Published by the Texas Library Association
C O N T E N T S
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“HELP!
I haven’t received a Many of you have contacted the TLA office to report that, although you have renewed your membership for 2004, you have not received a wallet-sized membership card. Don’t worry, no “senior” moments are involved! You haven’t lost a TLA envelope somewhere, and the TLA office didn’t forget to send it to you! READ ON. . . |
On
the Banks of the Colorado
The TLA Annual Assembly will be held Saturday, July 10 through Tuesday, July 13 at the Hyatt Regency on Town Lake in Austin. During this summer event, officers from most TLA units and committees will meet to discuss the business of the association, approve the FY 2005 operating budget, and plan for next year’s annual conference. All meetings are open, and guests and TLA members who are not officers or committee members are welcome to attend.
Featured Speaker
Senator
Todd Staples will speak at Monday's luncheon. He was born and raised
in East Texas and is serving his second term in the Texas Senate,
where he represents all or part of 16 counties. Senator Staples is well
regarded as a champion for the conservation of precious Texas natural
resources, for improving educational opportunities for our school
children, and for fighting for benefits and pay raises for teachers and
state employees.
GUMBO Sampler
Sample delicious chicken and sausage gumbo by James Stewart, Steve Brown, and other great TLA chefs on Sunday, July 11 from 6 to 7:30 p.m. (or whenever) in the grassy knoll by the Hyatt. The price is $10, and proceeds benefit the June Berry Leadership Development Fund.
Beer,
wine, and soft drinks will be available at a cash bar. To estimate how
much gumbo to make, we are asking people to preregister for this event.
Feel free to bring your lawn chairs and sunglasses and to wear casual
clothes!
For
additional information on annual assembly, go to www.txla.org/groups/officers/assembly.html.
Are you ready for a new and productive way to bring people
together to solve community problems?
Are you worried that citizens do not have a voice in decisions that affect their lives?
Texas Forums, a program of the LBJ Library and Museum, was launched in 2002 to address these concerns. Using the National Issues Forum (NIF) model for community conversations, Texas Forums trains people how to engage others in their community in thoughtful conversations about important public issues - issues like health care, immigration, Americans' Role in the World, and Racial and Ethnic Tensions. The strength of our democracy depends on our participation and our thoughtful discussion with each other about complex and divisive issues!
Unfortunately, most public forums are simply opportunities for citizens to advocate a position, often resulting in rancorous debates and sound bites. In contrast, the deliberative discussions promoted by Texas Forums are a conversation. Participants listen to each other for understanding and speak from their deepest hopes and concerns. The forums, based on the National Issues Forums model (www.nifi.org), enable participants to see new possibilities, as well as potential costs and consequences of different courses of action. Participants learn to think and act in ways that consider the larger public good as they learn how their most-favored solution to a problem may affect others in negative and unacceptable ways. Participants discuss the issue in a structured way that helps them to understand the issue from the perspective of others - a public perspective. Where debate often leads people to hold on to their deeply entrenched positions, deliberation helps participants see the issue from each others’ points of view. This is the first step toward solving a public community issue.
If you read Tom Moran's (Austin Public Library) article about deliberative forums in libraries in the recent issue of the Texas Library Journal, you may be wondering how you can add these forums to the work that your library is already doing in your community. Texas Forums will be hosting four training sessions to prepare citizens, grass roots leaders, libraries, civic organizations, businesses, neighborhood associations - in short anyone who cares about our democracy - to moderate, convene, and report on deliberative forums.
We invite you to join us for this free training. For more information and to register, contact Taylor Willingham at: taylor@texasforums.org.
| DATE | CITY | TIME | LOCATION |
| AUG 13-14, 2004 | Austin | 9:30-4:00 | LBJ Presidential Library |
| OCT 15-16, 2004 | Round Rock | 9:30-4:00 | Round Rock Public Library |
| JAN 21-22, 2005 | Austin | 9:30-4:00 | LBJ Presidential Library |
| MAR 25-26, 2005 | Austin | 9:30-4:00 | LBJ Presidential Library |
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Some overachievers don’t know when to stop. TLA President-Elect Gretchen McCord Hoffmann decided to up the ante on “things to do” for a great cause. This past February, she began working with the Team in
Training (TNT) program, which raises funds for the Leukemia and Lymphoma
Society (LLS). The program involved training for and participating in a
100-mile bicycle ride around Lake Tahoe in June. Gretchen raised $5,500 is sponsorships for the ride. She, along with
her 12 teammates, contributed $46,000 in funds for the Leukemia and
Lymphoma Society. The ride generated a total of $6.5 million from about
3,000 riders. After successfully completing the 100-mile ride, Gretchen and the other riders did what all sensible athletes do — they went out for a night of celebrating and dancing! Now, that’s knowing how to have a great time doing a great thing. Way to go, Gretchen!
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Northside
ISD Receives National Award
Northside ISD (San Antonio) has received the National School Library
Media Program of the Year Award in the large school district category. The
district received a crystal obelisk and $10,000. The award, which is
sponsored by Follett Library Resources, recognizes school districts and
single schools for exemplary school library media programs that are fully
integrated into the school's curriculum. The award is the top national
honor for school library programs.
The AASL award was presented to Jana Knezek, director of library
services at Northside ISD, at a ceremony and luncheon held June 28, during
the 2004 ALA Annual Conference in Orlando, Florida. Texas salutes Jana,
her group of talented librarians and library support staff, and the
administration at Northside ISD!
HCPL
Honored
Congratulations to Harris County Public Library, which received an
Express Consumer Health Outreach Award from the National Network of
Libraries of Medicine, South Central Region.
Five organizations in the South Central Region received the award of up
to $5,000.This award was designed to foster the use of online consumer
health information resources among the general public by supporting
collaborative projects between community based health organizations and
public libraries.
Harris County Public Library was awarded $4,209 to collaborate with
Texas Partnership for End-of-Life Care on a consumer health project. Their
project, “If I Knew Then…What I Know Now: Training for End-of-Life
Decision Making,” will provide training to the public librarians of
Harris County Public Library on electronic resources for end-of-life
information and tools for making end-of-life decisions. These will include
health information resources like MedlinePlus, as well as support
organizations, hospice care options, and palliative care sites. Harris
County Public Library staff will then provide programs to the public in
their branches throughout the Houston area.
New
ACRL Award on Best Practices
The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) is offering a
one-time Best Practices in Marketing Academic and Research Libraries @
your library® Award to be presented at the ACRL National Conference
in Minneapolis, Minnesota. in April 2005. The award will be given to the
academic/research library that demonstrates an outstanding best practices
marketing program. Programs must have been in place for one year, and
selection will be based on the most complete documentation.
A $2,000 award will be presented for first place and a $1,000 award
will be given for second place. Portfolios are due October 29, 2004. For
more details, visit the Awards section of the ACRL Website at www.ala.org/acrl.
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Membership Cards In an effort to reduce printing and mailing expenses, TLA no longer produces membership cards. Instead, the majority of our current members received an electronic verification of their membership status, which contained all the data – and more – that the old printed cards had shown. Since
you are never asked for your card at TLA events, the only thing
you need from the card is your unique member number; using that
piece of information, you can set up a login sequence for the
Members Only section of the TLA website. As you become more
familiar with that resource, you will find that not only can you
instantly check the information on file for you in our database,
but you can also modify that data without needing to contact us by
mail, phone, or email. It is the very best way to keep your record
current and stay tuned in to what’s going on with your
association. For
those without email addresses or those whose addresses
“bounced” their electronic cards back to us, we will be
mailing the same message to you within the next few weeks. As we
are down to a few hundred folks (out of several thousand) in our
database who do not have working email addresses, the cost of this
mailing will be much less than in past years when we were mailing
out 6,000+ cards each year. We appreciate your understanding of the reasons for this change and urge you to contact our office if you still have questions or concerns. |
Travel
Scholarship to Mexico
TLA’s Texas-Mexico Relations Committee is offering up to $750 for
round trip airfare to send a Texas librarian to Pátzcuaro, Michoacan in
Mexico for five days of free training in the Plazas Comunitarias program.
The training, round-trip bus fare from Mexico City to Pátzcuaro, housing,
and meals are all free, provided by the Instituto Nacional Para la Educación
de Adultos-Consejo Nacional Para la Vida y el Trabajo.
The training teaches participants about the teaching methods and the
testing used in the Plazas Comunitarias program, which gives instruction
to Spanish speaking students in literacy in Spanish, English as a second
language, and computers. Upon return, the librarian would be expected to
establish, maintain, and participate in a Plazas Comunitarias program in
his/her library system if none exists already. If there is already a
Plazas Comunitarias program in the librarian's institution, the candidate
would be expected to maintain and participate in this program.
The Texas-Mexico Relations Committee has designed this training program
for mid-career librarians in Texas as a vehicle for professional
development and an opportunity to enhance knowledge that will better serve
their organizations and their Spanish-speaking patrons.
What are the criteria for selection? Candidates should:
- Be currently employed in a
Texas public or school library.
- Be a member of the Texas
Library Association.
- Have at least five years
experience as a professional librarian.
- Have basic knowledge of
Spanish.
- Submit a letter of support
for the implementation or continuation of a Plazas Comunitarias
program in the candidate's library system. The individual must be
recommended by the library director or immediate supervisor, plus the
Mexican Consulate.
- Submit a written report to
the committee upon completion of the program and take part in follow
up evaluations. The individual must agree to write an article about
this training experience that will be submitted to Texas Library
Journal for possible publication.
To apply, please contact Lisa Katzenstein (lkatzenstein@dallaslibrary.org).
The application deadline is February 14, 2005.
Bluebonnet
Committee Openings
There are openings for members on the Texas Bluebonnet Award Committee from TLA districts 1, 5, 8, and 10. Openings in these districts will not come around for three more years. Now is the time to spotlight the fine librarians in these four areas. If you work in one of these districts, now is the time to apply for committee membership yourself or encourage fine librarians you work with (in both school and public settings) to apply.
The requirements for serving on the committee are: 1) librarians must
be involved in the delivery of library services to children; 2) be members
(but not current officers) of either TASL or CRT; 3) be able to attend
annual conference, annual assembly, and an October selection meeting in
Austin; and 4) not be formally affiliated with either a children’s book
author or publisher.
The committee is best served by those individuals who have knowledge of
children’s literature, book selection, and children’s reading
processes. And those librarians with an eye for detail and a strong sense
of professional responsibility bring added value to their tenure.
If you have any questions you may contact Tanya Tullos, chair of the
Texas Association of School Librarians at readersunite@yahoo.com;
Rose Trevino, chair of the Children’s Round Table at rose.trevino@cityofhouston.net;
or Betty Carter, coordinator of the Bluebonnet Award Program, at bcarter787@comcast.net.
Application forms are available at http://www.txla.org/groups/tba/forms/tbacomapp.html.
New
Technology Review Website
TLA’s Automation and Technology Round Table and the North Texas
Regional Library System, Inc. will partner together in development of
Library Technology Now, a one-stop Web resource for library technology
news and product reviews written by library people for library people.
The website (librarytechnologynow.org) will include product reviews
outlining features and functionality of library technology products. The
reviews will also summarize the reviewer’s own personal experiences with
the products. Library technology news will also be gathered from around
the world and disseminated on a daily basis.
Currently, we need your help on building a thesaurus for the website. This
thesaurus will be used to organize information on the site and as an
educational tool. We have begun collecting terms for the vocabulary and
need your help by participating in the exercise detailed below.
Exercise: Library Technology Vendor and Product Inventory
Purpose: To get a comprehensive listing of all the library technology vendors and their respective products by asking libraries to provide an inventory of their technological infrastructures.
Instructions:
- Please brainstorm on what technology you currently own. Please include all hardware, software, and services.
- Next to each item on the inventory, please list the vendor and/or manufacturer.
- Send this inventory to Doug Dunlop at dunlopdoug@hotmail.com or Adam
Wright at awright@ntrls.org.
Children’s
Services Professorship
The University of North Texas School of Library and Information
Sciences created the $350,000 Hazel Harvey Peace Professorship in
Children's Library Services to recognize a veteran educator.
Peace, who is more than 100-years-old, is best known for her work
promoting reading with small children. There is already a Hazel Harvey
Peace Youth Center at the Fort Worth Central Library. The professorship
was created to produce the educators of future children's librarians to
carry on Peace's legacy of literacy. The professorship is the first named
for an African American woman at a four-year state-funded institution in
Texas.
The professorship also addresses a critical shortage of certified and
trained children's librarians in Texas where more than half of the
positions remain unfilled. In addition, 58 percent of the current
professional librarians will retire within the next 15 years.
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On Friday, May 14, Austin Mayor Will Wynn announced the book for the
third annual Mayor's Book Club-Keep Austin Reading campaign and invited
all of Austin to read it over the summer and then come together to discuss
in the fall. Wooldridge Elementary School students took the message to heart and
exceeded school reading goals. On May 17, the entire school -- over 700
students and teachers -- came together to spell out Keep Austin Reading to
inspire all Austin schoolchildren to keep reading over the summer. Austin
Public Library staff were at the event and invited kids to join the Austin
Public Library's annual summer reading program and to sign up for a free
library card. |
The school arranged for an aerial photo |
Tell
Your Story
ALA's Communications and Marketing Office recently launched the new
“Tell
To view, go to www.ala.org/libraryfunding. Scroll down to the “Tell
Your Story!” area to submit your library funding story or to read
stories about funding impacts around the country.
Join
the Majors
New incentives and online tools highlight the launch of ALA’s “Join
the Major Leagues
The program runs through September 10, focuses this year on public
libraries, and is designed to complement summer reading efforts.
Librarians can access the program's website in English and Spanish at www.ala.org/@yourlibrary/jointhemajorleagues.
Sample press materials and programming ideas, program logos, bookmarks,
posters, and mascot artwork are also available.
IMLS
News
In its June issue of Primary Source, the Institute for Museum and
Library Services (IMLS) announced new grant application deadlines and
upcoming grant awards. Several of the application deadlines for IMLS
library grant programs will change in fiscal year 2005. Among the first
upcoming grant application deadlines is the “Librarians for the 21st
Century” program, which is due December 15th.
On July 13, IMLS will announce the recipients of its second round of
fiscal year 2004 grants in the following library categories: National
Leadership Grants for Libraries (Continuing Education, Curriculum
Development, and Training), Native American Library Basic and Professional
Assistance Grants, and Recruiting and Educating Librarians for the 21st
Century.
For full information on IMLS programs and deadlines, go to www.imls.gov.
Texas
Cancer Plan
The Texas Cancer Council is updating the Texas Cancer Plan and would like public feedback about health related topics. The Council is asking that libraries post this information and help involve the public in addressing the following questions:
- What should be Texas’ priorities in cancer prevention?
- What should Texas do to promote early detection and treatment of
cancer?
- How should state dollars be used for professional education in
cancer control?
- What should Texas do to improve cancer data and planning?
- What are the most important actions Texas could take to improve
cancer survivorship?
- How can we make the greatest impact in cancer control?
The current cancer plan is available at www.texascancerplan.org.
To send comments or request additional information by July 15, you may
email tcpupdate@texascancerplan.org.
John Barnett has accepted a new position at Gettysburg College
in Pennsylvania.
Christina Baum is now serving as the new dean of libraries at
Lamar University. She is taking over for Linda Dugger, who retired
at the end of February 2004.
Sarah Bradley-Leighton has accepted a position at the Archive of
Folk Culture at the Library of Congress.
Tina Cline, a librarian at a charter school in Dallas, recently won a trip around the world from KLUV 98.5, the oldies FM station in Dallas.
Annelle Covington has retired from Round Rock ISD.
Marsha Harper has retired as Abilene Christian University’s library director but is staying on for a while to help with a collection assessment/collection development project. Mark Tucker is the new director at ACU and is serving as the dean of library and information resources.
Susan Harvey completed her master’s of administration at the
University of the Incarnate Word.
Samantha Hastings will begin service as the University of North
Texas interim dean for the School of Library and Information Sciences.
Margaret Irby Nichols was recently honored by the North Texas
Regional Library System with the establishment of an award in her name.
Eva Poole has been elected a delegate for the Amigos OCLC Members Council.
Ramiro Salazar has been appointed interim assistant city manager
for the City of Dallas.
Laura Schwartz has been promoted to head librarian at the Fine
Arts Library at The University of Texas at Austin General Libraries.
Susan Mathews, director of Helen Hall Library in League City,
passed away in May. She was the first and only director of the library in
League City since its founding.
Children’s author James Rice of Pelican Publishing died on May 30.
