Podcasting Demonstration

Demoing podcasting at Indian River Community College today...

FLA Filings: Keynote at FLA Annual Conference

At the Opening Session today of the Florida Library Association's (FLA) Annual Conference, Lewis M. Feldstein, co-author with Robert D. Putnam of Better Together, spoke in his keynote address about "social capital" - the concept that the people you know matter and that connections have monetary value. He cited examples, stories, and statistics that show the negative impacts on people and society of being alone and the positive impacts of joining with others and building trust and connections. His data also show that social capital is declining in direct correlation with the declining numbers of the "greatest generation," the traditional institution builders and civic participants. He encouraged attendees to work actively at building new social capital through libraries, recognizing that this will not only help the library as institution but will also help the community at large. More about this fascinating, and somewhat scary, concept can be found at http://www.bettertogether.org/.

SUBJECTS: FLA FILINGS

Friday Fun Thing: Library Business Models

While searching the Orange County (CA) Register for something else (see here for an article about my socially conscious seven-year-old niece donating her hair to Locks of Love), this interesting article, Libraries take a page from business world, crossed my path. It's about what some California libraries are doing to attract and keep customers (including 'tweens and teens) and to raise funds in some unusual ways.

SUBJECTS: CFLC CHRONICLES

Demo at FIT

This is a demo at the Florida Institute of Technology about how to blog.

Workshop Wealth: MySpace

Here's a programming alert for those of you who have attended CFLC's Blogs or Boomers workshops (where MySpace and some of the related issues are discussed), or for those of you who are simply concerned about some of what you've been hearing about security issues and teen activity on MySpace. There is supposed to be a piece about MySpace on NBC's Dateline on Sunday night, April 9, at 7:00 p.m.

SUBJECTS: WORKSHOP WEALTH

CFLC Chronicles: Volunteer Opportunity

From the Florida Library Association's Local Arrangements Committee:

The Registration Subcommittee is looking for volunteers to staff the registration desk at the Florida Library Association Annual Conference 2006. Working the Registration Desk is a great opportunity to meet FLA Members from all over the State!

They're looking for staffing on Wednesday, April 19 and Thursday, April 20. Full details about the Registration Desk opportunity can be found here, while full details about the conference can be found here.

SUBJECTS: CFLC CHRONICLES

Workshop Wealth: Free Classes This Quarter

Pass along to friends, colleagues, co-workers, patrons, and more: All CFLC workshops in April, May, and June are free to attendees!

In an effort to give members some added benefit and perhaps to draw in some registrants who might not ever have attended a CFLC workshop or who might not have attended one in some time, the classes for the quarter are all being offered without a registration fee. In addition, they are widely dispersed throughout the CFLC service area.

Check out the training offerings here and some special offerings on the front page, but please call the office to register, as the online form is currently experiencing some technical difficulties (see last night's post).

Hope to see you in a class soon!

SUBJECTS: CFLC CHRONICLES; WORKSHOP WEALTH

CFLC Chronicles: Patience, Please!

CFLC is having a few technology "issues" these days and we are asking for our members to please have a bit of patience as we work through these problems.

Our e-mail server is behaving a bit erratically, in that it is inconsistent about both sending and receiving mail and it is not sending or receiving bounce-back messages, either. The upshot there is that neither we nor you know if an e-mail has been sent or received. If you do not hear from us about a pending issue in a timely manner, please either telephone or try the e-mail again. Do please let us know if you sent a message recently and haven't gotten a timely reply!

The same server issue is creating a few problems with the Web site, as well. First and foremost is the fact that the online registration form is not working. We hope that we are close to resolving this issue, but in the meantime, please call the office to register for workshops and special events (407/644-9050).

You may notice that our URL these days forwards from cflc.net to my-test.com/cflc; this is part of a temporary solution and is not a permanent address change, so don't feel the need to change any links you may have to any of our Web pages.

Thank you for your patience as we work toward resolving our technical difficulties. [Now, may we borrow some?] :-)

SUBJECTS: CFLC CHRONICLES

Friday Fun Thing on a Monday: Date/Time of Note

Making the rounds of the Internet right now (thanks, Diane!) is this news flash:

On Wednesday, at two minutes and three seconds after one in the morning, it will be 01:02:03 04/05/06.

That won't happen again for another thousand years*. Don't forget to watch your clocks!

You may now return to your normal(?) life!

(*Unless you prefer the non-U.S. style of writing dates, in which case, enjoy the same coming up soon at 01:02:03 on Thursday, May 4th. For the celebratory among you, enjoy it twice!)

SUBJECT: CFLC CHRONICLES