LTLS - Quick Connections

Champaign Library Service & Contacts During the Move

The grand opening for the new Champaign Public Library is set for Sunday, January 6, from 1 to 6 pm. To get ready, the Main Library will be closed starting Monday, December 10.

Contact Information

The move is expected to take three days. Phone service at the library will be down on Wednesday, December 12, and perhaps longer. E-mail contact may also be spotty as staff relocate their computers.

When phones are working, calls will be answered in Administration (403-2050) during weekday business hours. Patrons will be able to call 403-2070 for help with requests and reference questions and 403-2000 for renewals and account questions, Monday through Saturday from 12 to 6 pm. Some individual staff extensions may be answered, for non-public calls, if phones are available.

New Address

The Main Library’s new address is:
Champaign Public Library
Clara Lane
200 W. Green St.
Champaign, IL 61820-5193

Service During Closure

The day Champaign’s old library closes, the new drive-up book return off Healey Street will open. Reserved items will be available for pick-up on the Bookmobile in the library parking lot, Monday to Saturday from 12 to 6 pm.

While the Main Library is closed, patrons are being encouraged to visit the Douglass Branch Library and use the library website.

Demoltion & Parking

Demolition of the old library should start in mid-December. Until it’s done and the new parking lot is finished next spring, patrons will need to walk around the old library site to reach the new building. The final parking lot will have entrances off both State and Randolph.

For More Information

More details about the move are on the library website, champaign.org

AASL releases report on first longitudinal survey

CHICAGO - The American Association of School Librarians (AASL), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), has just released the results of its first longitudinal survey, School Libraries Count!

The survey, conducted January-March 2007, gathered data in a number of areas, including library staff, collections, technology, class visits and budgets. AASL will be using the data to develop tools to help library media specialists advocate at the local, state and national level.

"In a time of budget cuts and confusion about the role of library media specialists," said AASL president Sara Kelly Johns, "it is more critical than ever that both the profession and educational decision-makers understand the state of the nation's school library media programs."

The survey will be conducted annually and will result in a longitudinal series that will provide data on the health of the nation's school library media programs. The second survey is scheduled to open at the 2008 ALA Midwinter Meeting in Philadelphia.

Nancy Everhart, chair of the AASL Research and Statistics Committee, said, "The data from this survey will be valuable to researchers and practitioners alike. Researchers can use it to support further studies, and practitioners can use it to compare their programs to national benchmarks."

Find more information at http://www.aasl.org.

The American Association of School Librarians, a division of the American Library Association (ALA), promotes the improvement and extension of library media services in elementary and secondary schools as a means of strengthening the total education program. Its mission is to advocate excellence, facilitate change and develop leaders in the school library media field."

"Checks and Balances in the ILS Industry: Founders’ Values, Investors’ Interests, Open Source ILSs"

RMG's Eighteenth Annual Presidents' Seminar: The View from the Top

Friday January 11, 2008, 2:00 - 5:00 p.m.
ALA Midwinter Conference, Philadelphia
Pennsylvania Convention Center, Room 103C

The panel for RMG's Eighteenth Annual Presidents' Seminar will include chief executives of major integrated library system companies.

Executives who have been invited include:

Auto-Graphics, Paul Cope
Equinox, Brad LaJeunesse
Ex Libris, Matti Shem-Tov
Infor, Ann Melaerts
Innovative Interfaces, Inc., Jerry Kline
LibLime, Josh Ferraro
OCLC/Pica, Jay Jordan
Polaris, Bill Schickling
SirsiDynix, Gary Rautenstrauch
TLC, Annette Murphy
VTLS, Vinod Chachra

The topic for discussion and consideration this year is:

"Checks and Balances in the ILS Industry: Founders’ Values, Investors’ Interests, Open Source ILSs"

Just when it appeared that all but a few ILS company founders had succumbed to investors’ buy-out – enter two new companies selling solutions based on open source integrated library systems:

• How has the library marketplace reacted to these changes?
• Are the values and passion of the founding families and individuals – and their understandings of the library industry -- surviving under new ownership?
• Can development of open source ILS products rival the decades-long nurturing and care by company founders of their proprietary solutions?
• How will investors’ interests impact the well-being of libraries’ reliance on ILSs?
• What’s the shape of the ILS industry – and its immediate prospects?

Are libraries getting what they want out of their ILS vendors?

When will libraries see ILSs that fulfill strategic aspirations:

• Web 2.0 social networking capabilities integrated into their ILS Web presence
• Personalization, messaging, tagging, and bookmarking capabilities and services in ILSs that will help libraries win and keep new customers?
• Pathways that lead users from densely inhabited Web spaces - such as Google, Amazon, del.icio.us, MySpace, Facebook, Second Life – to their local libraries? Most of the world’s information seekers do not start their searches in a library catalog.
• Faster development of wanted features and capabilities in their ILSs?

The RMG Seminar will be a venue for Panelists and Attendees to debate these and other topics.

The ground rules for panelists are to keep their discussions at professional and industry-wide levels, and not make sales pitches or promote their companies or products.

Librarians and leaders of companies from the library, information, and education industries are invited to attend as members of the audience, and to add their questions and comments to those of the panelists.

Convened by Rob McGee, President of RMG Consultants, Inc., this free seminar annually focuses the library community on topics of significance. This unique industry forum for the exchange of ideas on leading edge developments is RMG's way of thanking librarians and companies whose energy and passion lead the library industry.

Registration is not required.

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