Friday Fun Thing: The Librarian Song

This is hysterical for pretty much any librarian, but for those with a public service background, it's particularly amusing. Enjoy!



SUBJECTS: FRIDAY FUN THING

Technology Tales: Shout Out for the Kids

We've known for a long time that librarians are the best. Now, let's hear it for librarians' children!

Arkansas school has an 11-year-old IT department -- no, really, an 11-year-old

SUBJECTS: TECHNOLOGY TALES

Friday Fun Thing: Article on Libraries

Not Friday, but a Fun Thing nonetheless and I'm demonstrating for a class how to blog...

Check out this cool article from the March 4, 2008 Woman’s Day:

“The library helped me start my business.”

SUBJECTS: FRIDAY FUN THING

CFLC Chronicles: Invitation to Public & Reference Librarians

Posted on behalf of The State Library of Florida:

Invitation to Participate in a Focus Group: Medical and Health Information
Presented by the State Library of Florida
ATTN: PUBLIC LIBRARIANS, REFERENCE LIBRARIANS

The Information Use Management and Policy Institute (College of Information, Florida State University) is collaborating with the State Library of Florida’s Florida Electronic Library (FEL) to assess the use of medical and consumer health information resources offered by the FEL and assist the administrators, librarians, and users of FEL to better utilize the FEL medical and consumer health information. Our assessment includes focus groups of public, medical, and reference librarians. Each focus group will be about 10-12 participants and the session should last 45 minutes. We will be conducting two (2) focus groups in your Region.

Our assessment would benefit from your expertise to help improve the FEL’s medical and consumer health information resources. Your contribution will benefit other librarians and help inform the development of programs that can address the needs of librarians and schools in the provision of consumer health information.

Your participation in this research project is completely voluntary. Please be assured that all of your responses will be kept confidential and any data collected from the focus group will be reported in aggregate form. Only research personnel involved in this project will have access to the data and encoded data will be kept on secure servers at the College of Information for a period of two years after the project ends.

I hope you will agree to participate in the study and I would be pleased to answer any further questions you may have about the study and your commitment. Please contact CFLC (info listed below) to sign up for the focus group.

For more information, please contact Ebe Randeree (eranderee [at] ci.fsu.edu). Thanks in advance for considering this request.

Representatives from Florida State will conduct focus groups at CFLC in Maitland, FL on March 13th at 11:00am and 1:00pm.

To register for either time, please click here to visit our Training Page or call the CFLC office at 407-644-9050.

SUBJECTS: CFLC CHRONICLES; REFERENCE RICHES

CFLC Chronicles: Help! Are We Making a Difference?

It's grant-writing time around CFLC and we need your input, please!

Does CFLC help you improve your library's service to the public (i.e., end user, student, Web visitor, etc.)? If so, how? These are the questions we are striving to answer as we prepare our LSTA grant application this year.

The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) has conducted a review of Florida's LSTA program. Their concern is that the focus of the grants should be on improving service to the end user. We have been directed by the State Library to show how our programs impact the public, something that is very difficult for us as a non-library to ascertain without asking your help.

If you have any stories about how CFLC's services have impacted your users, please let us hear them by the first week of March. Feel free to make your comments on this blog or via e-mail [contactus (at) cflc.net], or more formally, help us by contributing a letter of support to include with the grant application. Details and more information can be found here.

Thank you for your assistance; your input will help us continue responding to your needs!

SUBJECT: CFLC CHRONICLES

Friday Fun Things: The Book A Month Challenge

Meant to post this a while back, but if you hurry, you can still get in on the second month! The Book A Month Challenge (BAM) is one of those simple ideas that is so great you wish you'd thought of it yourself. Katie posts:

Welcome to the Book A Month (BAM) Challenge. Right around the first of the month, every month, we’ll be posting a theme. All you have to do is read a book that corresponds to that theme and post a review, either on your own website/blog and comment with a link to it or in the comments for the post itself.

And lest you think she hasn't thought of everything, there's even a LibraryBAM and a way to get advance notice of the theme in order to plan your library exhibits around it.

Even if you don't feel you can post a review, she's got some great reading suggestions built around her themes. You've missed January's "time" theme (playing catch up IS allowed!), but February's "heart" theme is still beating. (Sorry!)

SUBJECTS: FRIDAY FUN THINGS

"Globe" Trotting: Stephen C. Foster State Park (GA)

The globe was trotting over Thanksgiving! It accompanied Kathy Turner (Director of Instructional Programs at CFLC-member Evans Library at the Florida Institute of Technology) to the Stephen C. Foster State Park in Georgia.

According to Kathy, "in its world were the Okefenokee Swamp, black bears, and lots of alligators."

Thanks for sharing, Kathy!

SUBJECTS: "GLOBE" TROTTING