Kudos go to the King County Library system staff for being selected by Gale/Library Journal as 2011 Library of Year.  The Journal cites several benchmarks for the award:

• Circulation of 22.4 million items-more than any other library in the U.S,
• Library visits of 10,199,150
• Issuance of More than 100,000 new libray cards
• KCLS web traffic reached 31,000,00 visits
• Attendance of 77,0000 people at KCLS programs

http://www.libraryjournal.com/lj/newslettersnewsletterbucketljxpress/890760-441/library_of_the_year_2011.html.csp contains the complete story.

For folks over the age of 50 in Washington State, public library services will be markedly different by the year 2012. That is, assuming the 19 Washington public libraries that attended the the Transforming Life after Fifty Institute in Portland achieve their goals.

The Institute provided an extensive two-and-a-half days of training on issues that set the baby boomers apart from those who have gone before them. Different service methods are required to reach out to this distinctive group.

The Institute in Portland marked the beginning of a year of study for these fellows who come from every part of Washington State and represent all levels and types of public librarians. For more information about this fellowship, check out the Transforming Life after 50 website. To find out more about participation among Washington public libraries, check out the section on the IMLS Western Regional Fellowship.

Northwest Indian College received a $196,500 grant from the USDA. The college was one of twenty-two  tribal colleges in nine states to receive funding through the USDA Rural Development Tribal College Initiative grant program.

The funding will be used to begin Phase III of building on the Northwest Indian College Campus. Phase III consists of: Engineering, Clearing, Common Utilities, Water Distribution Systems, Sanitary Sewer Systems, Storm Water Retention, Water Quality Control Systems, Roadway Construction, Lighting, and Sidewalks.

Previously the Northwest Indian College had received a $300,000 to construct a new child care facility on its campus in 2006. It received two additional grants in 2007 from the Child Care Initiative to support this facility which is intended to have a positive impact on student recruitment and retention as more than 60% of its student body are female. Of that group 85% are single mothers.

The La Conner Regional Library was awarded a pilot project from the Aerospace and Biotechnology Academy of NASA. The Aerospace and Biotechnology Academy pilot project will train the La Conner Regional Library staff to serve as a resource to assist middle school students explore science through robotics. The La Conner Regional Library will receive kits which will be checked out to middle school teachers whom the library will recruit.

The pilot will run from October through December of this year. Director Joy Neal says the final project will be a robotics day in the library showing off what the students have learned. Three additional rural libraries in Montana, Vermont, and Maine also received grants as a part of the pilot project.

Congratulations are due to Liberty Lake Municipal Library circulation supervisor Georgette Rogers as the first individual nationally to complete the ALA certification program for library support staff. She began the certification process when it was a program begun by the Western Council of State Libraries.

Georgette received a library technician degree from Spokane Falls Community College in 1994. She joined the Liberty Lake Municipal Library staff in 2004. In addition, Georgette is the current president of the Washington Association of Library Employees (WALE).

Sometimes partnerships pay off.

Fort Vancouver Regional Library’s partnership with Partners in Careers, made possible through a Renew Washington grant, has been a great success. Partners in Careers is an agency that works with refugees, low income seniors, and adults facing multiple challenges to employment.

The Library noticed that the job agency had contacts with Russian and Spanish speakers.  When the time came to translate their Renew Washington materials into Spanish and Russian to better serve those communities  in their service area, they put together a contract with the agency.

The result worked well for everyone:  Folks who needed work got it and the Library had their job resource materials translated by native speakers.

Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke today announced the award of two grants totaling $2,264,232 to Tincan under the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP). Tincan’s funding will enhance connectivity to the Spokane Public Library’s public access computers, establish or upgrade public computer centers at four city community centers, establish a training facility for Tincan programs, and increase public access computing through 7 non-profit partners.

The project stands on a strong foundation of existing partnerships. “We did not come together solely for this proposal” said Karen Michaelson, Tincan’s Executive Director, “we have been working with many of these organizations for over 15 years.”

Tincan’s partners in this project include the City of Spokane, Spokane Public Library, Northeast Community Center, East Central Community Center, West Central Community Center, Peaceful Valley Community Center, the YWCA, YMCA, Volunteers of America, Contract-Based Education, Crosswalk, Martin Luther King Jr. Family Outreach Center, SNAP’s business programs, and Internet Expressway (a local Internet provider).

The Chapel Railroad Car Messenger of Peace, a wooden rail car built in 1898, traveled the country for 50 years as a mobile church bringing modern evangelism to the frontier and helping to establish churches in numerous communities. It now resides at the Northwest Railway Museum in North Bend.

With grant assistance from IMLS, deteriorated structural components, windows, siding and roofing, and other features will be repaired and replaced, restoring the Chapel Car to its 1920 appearance.

For additional information check out http://www.trainmuseum.org/.

Congratulations are due to Lopez Island Public Library for being the only library from Washington state recognized by Library Journal as a "Star Library". LJ says being a Star Library isn’t about money, but about:

"… what libraries deliver to their users with the money they have, based not only on circulation and visits, two typically standard measurements, but on program attendance and public Internet computer use, two statistics that more clearly define libraries’ increasingly crucial role in their communities, especially in these tough economic times."

In the Library Journal’s November 15th edition Lopez Island was given three stars. Using 2007 IMLS data Library Journal selected 258 libraries for recognition out of the 7,268 libraries in the IMLS survey.

The entire article can be read at http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6705374.html.

Kudos to Lopez Island Library!

A sizable budget deficit is forcing the town of Roy to do what no town wants to do: close the Roy City Library until the beginning of the new year.

In the last year or so the Roy Library had become the place for the local teenagers to hang out to use the computers and check out materials.  When Librarian Cecelia  Hanson gave the teens the news that the library was going to have to close until January, the kids refused to accept it.

They organized and have raised over $600 – enough to keep the library open for the month of September.

To do this they held car washes, put donation jars in every business in Roy during the busy Roy rodeo over Labor Day, and asked the Fireman’s association for assistance for the Library.

The citizens of Roy should be justifiably proud of their involved teenage citizens!