Sept. 8, 2010                                                                                                                 Vol. 2  Issue 2
NELLCO E-Newsletter
Implementing Innovative Ideas
Stay Informed!
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In This Issue
NELLCO Member Library Spotlight
Blog of the Month!
Forward This Newsletter!
USS Demos Scheduled
RDA Toolkit
Save With Our Vendor Partners
Grant Writing Workshops in Albany, Hartford
Current Trials
NELLCO Sponsors Ning
Library Spotlight

Director Gail Winson assists students

RWU law library
School of Law Library
 
 
Bristol, RI
Blog of the Month!
 
Announcements, news and legal research tips & tools from USF's Dorraine Zief Law Library
 
Recent posts include news about Google's new RealTime, NYC's bedbug law (eeewww!) and open access, self-published casebooks from law faculty!
 
Check it out!
Streaming Video!
 Anne Acton
If you missed the Swank Digital Campus online demos last week you can still take a look. View the recorded demo at your convenience. Swank offers a great service that librarians can provide to support their faculty!
Send Us Your Pictures!

 

We want to highlight your library and your staff on our website and in our newsletter. Please send in any images you'd like to see, along with a brief description, to [email protected] or [email protected]. All images should be jpgs of at least 620 pixels wide by 310 tall. We can work with larger images but nothing smaller. Now hit us with your best shots!
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Let your colleagues know what they're missing! Forward this newsletter by using the
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ED Pic
Director's Corner   
 
 - ASAE Annual Meeting 2010 - or How I Spent My Summer Vacation
 
The 2010-11 academic year is in full swing. The quiet of summer in the corridors of the law school has been replaced by the steady hum of student life. The library is buzzing. My own kids are also back to the books. We drove our son Sam up to Montreal last month to attend Concordia University. Our two youngest boys, Zane and Hayden, are together for the first day of middle school today, as we reach that parental milestone of having put elementary school behind us. Turn, turn, turn. . .
 
As you may know, I had the opportunity to attend my first American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) Annual Meeting & Expo last month in Los Angeles. I am so grateful to have received a Member Assist Scholarship from ASAE that covered the entire $795.00 registration fee and provided deeply discounted room rates for scholarship recipients, Without that support I would not have attended.
 
I first learned about ASAE around 2003 when I contacted then AALL Executive Director Susan Fox to ask where she turned for leadership and guidance in the administration of a membership-driven organization. Susan introduced me to ASAE. I finally joined several years later so that I would be able to take advantage of all of their members only resources for NELLCO. Since then ASAE has proven invaluable to me so I was very excited to be able to attend the Annual Meeting, along with 5,500 other association professionals. Upon my return I contacted a colleague who had asked for my perspective on the meeting. Here is the e-mail I sent:
I'm just back from ASAE and wanted to let you know my take on it. I thought it was one of the most well executed conferences I've ever attended. They had such good preconference buzz and they really reached out to first-time attendees in a number of ways. They held a webinar a few weeks in advance to advise attendees how to make the most of the meeting. Then they followed up by assigning a meeting mentor who called me to answer any questions. We met up during the meeting and he offered any assistance I might need. The events were absolutely spectacular (Melissa Etheridge on Sat. night at LA Live), the food was excellent, the vendor expo was fantastic,  the schedule was well constructed, and the content was invaluable. I have so many ideas that I'm implementing as a result of this conference. I brought back several solid ideas for non-dues revenue with very little opportunity cost, some ideas for marketing and IT management, and more. ASAE has a small staff section and is also planning to devote more resources to small staff associations this year as part of their strategic direction. I'm also interested in their CAE credential. Anyway, just wanted to give you the quick report. Let me know if you have any questions.
As you can see from just this quick snapshot, I found the meeting to be invaluable! So I was somewhat surprised when, within days of the closing event, the blog postings and tweets came pouring in calling out all of the shortcomings of both the Annual Meeting and the Association itself. However, I quickly checked my surprise as I recognized a familiar and absolute truth of any membership association; you simply cannot be all things to all people.
 
In any organization you have members at different levels of engagement, different levels of professional development, different ages, and with different needs and expectations. It is unrealistic to expect an organization to meet all of the needs of every member. So what is a poor membership association to do? In a word: listen!
 
It's a mistake to dismiss or ignore the blogosphere or the twitterati. Many of these commentators are current and future leaders in our profession. Instead, listen actively to the voices in the mix so that you, your team or your association are engaged participants in the conversation, rather than passive targets, or worse yet, knee-jerk defenders of the status quo! Make sure the members know that you have heard and understand their concerns (whether you agree or not!), and be forthcoming and transparent about the reasons for the organization's decisions and the changes you may or may not be able to implement in response to members' needs.
 
These reflections come after a spring/summer which included ICOLC, ALA, AALL and ASAE Annual Meeting attendance, and in advance of the Association for Consortium Leadership (ACL) Annual Meeting. I hope they are lessons that I can bring home to better serve the membership of  NELLCO. To paraphrase the inimitable Dr. Frasier Crane, "We're Listening!"
 
 
Yours in Collaboration,
Tracy L. Thompson-Przylucki, Executive Director
NELLCO's Universal Search Solution Webinars
man with magnifying glass 
In 2007 NELLCO was awarded an IMLS grant to develop an open source discovery tool. That tool is the Universal Search Solution (USS). The idea for the USS was conceived in response to the perceived shortcomings of federated search tools on the market at that time. The USS is based on enterprise search technology, or an approach now known more commonly as web-scale discovery.
 
The USS is now functional but still in beta. NELLCO will be holding a series of webinars over the next week to demonstrate the USS and answer any questions from the membership. The sessions are (all times are eastern):
 
Fri. Sept. 10 - 11:00 am
Mon. Sept. 13 - 2:00 pm
Tues. Sept. 14 - 10:00 am
 
To attend any one of these sessions, please send an e-mail indicating the date and time that works for you. You will receive an e-mail from Webex with the login information required to join the meeting.
RDA Toolkit Now Available Through NELLCO 
 
rdaALA is offering the RDA Toolkit to assist libraries with the transition from AACR2 to RDA. The toolkit continues to be freely available until the NELLCO subscription is in place. NELLCO members can access the toolkit by clinking on the RDA Toolkit icon to the right and enter the username nellco-rda and the password rda.
 
NELLCO is offering consortial discounts on the RDA Toolkit. The cost per library will depend on the access model you choose and the final number of NELLCO members subscribing. Please visit the NELLCO website, login, and visit the subscriptions page from your dashboard. You will see a link to the RDA Toolkit with complete information.
Calculate Your NELLCO Member Discounts!
 

NELLCO members receive discounts on goods and services thru our vendor partnerships. They include:

Digital Campus

KIC System Discount

Highsmith

Demco

 

FREE Access to Informed Librarian Online (Premium)

 

Members Log in to www.nellco.org  and click on Trials and Offers on your dashboard for details!

Grant Writing USA to Hold Workshops in Albany, Hartford
As part of our ongoing partnership with Grant Writing USA, NELLCO is pleased to announce two upcoming workshops. These sessions are open to the entire non-profit community so feel free to spread the word to your friends and neighbors.
 
On Sept. 27-28, a 2-day Grant Management Workshop will be offered at the Albany Law School. NELLCO can offer a free registration to one lucky NELLCO member! The first interested member to contact me gets the spot.
 
On Oct. 25-26, a 2-day Grant Writing Workshop will be held in Hartford, CT at the Connecticut State Library's Van Block facility. NELLCO also has a free registration for this session and will provide it to the first interested respondent!
 
If you don't snag the free registrations remember that NELLCO members are entitled to a $100.00 discount on registration for ANY Grant Writing USA workshop in the U.S. Find one near you today! Can't find anything nearby? Consider hosting a seminar for the non-profit community in your area. In return, you receive a limited number of free seats for your staff! Contact us for more information.
Current E-resource Trials
 Trials and detailed information is always posted on the NELLCO website! Just login as a member and click on Trials and Offers from the member dashboard.
 

Electronic Resources

o   Current Trials

  Cambridge books online  ends 12/31/2010

  Justis ends 8/27/2010

  Fastcase Legal Research Systems  ends 9/01/2010

  RDA Toolkit ends 8/31/2010

o   Upcoming Trials

  HW Wilson

  Oxford Journals - coming October 1, 2010

  Bridgeman Education image database (possible)

  Desktracker (possible)

 
 Do you have an e-resource you'd like us to trial? Let us know! 
 
NELLCO Sponsors Ning Social Networking Site for Law Librarians
 
ning logo
 
Many of you may already be familiar with Ning, a platform for like-minded folks to engage in community-building. The Ning site for Law Libraries and Librarians was founded by Jim Milles, SUNY Buffalo Law School, several years ago. At that time the service was freely available. This year, the business model of Ning changed and a fee structure was put into place. The administrators of the site, Connie Crosby, Lyo Louis-Jacques and Roger Skalbeck, asked the community how they wanted to respond to the change. One idea was through sponsorship. During a segment of Rich Leiter's Law Librarian Conversations podcast in May both Roger and I were guests. When I heard about the situation it seemed a perfect opportunity for NELLCO to support the work of our profession, and I volunteered to underwrite the modest cost of the site in this first year. The administrators and the Ning community agreed and by the close of summer the collaboration is complete! 
 
The site today boasts 756 members, many of whom are from NELLCO member libraries. If you're a member, you will have seen the NELLCO logo on the site announcing our sponsorship. If you're not a member, you can still join at no cost thanks to the creative problem-solving of Connie, Lyo, Roger and the Ning Law Librarians community!
What's in your profile?
 
NELLCO members have you updated your online profile lately? Did you know that we use the information in your profile to send you information about renewals, trials and discounts?  We also use your library profile information to supply vendors with your current IP and contact information. So...if you have not heard from NELLCO in awhile it may mean that your profile information is incorrect or out of date! Please take a moment to update your profile today so you don't miss out on any NELLCO member communications.
Shout Out to Clark County Library District
Librarians are notorious for being bad at tooting our own horns. We are not the shameless self-promoters that we should be, especially when library budgets are threatened and libraries are increasingly at risk. So I can't resist sharing this photo I took at the airport in Las Vegas on my way to LA. Kudos Clark County Library District!
 
 Ad at McCarran International Airport Las Vegas
 public library ad
 
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