Volume 5, December 17, 2009 for the WSL Updates mailing list

Topics include:

1) DOWNLOADABLE AUDIOBOOKS SIGNUP DEADLINE APPROACHES

2) FREE WEBJUNCTION WASHINGTON COURSES

3) OCLC TRAINING PORTAL OFFERS 70+ CATALOGING COURSES

4) 60-SECOND SURVEY – FUTURE OF THE BOOK

5) AMERICORPS STATE AND NATIONAL GRANTS

6) APPLY FOR COMING UP TALLER AWARDS

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1) DOWNLOADABLE AUDIOBOOKS SIGNUP DEADLINE APPROACHES

Don’t miss out! As a reminder, the signup deadline for the new Downloadable Audiobooks project is close of business, December 21, 2009. This deadline is especially important for public and academic libraries, as the distribution of available federal LSTA subsidy funds will be made on the basis of the intent to participate forms that are received by the deadline. K-12 pricing, while contingent on a minimum number of signups by other types of libraries, is already so low that no further subsidy is needed.

Currently it appears that the subsidy could reduce prices by as much as 50%, based on signup forms received so far. For more information on the project, and to sign up, visit www.sos.wa.gov/quicklinks/audiobook or contact Will Stuivenga [email protected] 360.704.5217 or toll free 866.538.4996.

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2) FREE WEBJUNCTION WASHINGTON COURSES

If more Continuing Education is one of your New Year’s resolutions, please take a look at the free courses on WebJunction Washington. The Washington State Library, with funding from IMLS (the Institute of Museum and Library Services), provides classes for library staff in Washington. Classes cover many topics from Excel 2007 to Copyright Basics for Libraries and much more in between.

Here’s a quick how-to guide for WebJunction Washington Courses:

• Start at wa.webjunction.org.
• Make sure that you are logged in to “My Account”
• If you are new to WebJunction, you will need to create an account and affiliate with Washington in order to take free courses. To affiliate with Washington, go to Edit Account and select the My Affiliations tab. Select Washington and allow up to 3 business days for affiliation to be approved.
• Once you are affiliated with Washington, you may take courses.
• From wa.webjunction.org, select “WA Courses” from the navigation banner across the top of the page.
• Sign up for 1 or 2 classes at a time. Once you complete a course, you may sign up for another. To sign up for a class, add the class to your cart. The price should be $0.00. If a charge (usually $40.00) is showing, please double check that you are accessing the course catalog from WebJunction Washington and not WebJunction Central.
• Go to your Shopping Cart to check out the course/s. Proceed to Checkout and follow the instructions for the course/s.

These courses are self-paced and available for 12 months from the date your register for the course. Have fun exploring the courses that WebJunction Washington has to offer.

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3) OCLC TRAINING PORTAL OFFERS 70+ CATALOGING COURSES

Enabling your users to find the information they need is the core mission of cataloging. OCLC and its Training Partners are currently offering over 70 cataloging courses—all designed to help you find, create and use the right record to help your users successfully use your library’s resources. Whether you are looking to master a single skill, or a combination of skills, the Training Portal offers great possibilities for learning.

View all online cataloging and metadata courses via this shortcut link: www.sos.wa.gov/quicklinks/cataloging.

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4) 60-SECOND SURVEY – FUTURE OF THE BOOK

Recently, news outlets and blogs have been busy deriding and celebrating the recent ascension of e-readers. The growing popularity of this new format has come with murmurs about the death of paper books, and some even surmise that as technology advances libraries will cease to exist as technology advances.

Taking notice of the chatter, Library Research Service has decided to survey librarians on the matter. This new 60-Second Survey asks your opinions on e-readers and how you think they will transform reading. Will e-readers be the demise of the paper book? What will libraries circulate? What is the future of the book? Follow this link to take the 60-Second Survey: surveys.lrs.org/respond.php?sid=70

The Library Research Service is a unit of the Colorado State Library and the Colorado Department of Education that is operated in partnership with the Library and Information Science (LIS) Program, Morgridge College of Education, University of Denver. The LRS.org website (www.lrs.org) provides online access to research and statistics about academic, public, and school libraries in Colorado and beyond. For each type of library, it provides statistics for Colorado, other states, and the nation.

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5) AMERICORPS STATE AND NATIONAL GRANTS

The mission of the Corporation for National and Community Service is to improve lives, strengthen communities, and foster civic engagement through service and volunteering. For FY 2010, funding priorities are projects that address compelling, unmet needs in one of these areas:

• Education
• Clean Energy/Environment
• Healthy Futures
• Veterans
• Economic Opportunity

About $363 million should be available to award new, re-competing, and continuation of AmeriCorps State and National grants. The grant categories are: State Commission and National Competitive including Professional Corps and Fixed-Amount Grants; State and National EAP; States and Territories without Commissions; and Indian Tribes.

Applications are due January 26, 2010, 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time. For more information, see www.nationalservice.gov/pdf/09_0918_nofa_ac.pdf.

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6) APPLY FOR COMING UP TALLER AWARDS

The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) invites nominations for the 2010 Coming Up Taller awards, which honor excellence in afterschool, out-of-school, and summer arts and humanities programs for underserved children and youth. Award recipients receive $10,000 each, an individualized plaque, and an invitation to attend the annual Coming Up Taller Leadership Enhancement Conference.

Coming Up Taller is an initiative of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities (PCAH) in partnership with IMLS, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). IMLS and its partners encourage programs initiated by museums, libraries, performing arts organizations, universities, colleges, arts centers, community service organizations, schools, businesses, and eligible government entities to participate.

The application deadline is January 29, 2010. The nomination form is here: www.pcah.gov/cut/2010CUTNominationApplication.pdf.

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