North Central Library District Newsletter
Going the Extra MileJanuary 2015
In This Issue
AH Ross Library Receives Award
New Format for Compendium
Save the date
District News
Free Courses!
Overdrive Stats
Good News from Annie Halenbake Ross Library in Lock Haven

The Annie Halenbake Ross Library in Lock Haven has been selected as the winner of the "Best Programming Award" from the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History for their Civil War 150 programming. This competitive award is presented to one library per year that hosts excellent Civil War 150 programming. This award comes with a $1000.00 prize as well as $500.00 worth of civil War related books and resources.
Congratulations to Annie Halenbake Ross Library!
New Format for Compendium

The Compendium provides information for Pennsylvania Libraries!
Click here to get the Compendium in a new format!

 The new format will:

  • enable information to reach you faster
  • permit your ability to subscribe to categories
  • facilitate the search of categories, tags and even keywords!

Explore the site by selecting posts on the home page or by selecting categories on the right.
You will also have the ability to search by keyword, using the search box on the upper right.

You may Bookmark this page or Subscribe to Categories in the Compendium by RSS Feed.

 

Save the Date!

The West Branch Chapter of PaLA in partnership with James V Brown Library and the National Network of Libraries of Medicine will hold a Safety and Security workshop on April 8th, 2015. Look for details soon.
 
Greetings NCLD Members!
Happy New Year! Hope you all are warm and safe on this blustery winter afternoon! So get a hot drink and read about what's going on. Until next time...
News from your District Team

From Nina: 
New professional development books at the District Center! These books were made available by the Office of Commonwealth Libraries: Including Families of Children with Special Needs, Diversity Programming for Digital Youth, After School Clubs for Kids, Artsy Toddler Storytimes, and several more. Simply request a book through interlibrary loan. We hope you are inspired by something new!

Charles is working on getting everyone's web sites on to the new mobile responsive WordPress platforms by April 1st. He expects to make a lot of progress in the next few weeks. If you have contacted Charles previously about your web site, it is on its way. If you have not contacted Charles but would like to make changes to your web site, please contact him and copy the district consultant. Once all the web sites are on the new platforms, Charles would like to help you promote and market your libraries through your web sites and has some tools in which you may be interested. One is a cloud based survey and polling service that uses mobile, web and Facebook to get user engagement and conversations going. Another is a form and survey software product called Jot Forms, and the the last is a cloud based graphics page creator. Libraries can use the drag and drop simplicity to create web pages for programs, events, book sales  or what ever you want to promote and the pages can be printed to be used as flyers. 

Jerry is writing "how to" documents for you to use in house with staff and others. He is available to do technology assessments for district members. These assessments will be useful for planning and budgeting. Contact Jerry if you would like a tech assessment. Jerry has also worked on some language that can be included in job descriptions and announcements for frontline staff and other library employees: "Technology - Basic knowledge of computer hardware and software, email applications, such attachments and formats, and ability to assist patrons with basic technology questions, such as downloading books on personal computers, tablets, or phones."

June has been working on District Advisory Council structure. We now have full representation on the council and meeting dates and places have been set according to the new bylaws. The DAC will meet in March (March 25, 9AM at JVB), June (June 17, Degenstein, 10AM) and October (October 21, Blossburg, 10AM). You'll be receiving more information as meeting dates get closer. The district has decided to go forward with creating training materials for library directors and a committee met last week to discuss format and content. We hope to have these materials ready for you to review at the end of April and welcome your input. Thank you for taking the district survey. Your input will help the continuing education committee plan and budget for the year. 
Skillsoft Courses Through Webjunction

 

We all know about Webjunction but did you know you can access free online self-paced courses with Skillsoft through Webjunction? Click here to register for a free account and take courses on Communication and Interpersonal Skills, Customer Service, Desktop software, Leadership, Management, and Technology Skills. All of these free courses are provided to you by our State Library. Check out the course catalog and sign up today!
Overdrive
 
Here are the Overdrive stats for the year. There were over 24,000 more checkouts in 2014 than in 2013!  Wow! Overdrive is really taking off everywhere!