The 10th annual Highsmith Library Award will recognize two libraries - one school and one for all other library types (i.e., public, academic, special) – that have implemented creative marketing projects and/or promotions to enhance their visibility within their service community (example: library websites, genre promotion, information services, library card signup, or any innovative project). Each winning library will receive a $1,000 check and a plaque.

 Siddie Joe Johnson Award Nominees Wanted!

The following need apply: innovative public or school librarians who sustain a high level of performance, who are involved in their community and in professional organizations, and who are members of the Children’s Round Table who work with children from preschool to eighth grade.

Sound like someone you know?  Make their day by nominating them for the Siddie Joe Johnson Award. The deadline is February 1, 2006.

IF Award

Eight Federal School Library Grants to Texas

The Department of Education has announced the 2005 recipients of grants from the Improving Literacy through School Libraries Act. The full list of recipients can be found at www.ed.gov/programs/lsl/abstracts2005.doc. Texas received a total of eight grants to the following schools.

• Diboll ISD, $349,541

• Dr. M. L. Garza Charter School, $200,000

• Brackett ISD, $93,595

• Kenedy ISD, $349,998

• Karnes City ISD, $349,995

• St. Mary’s Charter School, $98,729

• Hidalgo ISD, $300,310

• Brooks County ISD, $113,675

Texas Tech University Libraries, The University of Texas Libraries, Texas A & M University Libraries, Rice University Libraries, and the University of Houston Libraries have entered into an agreement to establish the Texas Digital Library™ (TDL).

The Texas Digital Library™ seeks to assemble and provide for the benefit of society the combined technological advances and cultural and creative resources of the major research university systems. While headquartered at The University of Texas Libraries in Austin, the Texas Digital Library™ will operate in close cooperation with the campuses of all the university systems involved in the project.

By leveraging the resources of these major research systems, the Texas Digital Library™ will offer a cost-effective venue for the assembly and delivery of information that will benefit a variety of communities, including K-12 students and their parents, university researchers, and corporations doing business within the state and interacting with its institutions of higher education.

The Texas Digital Library™ hopes to

• reduce costly redundancies in licensing fees, digitization and access facilities, equipment, staff and operations through centralized licensing and delivery of information resources;

• ensure the most effective and efficient use of intellectual talent within the major research university systems in Texas;

• ensure the most effective and efficient use of university research by the corporations and businesses requiring expertise and technological resources to sustain and grow their business models in a competitive global environment;

• provide expertise and resources for the K-12 community;

• provide the infrastructure to and serve as a collaborator with educational, governmental and corporate entities in information access and delivery initiatives;

• preserve in one place, information for future generations of researchers, teachers, students and scholars.

The Texas Digital Library™ website will be launched later this year.  More specific details on content, as well as information on the variety of cooperative digital initiatives planned will be made available in the coming weeks.

Society of Plastics Engineers Donate E-books to TexShare

The Texas State Library and Archives Commission recently accepted 16 e-books purchased and donated by The South Texas Section of the Society of Plastics Engineers. The 16 titles deal with plastics and polymers and are now part of the permanent e-book collection offered by TexShare through the NetLibrary vendor.

"This is the first time in my experience that a professional society has purchased and donated a collection of e-books that fulfills their particular niche of expertise," says Russlene Waukechon, TexShare Database Coordinator. "We are grateful for this donation and look forward to other donations of e-books from scholarly societies."

Wayne Derrick, who serves on the Education Committee of the South Texas Section of the Society of Plastics Engineers, approached TexShare about the idea of the Society purchasing and donating e-books to the consortium.

Wayne was first introduced to online library books as he conducted research about childhood leukemia. "When our grandson, Ethan Funkhouser, was diagnosed with leukemia in 2002, I went to the M.D. Anderson hospital library to learn more. Their catalog showed additional books in NetLibrary, so I signed up as a member to read more leukemia books.

The Society has been donating thousands of dollars worth of technical books on plastics to the Houston Public Library and other libraries for years, as well as donating generously for scholarships going to students studying plastics-related majors. The Society allocated $7,000 for e-books and donated them to the Texas State Library and Archives Commission after learning that registered members of participating libraries from all over Texas could access technical e-books through TexShare. 

"We wanted the ability to have any one of our members be able to check out these books from their library. Our policy is that donated books will be available to all citizens of Texas," said Derrick.

The University of Texas Libraries won a bronze award for its website in the recently announced 2005 CASE Circle of Excellence Awards for Alumni Relations, Communications and Marketing, and Fund Raising. 

The Texas Center for Digital Knowledge at the University of North Texas has received a two-year, $233,115 National Leadership Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, an independent federal grant-making agency dedicated to helping museums and libraries serve their communities.

UNT School of Library and Information Sciences principal investigators, Dr. William E. Moen and Dr. Shawne Miksa, describe their project, called MARC Content Designation Utilization: Inquiry and Analysis, as a ground-breaking investigation into the extent of catalogers' use of MARC 21, the mark-up language used worldwide to create electronic catalog records.

The Department of Education is inviting applications for the Striving Readers program, a new discretionary grant program authorized as part of the 2005 Fiscal Year Appropriations Act. The purpose of the program is to raise the reading achievement levels of middle and high school-aged students.  

An estimated $24 million will be awarded through the Striving Readers program to Local Educational Agencies (LEAs) that have schools that are: 1) eligible to receive funds under Part A of Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 and 2) serve students in one or more grades in grades 6 through 12.  Eligible LEAs may apply individually, with other eligible LEAs, or in partnership with any of the following entities:

• State educational agencies (SEAs)

• Intermediate service agencies

• Public or private institutions of higher education

• Public or private organizations with expertise in adolescent literacy and/or rigorous evaluation

The awards will range from $1 million to $5 million. Applications for the Striving Readers program became available on August 15.  The deadline for notice of intent to apply is September 14, 2005.  The deadline for transmittal of applications is November 14, 2005. 

The National Education Association Foundation for the Improvement of Education will present 36 awards to purchase books for public school libraries serving economically disadvantaged students . These awards are made possible through Warner Bros., Inc. as part of the Polar Express Reading Challenge.

The deadline is September 15. For more information, including eligibility requirements and deadlines, go to www.nfie.org/raabookgrant.doc.

In honor of the retirement of founder Harold Fitzgerald, Gumdrop Books™ wants to thank Texas librarians by sponsoring $10,000 in scholarships. The Fitzgerald Family Trust is offering four $2,500 scholarships to help Texas librarians/teachers achieve their librarian certification.

Final selections will be approved by The Greater Kansas City Community Foundation.  Applications will be accepted until January 15, 2006. Formal announcement of the winners will be made at the TLA Conference 2006. For additional information and an application, send an email to  jpage@gumdropbooks.com.

National E-rate Lobbying Day!

Many library supporters are planning a trip to Capitol Hill in Washington to show support for the E-rate program.

Organized by the ALA Washington Office, E-rate lobbying day will be held on September 29th. A morning briefing in the ALA Washington Office will be followed by visits to Congressional offices. This is an opportunity to show legislators that you support this program, tell the stories of its success in your libraries, and speak on the vital importance of the pending legislation.

If you would like to participate in E-rate Lobby Day, please send an e-mail to Erin Haggerty at ehaggerty@alawash.org. If you would like to participate but are unable to travel to Washington, you can email or call your members of Congress on September 29th to tell them about the importance of the E-rate to your library.

In May 2005, ALA launched an online demographics survey of members to help the association know itself better and be better able to describe itself to others.  As of August 16th only 1,945 members have responded, less than 3% of total membership. If you have not yet completed the survey, please take a moment to participate. To access the survey, simply visit the ALA Website (www.ala.org) and click on the ALA Member Demographics Survey icon. 

The survey is quick, completely confidential and will help make ALA more effective and responsive to you, the member. As ALA moves ahead and gathers information, it will update members on the findings.

ALA President-elect Leslie Burger is seeking applications and nominations for members to serve on the 2006-2007 ALA and Council committees, with the appointments to be effective at the conclusion of the 2006 Annual Conference.

Letters of application and nominations should include a brief summary of the nominee's qualifications for the committee(s) to which she or he is being nominated.  Applicants may apply electronically by completing the form at https://cs.ala.org/burger/volunteer.html.

The ALA Office for Research and Statistics has created a new webpage,  "Articles and Studies Related to Library Value (Return on Investment)": www.ala.org/ala/ors/reports/roi.htm

The site was created to assist all types of libraries in demonstrating the value of their services to decision-makers. The information is packaged to show return on investment.