Legislative Update • Celebrating 50 Years of Dr. Seuss • New Books for Librarians • Ancestry Library Edition Online Training • Useful URLs • Reflection

The next newsletter will be May 24.

May 14 Postage rate for first class mail increases to $0.41.

May 15 Effective Library Marketing and Advocacy, POSTPONED - WATCH FOR SCHEDULE

May 21-22 Philosophy and Practice: The Preservation and Conservation of Native American Materials

June 12 Library Directors Meeting, 10:00 a.m. - 2:30 p.m., Land O' Lakes

June 14 Library Directors Meeting, 10:00 a.m. - 2:30 p.m., Webster

Summer 2007 UW-Madison SLIS Continuing Education Courses in Madison (If you have questions please contact Anna Palmer, ahpalmer@wisc.edu or 608-263-4452. Visit the School of Library and Information Studies for course descriptions and registration information. Continuing Education Courses in Madison:

• June 4-7 Grant Writing, Instructor: Jane Pearlmutter
• June 25-29 Summer Camp by the Lake: Public Library Administration, Instructor: Kelly Krieg-Sigman
• July 14-25 Travel Opportunity-Librarians' Tour to Scotland, Tour Director: Jane Pearlmutter
• August 13-17 Summer Camp by the Lake: Cataloging, Instructor: Debra Shapiro
• August 20-24 Puppets in the Library, Instructor: Susan Santner

Online Graduate Credit Courses June 18 - August 12: Cataloging and Classification, Collection Management, Digital Libraries

Online Skills Courses: In cooperation with a national network of educational institutions, we offer online courses on a variety of technical topics and a few non-technical topics. While the courses do not have a library focus, they may be useful to anyone who needs to develop these skills.

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I want to thank everyone who followed up on the previous two legislative alerts and contacted members of the Joint Finance Committee to urge their support of the library issues they voted on last Thursday. Great job! It is extremely important that we speak with a collectively loud and unified voice at these times! It is equally important that we thank the members of Joint Finance for the strong support they gave to library issues - unanimous in two cases. Here'a a recap of what happened.

1. Public Library System Aids. JFC approved alternative 3 for public library system aids, as described in the Legislative Fiscal Bureau budget paper #661. In essence, it's the same general package that Governor Doyle presented in his Executive Budget. The difference is that a $9,200,000 unencumbered carryover balance in the Universal Service Fund will be used for system aids in the first year of the 2007-09 biennium.

Total funding
2006-2007 (current) $15,521,200
2007-2008 $16,138,000
2008-2009 $16,783,500

General purpose revenue (GPR)
2006-2007 (current) $11,297,400
2007-2008 $2,097,400
2008-2009 $11,297,400

Universal Service Fund (SEG)
2006-2007 (current) $4,223.800
2007-2008 $14,040,600
2008-2009 $5,486,100

2. Statewide service contracts. After a motion was made and withdrawn to adopt Alternative 2 in budget paper #662 (deleting $50,000 for the purchase of a dedicated server for digital talking books), JFC adopted the Governor's position (Alternative 1) by unanimous consent.

3. Levy limit exclusion. JFC approved Motion 92 (moved by Jauch/seconded by Decker) regarding levy limit exclusion for county payments to public libraries by a vote of 13-3 (Kestell, Suder, Vos voted against). The motion accomplishes two purposes. It clarifies that payments are made to public libraries (and not to the counties themselves), and it expands the exemption so that it includes payments to public libraries within a county as well as to public libraries in adjacent counties.

Legislatively, Thursday, May 3, was a very good day for libraries! (But please keep in mind that we haven't reached the finish line yet. We need to remain vigilant through the end of the budget process.) Please go to the Legislative Status Report for a full summary and links to more information (position statements, budget documents, etc.)

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Celebrating 50 Years of Dr. Seuss
From Seussville.com

The National Education Association celebrated Dr. Seuss’s 50th birthday this year with a successful Read Across America Day — a nationwide read-aloud of The Cat in the Hat. The birthday party for the Cat in the Hat was about giving the gift of reading to kids who really need it. As of May 1, the Cat received almost 1.5 million birthday cards and Random House will be donating as many books to First Book in support of literacy. First Book is a national nonprofit organization with a mission: to give children from low-income families the opportunity to read and own their first new books.

In the mid 1950s, many Americans were asking themselves: Why can’t Johnny read? In a Life magazine article, Pulitzer Prize-winning author John Hersey maintained that American children couldn’t read because their classroom primers were boring and “antiseptic” and could not compete with cartoons, comics, and other more fun and interesting stimuli, so he challenged Theodor Geisel, a.k.a Dr. Seuss, to write a story “first graders wouldn’t be able to put down.” And that’s just what Dr. Seuss did, using a vocabulary of only 236 words. In 1957, Random House published The Cat in the Hat and those 236 words revolutionized the way children learn to read.

Making reading fun, however, is only one piece of the literacy puzzle. Ensuring that children have access to books remains essential to reading development, and children in poverty are most at risk. On average, children in middle-income neighborhoods in the U.S. have approximately 13 books per individual child. In contrast, for low-income children, there is estimated to be 1 book for every 300 children.

In 2007, and in honor of Dr. Seuss and his Cat, Random House Children’s Books and Dr. Seuss Enterprises partnered with First Book to launch a national literacy initiative: Project 236. With Project 236, kids, parents, grandparents, caregivers, teachers, librarians, and community leaders are asked: What can YOU do to make a difference? Check this site for suggestions on what YOU can do if you are a kid, parent, grandparent, caregiver, teacher, librarian, community leader, or retailer. You Can Make a Difference!

• Host an author at your library and have kids read the author’s work and prepare questions in advance.
• Have kids act out a scene from a favorite book.
• Make personal connections by hand-picking books based on a child’s interests and reading level.
• Invite community leaders to be guest speakers. Have them discuss how important reading is in their job and their life.
• Create a Kids’ Picks display of newest favorites.
• Have kids exchange book recommendations with pen pals.
• Host reading incentive programs such as a Read-a-Thon.
• Make yourself available to people needing extra reading help.
• Organize book adventures with newscasts, costume parties, or games.
• Feature a book to read and watch the movie version together. Lead a discussion comparing and contrasting the book with the movie.
• Have young readers become young authors by displaying their stories in the library.
• Challenge students to a book scavenger hunt or an online book WebQuest.
• Make a donation to First Book in support of literacy.
• Make time to read to the kids in your life on a regular basis.
• Volunteer as a guest reader, a tutor, or a mentor.
• Organize a book drive to benefit low-income families or schools in your community. Children from low-income families enter school at a disadvantage. Ensuring that each family has at least one book per child is a great start to improving literacy!

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Three New Books Help Librarians Handle Modern-Day Challenges
From Rob Colding, Information Today, Inc.

At the 22nd annual Computers in Libraries conference, Information Today, Inc. (ITI) announced the publication of three new books to guide librarians in managing the constant changes they face and to find new and creative ways to keep current customers and reach potential new users.

The Thriving Library: Successful Strategies for Challenging Times, author Marylaine Block chronicles the efforts of librarians who are thriving in the face shrinking budgets, competition from the Internet and other businesses, library closings, and reductions in library staff and services. Block discovered from her studies of a cross-section of public library directors that libraries contribute to their success by focusing on youth, by marketing the library as a public space, and by courting community leadership. Although these are among the key strategies employed by thriving libraries, Block stresses that long-range strategic planning is the single most important tool employed by successful library directors.

Librarians have put a tremendous effort into making their libraries the physical hubs of their communities, and they can now take advantage of new social software tools for communicating with patrons. In Social Software in Libraries: Building Collaboration, Communication, and Community Online, Meredith G. Farkas explores the growing social software phenomenon and explains how technologies such as blogging, wikis, social networking, screencasting, and podcasting can be successfully implemented in any library.

In Library 2.0: A Guide to Participatory Library Service, two of the first and most original thinkers on Library 2.0—Michael E. Casey and Laura C. Savastinuk—offer ways to improve service to better meet the changing needs of 21st-century library users. The authors outline the theoretical underpinnings of Library 2.0 and provide practical advice on keeping up with technology. Casey and Savastinuk state, “Library 2.0 becomes less about what we can provide to our users and more about what we can let our users provide themselves. Participatory service and change are at the heart of Library 2.0, and technology is a tool that can help us get there.”

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Ancestry Library Edition Online Training

Choose from three online sessions available in May and June to learn more about the genealogy research database Ancestry Library Edition. You'll see the new library-friendly interface and learn about the new content being added. This one hour training provided by Kimberly Bastian is helpful for upgrading search skills and genealogy collections. Sign up at http://proquest.com/. Choose "Product Training" in the purple "Quick Links" menu to the left of the screen and click on the event title on the calendar:

May 29, 2007 - 10:00-11:00 AM
June 13, 2007 - 9:00-10:00 AM or
June 18. 2007 - 1:00-2:00 PM

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Helpquide: a Trusted Nonprofit Resource

The Helpguide project is a unique non-profit resource of researchers and writers providing concise, up-to-date coverage of vital health and lifestyle topics. Non-commercial references to accurate and easily accessible information and key approaches for treatment are carefully selected to empower people to actively participate in important health care and lifestyle decisions. “Our mission is to empower you to make educated health and lifestyle choices for yourself and your family.”

The 2007 Wisconsin Women's Health Guide

The Wisconsin Women's Health Foundation and the Wisconsin Alliance for Women's Health formally introduced the 2007 Wisconsin Women's Health Guide, a comprehensive, 222 page guide to women's health topics and a list of health services and resources for each of Wisconsin's 72 counties. Among the 44 different categories of service and information listed, readers can find contact information ranging from dental health to mental health; transportation providers to translation assistance; and from child care asistance to long term care assistance. Copies of the guide can be ordered (for large quantities contact Sara Finger at 866-399-9294). A copy (222 page pdf) of the guide is available online.

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"Mother love is the fuel that enables a normal human being to do the impossible."

- Marion C. Garretty, quoted in A Little Spoonful of Chicken Soup for the Mother's Soul

Contact NWLS for subscription services to the Streams news: newsletter@nwls.lib.wi.us

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