Wisconsin Candidates for ALA Office Announced

The following Wisconsin librarians will be candidates for American Library Association leadership positions in elections that start today:

• Rhonda K. Puntney Gould is a candidate for ALA Councilor-At-Large, a position she currently holds. Rhonda is the youth services and special needs consultant at the Lakeshores Library System, Watertown, and a member of the WLA Board of Directors as the immediate past president.
• Francine D. Eppelsheimer seeks to be the ISS Representative to the AASL Board. She is Middle School Librarian/Library Department Chair PK-12, at the University School of Milwaukee.
• Megan Schliesman is a candidate for an ALSC Board Vacancy. Megan is a librarian at the Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) and currently serves as the WLA IFRT newsletter and web editor. 
• Allison G. Kaplan seeks a seat on the ALSC 2014 Sibert Committee. Allison is Faculty Associate at UW-Madison SLIS and currently serves on the WLA Board of Directors.
• K.T. Horning seeks a seat on the ALSC 2015 Wilder Committee. K.T. is director of the CCBC.
• Linda S. Vincent will run for ASCLA Designated Director, Special Populations Constituency. Linda is the director of the Talking Book and Braille Library in Milwaukee. She is the WAPL Chair-elect and a member of the WeLead Task Force.
• Kyung-Sun “Sunny” Kim is running for LRRT Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect. She is Associate Professor at UW-Madison SLIS.

Good luck to you all!

Culver's Celebrates National Library Week with Libraries

In celebration of National Library Week,  April 8-14, Culver's and WLA will again join local public libraries and Culver's restaurants in the "You Belong @ your library" drawing campaign for children 11 and under.

This is the 16th year local Culver's restaurants in Wisconsin have sponsored this event, which encourages children to read and celebrate their favorite book characters.

Children can enter the drawing event by picking up drawing sheets from their local library beginning April 1.  Children are encouraged to draw book characters that they would like to meet at the library.  Every child who completes a drawing will receive a "Be Our Guest" coupon for a free single scoop of frozen custard from Culver's and be entered into a random drawing to win an additional prize of a free Team Scoopie Kids meal coupon. Drawings will be displayed at the local library or Culver's Restaurant through the month of April.

All materials were delivered to local libraries the week of March 12 and are also available on the Youth Services Section website.

About National Library Week
First sponsored in 1958, National Library Week is a national observance sponsored by the American Library Association (ALA) and state library associations and libraries across the country each April.  The Wisconsin Library Association and WLA Foundation, along with the WLA Youth Service Section, strive to support libraries and the people who work in them to improve and promote library service in Wisconsin.

About Culver’s
Culver’s serves fresh food with genuine family values to each and every guest. Culver’s is an expanding franchise system with more than 450 independently owned and operated restaurants in 19 states. The restaurants’ award-winning customer service is based on small-town, Midwestern values, genuine friendliness and an unwavering commitment to quality and cleanliness.  Signature items include the ButterBurger®, made from fresh, never frozen U.S. Beef, and fresh frozen custard, including the famous Flavor of the Day program. Supporting local communities is a cornerstone of Culver’s giving efforts. For more information on Culver’s, visit www.culvers.com, www.culvers.com/facebook and www.twitter.com/culvers.

All trademarks belong to Culver Franchising System, Inc.

AB 543 / SB 531 Dies in Senate

Update on 3/19/12:  AB 543/SB 531 died in the Senate during in this legislative session.

AB 531 was recommended for passage by the Senate Committee on Labor, Public Safety and Urban Affairs (on a party vote of 3-2), but the bill was not scheduled for a vote on the floor of the Senate. The   companion, AB 543, was approved on a 61-33 vote in the Assembly but was not scheduled in the Senate.

Thanks to all who contacted legislators with their concerns about the bill.

Update on 3/14/12: The Assembly passed AB 543 on a vote of 61-33 on March 13. The bill was messaged to the Senate, where it awaits scheduling. If your library will be adversely affected by this measure, contact your State Senator today.

Original Post
WLA remains concerned about the latest attempt to provide municipalities with an alternative method of exemption from the county library tax.  AB 543 is the latest attempt to change the exemption method.

The Legislative Reference Bureau analysis states:

Under current law, a county board may levy a tax for the purpose of providing public library services to county residents. A city, town, village, or school district located in the county is exempt from the county tax if the city, town, village, or school district levies a tax for public library services at a rate that is equal to or greater than the county library tax rate.

This bill provides an exemption from the county library tax if the city, town, village, or school district levies a tax for public library services and spends for a library fund an amount that is not less than the average of the three previous years, the county board approves the exemption, and (for the first year of exemption under this new method) the city, town, village, or school district qualified for the exemption using the current law method described above in each of the three previous years.

WLA has expressed its concerns about the bill in a memo to the Assembly Committee on Ways and Means, which held a public hearing on the bill on February 9. An executive session (where a committee vote takes place to determine if the bill is recommended for passage and sent to the whole Assembly) is scheduled February 23.

First, as written, the bill would allow a municipality to establish a new library at a substandard level of funding and request exemption from the county library tax. In other words, a new library would have no funding history to determine an average of the prior three year’s of support, and a municipality could exempt from the county library tax at an extremely low level of funding.

Second, to allow an exemption from the county library tax as long as it is not less than the average of the previous three years provides little protection. As a consequence of approving the last biennial budget bill, the legislature eliminated the “maintenance of effort” (MOE) requirement that libraries be funded at no less than the average of the past three years.  Because the MOE requirement could be met through flat funding, and its elimination means library funding can be reduced even more, over time a municipality could fund its library at an amount much lower than the county library levy rate and still qualify for exemption from the county library tax.

WLA agrees that any such exemption should require county board approval for this new type of exemption under the three-year-average method. Still, we feel that additional safeguards are important to address potential problems from occurring with new libraries. For instance, prohibiting new libraries from exempting in the manner allowed by the bill for the first three years of operation would be one solution. This prohibition would obviously not affect existing libraries which feel they would be helped by the provisions of AB 543.

If your library would be affected by this bill, please contact the WLA office at (608) 245-3640.

Edible Book Festival is April 10 at UW-Madison Memorial Library

The 2012 Edible Book Festival takes place 4:30-6:30 pm on Tuesday, April 10 and promises to combine literary and culinary talents in the Madison community. A Cheerios Brideshead Revisited?  A Kindle made out of chocolate?  Vegetarian depictions of The Jungle?  These could possibly be just a few of the entries at the annual University of Wisconsin-Madison Memorial Library event.  An edible book is an entry made of edible materials, with the subject pertaining to books in shape or content.  In the past, participating food artists, families, and groups have worked with cake, goldfish crackers, alphabet soup noodles, Jell-O, licorice, and even Peeps!

The event is free and open to the public in the Memorial Library Commons (728 State Street, Room 460).  Members of the community are encouraged to attend, ogle the edible art, and vote for their favorite entries. A “real” cake will be served so that attendees aren’t tempted to taste the entries. Certificates will be awarded in multiple categories by the official judges:

● Orange Schroeder, owner of Orange Tree Imports and Cooking School
● Co-authors of the blog "Eating in Madison A to Z," the husband and wife team of JonMichael Rasmus and Nichole Fromm (who is also a librarian)

The deadline for entering the competition is April 2, 2012.  For more detailed information, online application, and photos from past festivals, see the website: www.library.wisc.edu/edible-book

The Edible Book Festival is scheduled in celebration of National Library Week (April 8-14), and is co-sponsored by Memorial Library and the University of Wisconsin-Madison Librarian’s Assembly.  The first festival in Madison was held in conjunction with the UW-Madison School of Library and Information Studies (SLIS) Centennial Year celebrations. The roots of our event come from The International Edible Book Festival, the creation of Judith A. Hoffberg and Béatrice Coron.  This first festival was held in 2000, and the “Books 2 Eat” website (www.books2eat.com) was created concurrently, so people around the world could enjoy the wide variety of food artists' creations.

We on the UW-Madison Edible Book Festival Committee hope you will consider covering this unique event.

--Nancy McClements, Book Festival Committee

Thank U.S. Senator Kohl for Signing LSTA Support Letter

ALA asks Wisconsin library supporters to please call U.S. Senator Herb Kohl at (202) 224-5653, and thank him for signing a letter indicating his support for funding of the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) in FY13.

LSTA is the primary source of funding for libraries in the federal budget. LSTA funding helps libraries meet community needs as library services continue to expand. LSTA money also helps provide job search and skill building services, digital literacy programs, technological support for growing internet demand, and much more.

Thank Sen. Kohl for demonstrating a strong commitment to libraries and remind him how important his leadership is in ensuring that funding for libraries is maintained, especially as demand increases.

2012 Wisconsin Library Association Annual Conference "Libraries for the Common Good"

Mark your calendars now for the 2012 Wisconsin Library Association Annual Conference, which will be held October 23-26 at the Radisson Hotel La Crosse and La Crosse Center.

This year’s theme is “Libraries For the Common Good,” which reflects the role Wisconsin’s libraries play in our communities and our daily lives.

The Keynote speaker will be Lewis Feldstein, co-author of Better Together and a leading proponent of community foundations and social capital. Peter Yarrow from the vocal trio of Peter, Paul, and Mary will be the President’s Luncheon speaker and performer. Joyce Sidman, author of Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night, a 2011 Newbery Honor Book, is this year’s YSS Luncheon speaker.

The WLA Foundation fundraiser will be a storytelling performance at the Pump House, a regional arts center housed in the historic La Crosse water pumping station.

Hotel lodging will be available at the Radisson Hotel La Crosse, located at 200 Harborview Plaza, La Crosse, 54601.

ON-LINE RESERVATION PROMOTIONAL CODE: WILIBR
Radisson Book a Hotel (this is the link for Radisson’s Book a Hotel/Redeem Gold Points)

Under Book a Hotel/Redeem Gold Points, enter your date for Check-in and Check-out plus # of Rooms, Adults, Children
Below is a box labeled Promotional Code: enter WILIBR
Far right of Check-in and Check-Out, click on Find Rate (this provides the standard hotel rate of $129, plus upgrades

CALL-IN RESERVATIONS:
Radisson Hotel La Crosse (608) 784-6680
National Toll Free Reservations (800) 333-3333


The deadline date for program proposals is Thursday March 22, 2012. If you have a program idea, you can complete the proposal form online. No login is required.


Rhonda K. Puntney Gould
2012 WLA Conference Publicity Chair

WAPL Conference Registration Is Open!

Spring is in the air, it must be time to register for the 2012 WAPL conference! Get ready for exciting programs, educational speakers, professional development and lots of fun with fellow colleagues! Mark your calendars for the 2012 WAPL conference at the Holiday Inn Hotel & Convention Center in Stevens Point:

Date: May 9 – May 11

Location: Holiday Inn Hotel and Convention Center, Stevens Point

Registration and program information for the 2012 WAPL Conference can be found at http://www.wla.lib.wi.us/wapl/conferences/2012/registration.htm

Information about the Holiday Inn Hotel & Convention Center, Stevens Point can be found at http://www.holidayinn.com/hotels/us/en/stevens-point/steaa/hoteldetail

--Tim Powers, WAPL Conference Publicity Chair
tim.powers@city.fitchburg.wi.us

Geneaologists Concerned about Threat to SSDI Access

A White House Petition to stop fraudulent tax refund claims is supported by genealogists, who are alarmed by the possibility that public access to the Social Security Death Index (SSDI) could end. WLA members  Mary Rieder, President of the  Wisconsin State Genealogical Society, and Anita Doering, Archivist at the La Crosse Public Library, recently brought this issue to WLA's attention. Here's Mary's discussion of what lack of access to SSDI would mean to genealogists:

Would you believe that the IRS doesn’t automatically check Social Security Numbers on tax returns before issuing a refund check?  Because of this, people have been using the SSNs of deceased people to claim tax refunds.  Two weeks ago a grieving father testified before the House Ways and Means Committee that someone had stolen the SSN of his recently deceased daughter and used it to file for a tax refund.  When the legitimate parents filed their tax return to claim some of the medical expenses they had paid for the child’s care, they were refused because that number had already been issued a refund.  So, in its infinite wisdom, the Committee is considering entirely closing the Social Security Death Index (SSDI) from public use rather than telling the IRS to do their job and check the numbers.  The main problem with this is that many businesses, insurance companies, loan officers, banks, etc., routinely use the SSDI for what it’s supposed to be used for:  stopping the fraudulent use of SSNs.  If the federal government closes off public access to it, more fraud will happen, not less.  No one has presented proof that these SSNs are being stolen from the publicly-accessible SSDI.  They could also be taken from dumpster-diving, unscrupulous staff stealing the numbers in banks or medical facilities, or even someone looking over someone else’s shoulder while they’re filling out a form requiring the number, so closing the SSDI isn’t necessarily going to solve the problem. 

This issue has become a big one with the genealogical community because genealogists also routinely use the SSDI to gather information on death dates and parents’ names.  By looking up a person’s SSN you can request a copy of the SS-5 form the person filled out when they applied for an SSN which often gives further family information such as parents names, address at the time of application, etc.  Forensic genealogists use this information to assist them in locating surviving family members of soldiers whose remains have been recovered (some from as far back as WWII and the Korean War), and helping coroners identify next of kin of unclaimed bodies, so that the family can have some closure on what happened to their loved one.  Megan Smolenyak is one of these forensic genealogists, and she wrote a great blog post about this in December:  http://megansmolenyak.posterous.com/are-we-going-to-lose-the-social-security-deat  after Ancestry.com (the company of the “shaky leaf” you’ve been seeing on TV ads – but don’t get me started on how EASY they make genealogy look!) shut down the free version of SSDI which had been on their RootsWeb site, moved everything behind their pay wall at their commercial site, and redacted the SSNs from any record for a person who had died within the last 10 years.

The Ways and Means Committee held a public hearing on the issue on February 2nd, but they restricted who could speak publicly at the hearing, and no one from the genealogical community, or even in favor of keeping this information public, was allowed to testify.  In light of that, the Records Preservation and Access Committee (RPAC), a joint committee of the National Genealogical Society, Federation of Genealogical Societies, and International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies, has started a petition on the WhiteHouse.gov site asking the White House to require that the IRS start checking SSNs before issuing refund checks as soon as possible to prevent fraud, preferably this tax season.  The petition needs 25,000 signatures by March 8th, however, or it won’t even be looked at.  Only about 3,000 people have signed it as of today, though, so I’m sending this out to ask you to look at it and sign it if you agree.  You’ll have to create an account on the site to sign it, which asks for your name, e-mail address and zip code.  The site will then e-mail you a message, and you have to click a link in that message to activate your account.  You can then go back to the survey and sign it.  It will display your first name, first initial of your last name, your city and state, and the date you signed.  (I’m #50, if you want to scroll down that far! ;-)

For more information (from genealogists’ points of view), please see the RPAC blog at http://www.fgs.org/rpac/, and a blog post which a genealogist from Illinois, Michael John Neill, who spoke at our WSGS Fall Seminar a couple of years ago, put up recently at http://rootdig.blogspot.com/2012/02/my-take-on-ssdi.html.

The petition is online at http://wh.gov/khE.  Please feel free to pass this message on to anyone else you think might be interested (especially you librarian-types! ;-).  Writing to your federal legislators about this issue will also help bring it to their attention.

Thank you.
--Mary Rieder, President, Wisconsin State Genealogical Society

AB 224 Awaits Governor's Signature: Allows Gift Transfers

A bill recently approved by the legislature, AB 224, authorizes school boards and school libraries to transfer an unrestricted gift or grant to certain charitable organizations, such as a school foundation or a community foundation. The bill, introduced by Rep. Dean Kaufert (R-Neenah) awaits the governor's signature to become law.

WLA also supported an earlier bill that would give public libraries the same authority to transfer gifts and grants to a library-related foundation or friends group. AB 224 would clarify that public libraries may also transfer this type of funding to a community foundation. The money must be used for a library-related purpose - or in the case of a transfer by a school, for a school-related purpose.

The bill would provide more flexibility to schools and libraries in the management and investment of such funds. WLA urges Governor Walker to sign the bill.

Register for National Library Legislative Day

Registration for the 2012 National Library Legislative Day (NLLD) is now open! To get started simply click here. On that page, you will also find information about making a hotel reservation at the official NLLD hotel. This year’s event will be held at the Liaison Hotel in Washington DC on April 23 and 24.

For 38 years, there has been an annual National Library Legislative Day in the nation’s capital. Each year, over 400 library supporters travel to DC where they receive training and briefings to prepare for meetings with their members of Congress. Many continue their advocacy activities when they return back home by building on the relationships they established at NLLD.

There is a funding opportunity available for NLLD. The White House Conference on Library and Information Services Taskforce (WHCLIST) and the ALA Washington Office are calling for nominations for the WHCLIST Award. Each year, the award is granted to a non-librarian participant in National Library Legislative Day (NLLD). The winner receives a stipend of $300 and two free nights at the NLLD hotel. Click here to apply.

WLA's state coordinator, Julie Schneider, arranges the meetings with legislators, communicates with the ALA Washington Office and serves as the contact person for each state delegation. To reach Julie, call (608) 263-5755 or email jschneider@library.wisc.edu.