, like "virus - computer - web"
• plus sign: to make sure the term will show up in the results, like "spider +internet"
• tilde: looks for synonyms, like "~auto to find car, truck, vehicle, automobile
• asterisk: wild card, like "Wisconsin is the * capitol of the world"
• use "link:" to find what other web pages are linking to another, like "link:http://www.wla.lib.wi.us/wapl/"
• use "info:"to see the metadata about a web site; useful to check out info about a web site to see if there's bias or an agenda
• quotation marks: to search for phrases
• use Domain Search to eliminate .coms from your search
• more advanced search operators are available at http://www.google.com/intl/en/help/refinesearch.html
  

Google Patents

• full text search from scanned documents
• you can search within a patent
• abstract, drawings and text are all available
  
• OCR scanning can be flaky, so re-try your search if it doesn't bring anything up the first time
• once you have the patent number, go to www.pat2pdf.org to get a PDF of the patent
• U.S. patents only
  

Google Book Search

• starting with English language, and now branching out
• search full view books
• many of the books are in the public domain
• great for student history projects
• some table of contents hyperlinked to pages within the document
• you can search within the book for a term
• you can also find the physical copy of the book in a library, using their link to Open WorldCat

Range of access in Google Books:

• full view
• limited view - limited preview is about 80% of the items in Google Book; mostly for books published after 1923 because of copyright laws
• snippet view - your search phrase in context
• no preview - just gives citation information

Google Scholar http://www.google.com/patents

• click the link for "recent articles" to use the dropdown menu to limit your search by date of publication
• use Advance Scholar search http://scholar.google.com/advanced_scholar_search?hl=en&lr= to refine your search

UPDATE: Pamela's PowerPoint slides & handouts (in both MS Word & PDF) are now available at the WAPL Post-Conference Resources page.

Joint Finance Funds Library Service Contracts & System Aids

Listening to the audio of Joint Finance Committee on my laptop in the hallway outside the program "What's New Under the Dome" meant that everyone got the news of what's really new. That, plus the fact that Rick Grobschmidt received a cell phone call with breaking news in the middle of his report, made for a very timely presentation.

Bottom line: JFC funded the statewide library service contracts at the levels recommended by Gov. Doyle. They also funded public library systems at the level recommended by Gov. Doyle, but they choose to fund more of the those aids from Universal Service Funds than the governor proposed. What's more, both votes were 16-0.

The discussion on contracts started out with the possibility of cuts, but supportive remarks from Sen. Jauch, Rep. Kestell, Sen. Lehman, Sen. Miller, Sen. Taylor, and Sen. Decker paved the way for a positive outcome.

For those of you who want to understand this better, go to the Legislative Status Report and get the summary and links to more information.

Later this morning JFC will act on the budget proposal that would provide counties with a levy limit exemption for county library reimbursements. WLA has proposed that the budget bill language be amended to make a technical correction and also to expand that exemption. Again, read more on the Status Report.

WAPL 2007 kicks off in Eau Claire

The WLA Foundation's Rick Krumwiede talks up the Campaign for Wisconsin Libraries at the opening session.

The keynote presenter was Keith Curry Lance, Director of the RSL Research Group of the Colorado State Library and University of Denver. Lance spoke on "Making it Count @ Your Library." Featured were tips on data sources and ways to substantiate the value of public libraries to their communities in various roles.

Watch for a PowerPoint of the keynote presentation to be posted later. In the meantime, catch Stef Morrill's notes.

MATS Blogging the 2007 WAPL Conference

The 2007 WAPL Conference will be a great place to be, but not everyone can get away to Eau Claire May 2nd-4th. Good news; three WLA Media and Technology Section (MATS) members -- Nichole Fromm, Joy Schwarz & Terry Dawson -- will soon be posting their notes about conference programs & sessions, here on the WLA blog. And Stef Morrill will be blogging about WAPL programs over on her Ning blog too.