iCONN News

New iCONN logo!

2006-07-26T15:29:00.000-04:00

This is the first public appearance of our new logo! We will be migrating our print materials such as letterhead to this new look. Our corresponding Web presence at www.iconn.org will contain the new logo and will also reflect its new color scheme.

In addition to color changes, the tag line “Connecticut’s Research Engine,” replaces the old tag line of “Connecticut Digital Library.”

The logo was created by Miranda Creative in consultation with iCONN staff.

Firefox Browser Supported

2006-07-07T14:26:00.000-04:00

While they have been unofficially supporting it for some time, Auto-Graphics now officially supports Firefox version 1.0.7 or higher. They also support Microsoft Internet Explorer version 5.5 or higher and Netscape version 6.2 or higher. Auto-Graphics no longer officially supports browers below these minimum recommended version.

(Auto-Graphics supplies the software for iCONN and reQuest.)

History and Science Reference Centers - Coming to iCONN Next Week!

2006-06-27T11:22:00.000-04:00

The iCONN Database Committee has been evaluated subscription proposals for a history resource and the decision was made to subscribe to EBSCO's History Reference Center and Science Reference Center for the coming year.

All libraries - Academic, K-12 and Public - will have access. The Committee recommended providing access via two interfaces - EBSCOhost and the Student Research Center.

[Note: The Gale History Resource Centers will be available through the end of June. It is anticipated that access to the EBSCO resources will begin by July 1st. Updates to this scheduled transition will be posted as needed.]

Ebsco's History Reference Center is the world's most comprehensive full text history reference database designed for secondary schools, public libraries, junior/community colleges, and undergraduate research.
For more information including a title list, visit Ebsco's History Reference Center page.

Ebsco's Science Reference Center is a comprehensive research database that provides easy access to a multitude of full text science-oriented content. Designed to meet every student's science research needs, Science Reference Center contains nearly 640 full-text titles from leading scientific encyclopedias, reference books, periodicals, biographies and images.
For more information including a title list, visit Ebsco's Science Reference Center page.

iCONN Remembers!

2006-06-27T11:08:00.000-04:00

With a recent upgrade, the barcode login screen for users accessing iCONN from home can now remember a library card number. On the login screen is a checkbox with the note "Remember my card number on this computer" (see screenshot). If a user checks the box and enters their library card number, a cookie is placed on the computer so that iCONN will remember their card number. The next time the user goes to iCONN on that computer, they will be able to simply click a Begin button. Curious? Try it at home!

Your opinion needed! Take iCONN's Newspaper Survey

2006-05-01T15:47:00.001-04:00

Hi iCONNers!

The iCONN Database Committee would like your opinion about the national newspaper collection available through iCONN.

Please complete this very short survey by Friday May 12th at:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=666852079980

many thanks!
Lorri Huddy

Discovering Collection's Timeline Feature

2006-04-21T09:14:00.000-04:00

Did you know that 100 years ago, freeze drying was invented, C. W. Post perfected Post Toasties Corn Flakes, the term “Tinker to Evers to Chance” was coined and the U. S. population reached 85 million? Using the Timeline in the Discovering Collection makes finding information tidbits like those above easy.

You will find the Timeline link on the Tools menu (see the first picture) on the main search page of the Discovering Collection (you will need to enter you Connecticut public library barcode if you are outside the library). There are several ways to search the Timeline (see the second picture below):

Chronology Bar: You may scroll along the search bar and choose a specific time period by clicking on the time period box. This is a fun way to browse the Timeline. (Notice that some of the images change as you scroll over them.)

Enter a specific year or range of years: You may key in a date in which the event begins or ends in the boxes provided or key in a range of dates.

Search Timeline Event Text: You may enter a specific event into the text box and click on the "Search" button.

You may combine searches by entering a specific year and an event, for example, you may enter 1860 to 1865 and the terms civil war in the text box to get a timeline of major events that took place during the Civil War.

Gale PowerSearch webinars

2006-04-12T13:11:00.000-04:00

Hi iCONNers --

These webinars are a great opportunity for libraries who haven't transitioned to Gale's PowerSearch interface to see what it's all about. When Gale announced PowerSearch last summer, iCONN held information sessions about the new interface. But if your library didn't opt to changeover, you may have forgotten all about this! The cut-over date to PowerSearch for InfoTrac databases is August 1st.

Take advantage of these webinars and prepare for this changeover so you're ready when it happens!

--Lorri Huddy

=============================
Here's Gale's notice about their webinars:

We here at Thomson Gale are happy to continue with a new set of free , online seminars called "PowerSearch Fridays ."

At these seminars, held at the very least every Friday, we will be demonstrating Thomson Gale's new platform -- Thomson Gale PowerSearch. This new platform allows for the cross-search of Gale databases -- more than 17,000 InfoTrac periodicals and hundreds of Thomson Gale and partner eBooks .

If you've never attended a webinar before, here's how it works:

1) Register using this link: http://www.gale.com/enewsletters/product_update/PowerSearch.htm

2) You will receive a confirmation email before the meeting time with another link that you click at the time of the meeting

3) Call into the teleconference (details provided in the confirmation email)

4) Sit back, watch the screen, listen and ask questions.

In the seminars, you will get a glimpse of the new technology, the unique content that Thomson Gale offers, and you will also be introduced to a new service called AccessMyLibrary . With this service, we will show you how you can bring users of popular search engines like Google and Yahoo back to your library!

Libraries across the world are migrating to PowerSearch. Please register for one of our April seminars. Sessions last approximately one hour.

Nader M. Qaimari
Director - InfoTrac and PowerSearch
Thomson Gale
Office: 248.699.8139
Nader.Qaimari@thomson.com

Happy Birthday iCONN

2006-04-07T09:01:00.000-04:00

It's hard to believe, but iCONN is five years old! On April 9, 2001, Governor M. Jodi Rell (Lieutenant Governor at that time) and State Librarian Kendall Wiggin sent out a press release to formally announce iCONN.

iCONN planning actually began long before the public announcement. The Connecticut General Assembly provided funding for the purchase of licensed information databases for Connecticut's libraries, schools and colleges in 2000. Staff at the Connecticut State Library in conjunction with the Department of Higher Education worked to create and implement iCONN. The iCONN kickoff conference for librarians and media specialists was held on March 26, 2001. Since its public debut on April 9, 2001, iCONN use has grown dramatically over the past 5 years.

If you have an iCONN story or simply want to wish iCONN a happy birthday, please leave a comment!

iCONN bid results

2006-04-06T13:21:00.000-04:00

The following is from Bill Sullivan, iCONN Adminstrator:

The Connecticut State Library has completed a bid process in which vendors were invited to submit bids for iCONN: the Connecticut Digital Library in any or all of three categories: General Periodicals, Health Information, and Business Information. The bid for all three categories was awarded to Thomson Gale. As a result, iCONN will continue to offer all the Thomson Gale InfoTrac databases that we currently offer, as well as the health and business resource centers. The Thomson Gale proposal also included the following five multi-volume e-books:

- Encyclopedia of Population, 2V, 2003 (Macmillan)
- Encyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence and Security, 3V, 2003 (Gale)
- Renaissance: An Encyclopedia for Students, 4V, 2004 (Scribner)
- U*X*L Encyclopedia of Landforms and Other Geologic Features, 3V, 2003
- U*X*L Fashion, Costume, and Culture: Clothing, Headwear, Body Decorations and Footwear through the Ages, 5V, 2003

The contract signed with Gale is a three-year contract (July 1, 2006 - June 30, 2009) with options for three one-year renewals.

Putting iCONN in your Netscape Bookmarks

2006-03-30T14:30:00.000-05:00

When you go to iCONN with the URL www.iconn.org the system runs through a number of checks to make sure you get the proper databases. After it does the checks you will either get right into the databases or you will get a barcode login screen and can proceed from there. You cannot bookmark any of these subsequent pages. You have to bookmark the original www.iconn.org URL. Briefly, this involves opening the bookmark properties and inputting the original URL. Here's how to input the URL if you are using the Netscape browser:

To create a new iCONN bookmark in Netscape:

Open Netscape
Click Bookmarks on the toolbar
Click Manage Bookmarks from the menu. A new window will open so that you can make some changes to your bookmarks.
Click File on the menubar at the top of the page
Click the New and then Bookmark on the menu. A new small window will open.
Enter a name for the bookmark in the Name field. I used iCONN as the name.
Enter http://www.iconn.org in the Location field (see screen shot - you can click the image to see a larger version of the picture)
Click OK. This will put the bookmark at the bottom of your list of bookmarks. If you have other bookmarks, you can click and drag the new iCONN bookmark and put it anywhere on your list.
Close the Manage Bookmarks window.

The next time you need to use iCONN, simply click your new iCONN Netscape bookmark!

(Note: I did this using Netscape version 7.1, there may be variations of the steps above if you are using a newer or older version of Netscape, but the main idea is the same - edit the properties of the bookmark and input the original URL.)

Putting iCONN in your Internet Explorer Favorites

2006-03-30T12:38:00.000-05:00

When you go to iCONN with the URL www.iconn.org the system runs through a number of checks to make sure you get the proper databases. After it does the checks you will either get right into the databases or you will get a barcode login screen and can proceed from there. You cannot make a Favorite of any of these subsequent pages. You have to input the original www.iconn.org URL into the Favorite. Briefly, this involves creating a Favorite, then opening the Favorite properties and inputting the original URL. Here's how to do this if you are using the Internet Explorer (IE) browser...

To create a new iCONN Favorite in IE:

Open Internet Explorer
Go to www.iconn.org
Login using your Connecticut Public Library barcode number if you are outside the library
Click Favorites on the menu bar
Click Add to Favorites from the menu. A new window will open.
Change the name to iCONN
Click the OK button (see the first screen shot - you can click on the picture to see a larger image). This create a Favorite, but it links to a URL that will only work for a day or two. We have to edit the URL so that it points to the original iCONN URL.
Click Favorites so that you see your list of Favorites
Put your cursor over the iCONN Favorite so that it's highlighted
Right-click on the mouse while your cursor is on the iCONN Favorite. This will bring up a new menu.
Click Properties on the menu. This will bring up the iCONN Favorite's Properties.
Click the tab for "Web document" if it is not already selected
Delete the old URL that is in the URL field
Input the http://www.iconn.org into the URL field (see second screen shot)
Click the OK button

The next time you need to use iCONN, simply click your new iCONN IE Favorite!

(Note: I did this using IE version 6.0.2900, there may be variations of the steps above if you are using a newer or older version of IE, but the main idea is the same - edit the properties of the Favorite and input the original URL.)

Putting iCONN in your Firefox Bookmarks

2006-03-30T11:04:00.000-05:00

When you go to iCONN with the URL www.iconn.org the system runs through a number of checks to make sure you get the proper databases. After it does the checks you will either get right into the databases or you will get a barcode login screen and can proceed from there. You cannot bookmark any of these subsequent pages. You have to bookmark the original www.iconn.org URL. Briefly, this involves opening the bookmark properties and inputting the original URL. Here's how to input the URL if you are using the Firefox browser:

To create a new iCONN bookmark in Firefox:

Open Firefox
Click Bookmarks on the toolbar
Click Manage Bookmarks from the menu (see first screen shot). A new window will open so that you can make some changes to your bookmarks.
Click the New Bookmark icon on the menubar at the top. A new small window will open.
Enter a name for the bookmark in the Name field. I used iCONN as the name.
Enter http://www.iconn.org in the Location field (see the second screen shot)
Click OK. This will put the bookmark at the top of your list of bookmarks. If you have other bookmarks, you can click and drag the new iCONN bookmark and put it anywhere on your list.
Close the Manage Bookmarks window.

The next time you need to use iCONN, simply click your new iCONN Firefox bookmark!

(Note: I did this using Firefox version 1.5.0.1, there may be variations of the steps above if you are using a newer or older version of Firefox, but the main idea is the same - edit the properties of the bookmark and input the original URL. Also note that I have way too many bookmarks!)

reQuest: Sorting by mileage

2006-03-27T10:04:00.000-05:00

Did you know that in the reQuest Main Catalog or Magazine Catalog, you can sort libraries so that the ones closest to you appear first on the list of library locations? This feature comes in handy when you need an item quickly and are willing to drive to a library to pick it up.

(Note: You can click the pictures to see a bigger image.)

For example, the screen shot at the top left shows the record for the Da Vinci Code. Simply scroll down until you see the Locations Information. This information lists information about libraries that own the item and includes the mileage, institution name, and call number. Notice that the field Miles is a hot-link (see the second screen shot).

If you click on the Miles link, the screen will re-fresh and the holding libraries will re-sort so that you see the ones nearest to you (see the third screen shot).

To determine mileage, reQuest uses your home library's zip code. In this example, the zip code is for Middletown, where I work.

You can change the zip code. Notice that the zip code of your home library appears just below the Library Information heading. The zip code is a hot-link. Click the zip code and a new mini-window will open (see the fourth screen shot). You can then enter any zip code in Connecticut. When you click the Submit button, the system will then re- calculate the mileage between this new zip code and the destination libraries.

I find the ability to change zip codes very handy as I can calculate the distance from either my work location in Middletown or from my home in New Britain.

Not at Computers in Libraries this week?

2006-03-23T23:32:00.000-05:00

Me neither, but I can keep up, at least a little (the joy of blogs!): Technorati Tag: cil2006; Thanks to Bill Drew for the quick & easy reference that led me to the CIL stuff - his blog is at http://babyboomerlibrarian.blogspot.com/... for the public librarians out there, I have no doubt that a Google blog search can lead you to PLA notes (in case you didn't get to go to that conference, either).

Google Finance

2006-03-23T17:13:00.000-05:00

Not to come to the table too belatedly (I'm sure that all of you
business librarian types already knew about it), BUT... Google Finance
is here - seemingly unremarkable, but I'm told that the tool is useful
and takes advantage of AJAX technology -
http://finance.google.com/finance
-From 18*20 Trinity St., the new CT State Library Web Resources
Librarian

Ebooks Survey and what it says to librarians...

2006-03-15T17:09:00.000-05:00

There's some interesting findings in the results of a survey (report in PDF format) on ebooks produced by the International Digital Publishing Forum.

(1) The survey notes that DRM restrictions on ebooks are seen as unfair by ebook purchasers, who are also appalled at having to pay more than they would pay for a paperback (for e-content that has no printing, shipping, distribution, or similar costs associated with it!)
(2) It shows how few ebook readers have used ebooks obtained from libraries (82% of the survey's sample had purchased an ebook in the past month but only 8% had borrowed one from a library). The sample, I should note, was solicited from the IDPF's website, from the IDPF email lists, and from the customers of 2 major eBook websites (ereader.com and fictionwise.com).
(3) It shows how important a full-featured, easy-to-use, non-frustrating web interface is to customers: (quoted from p. 5 of the IDPF report at http://www.idpf.org/doc_library/surveys/
IDPF_eBook_User_Survey_2006.pdf:
Many features reached into the 90th percentile of satisfaction with “eBook retail site is easy to navigate”, “eBook retail site looks interesting, attractive and not too busy”, “eBook retail site offers a lot of information on eBook titles”, “ease of locating available titles”, “the shopping process is easy to understand and navigate”, “ease of downloading purchased titles”, “I can read in a comfortable font size”, and “improved convenience and portability over paper books” all showing that over 90% of respondents marked their level of satisfaction as “average” or above.)

Also, some comments from the survey-takers, as quoted from the report (p. 10):
“Improve the advanced searching functions. If I can't find what I'm after easily I just won't buy the eBook version, and I have less and less patience with poor searchability as the novelty of eBooks wears off. In particular, I want to be able to search for just a certain size of book (whether that be by classification such as Novel, or a minimum number of words), and I want to be able to set exclude terms.”

“Provide sample chapters, or at least snippets. Unless I am familiar with the author, I am unlikely to take a chance on a book where I can't at least get a feel for the writing style. One can browse paper books in a traditional bookstore to get this kind of information, so eBooks must have SOME similar capability.”

“One of the things that has greatly improved amazon.com is the ability to look 'inside' a book. See the cover, the title page and a few pages from the text. Otherwise it is very hard to decide to purchase a book.”

“More emphasis on description of content and less on 'cover-shots' which are of even less importance when purchasing e-books than normal books.”

AP Photo Archive's new interface is live!

2006-03-15T16:32:00.000-05:00

Hi All -

AP Photo Archive has released their updated interface. They are tweaking things a bit so you may see changes over the next few weeks but it's worthwhile to take a look at what they've done. Very briefly, here are its two main features:

AP Photo Headlines: recent photos are grouped by topic and subdivisions -- Showcase, World, Entertainment, U.S., Sports, Business, and Weather. This area is updated daily for quick access to photos pertaining to recent news stories.

Pre2000 Archive: There are so many photos in the archive that a second server was added. For photos taken before the year 2000, make sure you search this Pre2000 archive. The default search is International Photos so change which archive is being searched to find these earlier photos.

Have fun trying out the new features!
L. Huddy

P.S. - If you're on the iCONN listserv, you also got the attachment with instructions on the new AP interface. If you're feeling out of the loop (or just wanting more iCONN info), join the iCONN listserv today!

Browser & Firewall Settings Reminder

2006-03-15T16:19:00.000-05:00

Don't forget to check out iCONN's guides to browser settings ( http://www.iconn.org/staff/BrowserSupport.aspx ) and firewall configuration ( http://www.iconn.org/staff/FirewallServerConfig.aspx ), available at the iCONN website.

Between the Bookends Blog

2006-03-15T14:10:00.000-05:00

Between the Bookends is a new blog from CLC's director, Chris Bradley. I'm not sure if she's ready to really publicize it "live", but it looks ready to me! Take a look for yourself...

Downtime - 3/14/06

2006-03-14T16:45:00.000-05:00

From our ILL Coordinator, S. Cauffman:
Hello everyone,
Sorry for the short notice and any inconvenience, but due to system maintenance iCONN, including reQuest will be down on Tuesday, March 14 from 11 p.m. until 1 a.m. and then up sporadically until 5 a.m. Auto-Graphics expects the system will be fully functional after 5 a.m. on Wednesday morning.
*******
If you missed this important announcement, you're probably not on our iCONN or reQuest listservs. The how-to subscribe information is available from our site index at http://www.iconn.org/siteindex.aspx

Pop Up Blocker Testing

2006-03-14T16:07:00.000-05:00

Not sure if you have popup blockers somewhere on your machine (wreaking havoc with the iCONN databases/catalog)? Try this online testing software - use it in a web browser: Pop Up Blocker Test

My only caveats: (1) it takes a little while and the final steps take user interaction; (2) its vision of "Poor" is our vision of "Good" when it comes to popup blockers and iCONN services. If you get a Good or other positive rating from this tester, you may have trouble with iCONN or reQuest. If you get a "Poor", you'll likely do just fine. (I do fine with iCONN and got a "Poor" score of 35%.)

Popup Blockers and iCONN

2006-03-14T10:08:00.000-05:00

Of the reports we get from users, one of the more common ones is that people are having trouble getting from the federated search results screen into the individual databases to see those results (by clicking on the number of hits in the given database). This is often caused by popup blockers.

The difficult part is that popup blockers are now being embedded in other software downloads - such as Google or Yahoo toolbars, the Furl browser buttons, heck, even Windows XP SP2's update of IE includes a popup blocking feature.

Amy Terlaga, of the Bibliomation library network, found a page that describes how to turn off various blockers, even temporarily (in many cases, it appears that hitting the Ctrl key will allow you to temporarily turn off a popup blocker, for a given site, for example). Here's the page Amy referred me to: Popup Blockers - http://www.palomar.edu/atrc/help/popupblockers.htm So, thanks Amy! And happy iCONNing, everyone!

Last week with iCONN

2006-03-13T11:34:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm afraid that I have news both good & bad. First, the good news: as of Friday, I'll begin working for the CT State Library in a different, permanent employee (v. contractor) realm. Secondly, the bad news: I will be leaving the iCONN Outreach Coordinator position. My new job will be focused on web development for the state library. My time here at the iCONN project, which is itself a Connecticut State Library program, has shown me that there is a lot of work we have to do to get the word out about the Connecticut Digital Library.

I've done my best to contribute to public awareness efforts, by creating a baseline for analysis of the effectiveness of our marketing efforts, through the survey (done by UCONN's CSRA), which helped us to understand that while 14% had heard of iCONN, only 5% of the general public were at all familiar with the service. We also learned about their perceptions in regards to online services and libraries, more generally. We measured what was most valuable to members of the public about these services and what messages resonated with them. Along with the other staff members here (Steve's done a great job, for example, with adding appealing colorful photos to our brochures which describe the iCONN offerings), I've modified promotional materials (keeping our survey findings in mind when tailoring the messages) and worked on events that served to market the service. I've sent out mailings and contacted webmasters of sites that now link to appropriate iCONN databases.

Raising public awareness of iCONN considerably (say, from a 5% to a greater than or equal to 25% "at least somewhat familiar" rate) would take longer than a 6-12 month contract could realistically encompass... at least without an infusion of cash to underwrite mass marketing efforts, such as advertising on television. An increment of this could likely be achieved, of course.

Still, it would be ideal for iCONN if they could hire someone as a permanent employee to share the load and to provide the constant stream of press releases, emails, and marketing materials that are necessary to really build a brand. iCONN has always done an excellent job in promoting itself to core constituencies, such as librarians, and has primarily relied upon those librarians to get the word out to the public. Without a coordinator dedicated to direct public outreach, this model becomes the fall-back, but in just over 7 months, I've seen the program move forward in the sophistication of its marketing techniques by leaps and bounds and would hate to see it lose momentum. I would also hate to see its small staff overwhelmed due to my shift in position.

This having been said, some of that work really has to happen on the web side of things. iCONN is, after all, a digital library and our potential users are online - all too often unaware of this great State Library-administered service (which is free to all Connecticut residents and encompasses over 5,000 full-text magazines, journals, and newspapers). I'm grateful that I'm getting the chance to redeploy and enhance my web skills to further the mission of the State Library and iCONN along with it. I'm sad to leave this great office, staff, and project, but I will not be leaving it behind completely, for which I'm even more grateful! Thank you and I hope that I have aided iCONN in its quest for greater public awareness of the service. I also hope that I am able to continue to help iCONN increase public awareness of iCONN through work on the web. I know that my time here has helped me to better understand the art of communications -- a skill that is at least as valuable to a webmaster as the technical skillset I had developed in previous library technology positions.

A huge thank you from me to everyone at iCONN for giving me such a great opportunity and being such affable, decent, outrageously smart, principled, and fun colleagues!
libraries

Gale . InfoTrac OneFile . Quick Summary

2006-03-10T17:53:00.000-05:00

Gale . InfoTrac OneFile . Quick Summary

Over 5,000 full-text titles are currently available in InfoTrac OneFile. It's hard for us to keep up with the developments in our iCONN products - the number of titles is always a moving target - so our iCONN promotional materials tend to be underrepresenting numbers of resources, if anything. I'm proofing an ad we'd like to run in the CEA Advisor & I decided to double-check our claim of over 4,000 f-t titles for ITOF, and noticed that Gale now reports 5,156 f-t titles! That's great. (Now, back to the drawing board!)

To ensure that you always have the best possible information about the Gale databases featured in iCONN, you can go to the Gale website - for OneFile, for example, you can go to http://www.gale.com/onefile/quick.htm.

Gale - Free Resources - Women's History - Home

2006-03-10T17:47:00.000-05:00

Gale - Free Resources - Women's History - Home

March is Women's History Month and Thomson Gale has provided a webpage with free resources about women's history. It includes a free, downloadable calendar related to the topic, biographies, a quiz, a timeline of significant events, and activities. And remember, you're always bound to find something in iCONN on a topic like this - with Wilson Biographies, the InfoTracs (Kids' InfoBits for elementary-level students, InfoTrac Junior Edition for middle schoolers, and InfoTrac Student Edition for high schoolers, and InfoTrac OneFile for almost everyone). So, go to www.iconn.org. If you're not currently in a library, have your public library card number ready to access the service.

iCONN-ographies

2006-03-10T13:01:00.000-05:00

We'd like to start adding user comments into the iCONN blog to better "tell the iCONN story":

THANK YOU THANK YOU!!! My husband and I are kids in a candy store looking through the Hartford Courant historical papers recently put online. This has been a godsend to our individual research projects and will save us hours of time looking through microfilm. Our only "complaint" - if it can even be called that - is that the paper goes up only through 1924. We are hoping that 1925-on will be digitized and added soon!

Thanks again for all the good work that you do.
-K.O., Hartford

[Note: The user who sent us this feedback authorized use of this quote on our blog.]

Coming Soon -NEW AP Photo Archive Interface

2006-03-08T17:05:00.000-05:00

Coming Soon

From L. Huddy, iCONN's E Resources Coordinator:
In late March/ early April, the AP Photo Archive will be updating their interface. A new User's Guide will be made available once the new interface goes live. iCONN will forward any AP updates we receive to
help ease this transition.

Technical Funkiness

2006-03-07T12:18:00.000-05:00

Well, it happens everywhere and the iCONN federated/meta (all-in-one) search engine is no exception - there is currently something not quite right about the results that come up through that metasearch against InfoTrac OneFile, General Reference Center Gold, and Expanded Academic ASAP - one of us here at iCONN was searching on "george washington" at the end of last week, e.g., and came up with 0 hits in the ITOF, I believe. When she went into the database individually and used its native search interface, the correct results set came up.

It appears to be an issue related to syntax having changed with Gale products using the PowerSearch - or at least that's the current theory. Auto-Graphics is in touch with Gale to work it all out. If you conduct a meta-search on iCONN that you're fairly clear is behaving oddly, please let our staff know so we can follow up asap. We did get a report on this problem this week, so we know some folks have noticed.

In the meantime, linking to individual databases (choose "Link to Individual Databases" below the search box at iCONN's opening search page OR, choose "Select iCONN Resources" (if the individual dbs are not already showing) and then click on the name of the database you want to go into) is recommended for these products. Also, this might be a good time to remind you that iCONN has a list of URLs for you to use if you want to set up direct links of your own into specific iCONN resources (from your website, for example). They are available in Word & PDF formats at: http://www.iconn.org/staff/urltable.aspx.

Finally, a couple of housekeeping reminders: (1) system is being taken down (I'm quoting from an email from A-G):
Auto-Graphics will be performing a minor AGent update this Wednesday
evening, March 8, 2006, beginning at 8pm PT. It will complete prior to
2am PT. While the update does not contain any visual changes to the
system, we wanted you to know it was occurring.
(2) to keep up with iCONN announcements, don't forget to join our listserv, which is fairly low traffic and highly relevant - should keep you on top of iCONN system issues/downtimes/enhancements & more! To sign up, go to: http://lists.auto-graphics.com/mailman/listinfo/iconn

Storynory - free children's stories for your iPod

2006-03-07T11:55:00.000-05:00

Storynory - free downloadable audio children's stories

Available for your iPod. I haven't tried them out myself, but I've heard some consumers highly recommending these. So free, downloadable audio ebooks. I like it!

Europe's digital library taking shape | CNET News.com

2006-03-03T13:48:00.000-05:00

Europe's digital library taking shape | CNET News.com

It looks like much of Europe's "collective memory" will be available online around 2008-2010 through the European Commission's Digital Library initiative, which will allow users to search library, archive, and museum collections through a single portal (with multilingual support). It makes me wonder if we - in America - are trailing behind in the support of such a unified initiative. Maybe this will spur our community further, as it appear Google's project has spurred the EC. Now, here's the question that I have, however, (given that Google's project has been slowed due to copyright/legalistic hurdles) how is the EC dealing with DRM? Is their initiative solely an index project, or does it incorporate actual, fully digitized works?

Techdirt:More People Realizing That Copy Protection Is Just Bad

2006-03-02T11:54:00.000-05:00

Techdirt:More People Realizing That Copy Protection Is Just Bad

I told a coworker yesterday that DRM is going to be my latest soapbox, because the more I think about it, the more it bugs me. Why did the Digital Millennium Copyright Act extend the length of copyright protections in an era in which information decreases in relevance more quickly than ever?

And how did publishers get so powerful that they could wrestle Google to the ground? [And, to be honest, why were we librarians so often on the sidelines acting a little smug - a little "I told you so" - instead of being more vocally in support of the mission that Google states that it abides by (one that librarians share, I might add) - to make the world's information more accessible? Don't get me wrong, I feel that we must be respectful of the content providers' rights and the content creators' rights, but we need to be careful that in obeying both the law and our ethics regarding these rights, we don't hamper the flow of information that has always served as the basis for a well-informed citizenry, which is so crucial to the existence of a democracy.]

In fact, a question that came up from a librarian yesterday was whether or not she could ILL an article that she'd obtained from iCONN. While we haven't gotten a definitive answer, it seems that the safest and most likely route to go would be to prohibit this behavior, to ensure that we're honoring the licensing agreement we have with our db vendors. But here's the rub - the library in question had eliminated their hard copies because of the database access. Yet, if they'd had their hard copies, they would've been allowed to ILL a copy of the article. So, once again it seems obvious that we have fewer rights with electronic information than we had with hard copy/printed information.

Good news! iCONN has written into its RFPs and licensing agreements requirements that libraries using the iCONN resources be allowed to ILL the articles within the databases - subject, of course, to the same laws that traditional hard copy articles are in terms of copyright. I hope that all institutions manage to do the same with their database licensing agreements. Now to get the rest of the copyright and digital rights issues worked out to allow greater access to information for everyone!

A Blog from Sirsi VP on Library Technology and Innovation

2006-03-02T11:34:00.000-05:00

K. Chapman, on the CEMA listserv, mentioned this blog - Stephen's Lighthouse - from Stephen Abram, of Sirsi fame, on library technology. So I took a look ... Today's posting on the "boom and bust" cycle of web technologies - be they intranet or public portal - makes a good point about the approach we all too often take in our online projects. Intranets, websites, portals -- none of these things should ever hit a comfort zone - they should always be growing, evolving, striving, responding, and leading.

I've heard (and witnessed from the user end myself) the discomfort felt by librarians and patrons when iCONN moved from its old format to the "all-in-one" (metasearch/federated) search format. The adoption of that technology was a bold move with its share of consequences, both positive and negative, intended and unintended. I'm not saying that it was perfect, or even perfectly executed (and admit it, who among us has executed every moment of growth in their lives perfectly), but it was part of a larger attempt to respond to users' concerns. In this case, the change was designed to respond to many of our non-librarian users' desire to search all iCONN resources simultaneously, without having to know if it was InfoTrac OneFile or Wilson Biographies that would best meet their needs. They had gotten used to a Google world - one stop for everything and we had to move iCONN forward to start to meet the challenge raised by this new perception of how we should search.

And I'm not saying that the metasearch technology is perfectly executed by vendors even a year later, but I can tell you that iCONN is always looking toward evolution and often pushing their own vendor in that direction. The process is imperfect and too slow for many of us who tend toward impatience, but the philosophy that drives the evolution is "right on" and will lead to even more improvements and refinements over time. Ultimately, the product will better meet all of our users' needs.

I remember our Webmasters' Roundtable last week (was it just last week? geez...) featuring Miranda Creative that focused on website redesign. And even there, the presentation focused on sort of one-time (or at least semi-permanent) efforts to redo a library's website. While the presentation rightly pointed out the importance of an ongoing website maintenance plan when doing a redesign, I think the term "maintenance" is not necessarily powerful enough. "Maintenance" is like keeping an old technology going, often long past its prime. And there's no reason for a website to ever be static and "maintained" or, at most, "updated". It should evolve. As Abrams notes, we should constantly be working on "organic websites, portals and intranets". That means - of course - that the administrators of our libraries and of the organizations that our libraries may be a part of (local governments, for example) will have to recognize that web mastering is not just a fun little thing we do in our spare time, but that it is a discipline unto itself -- that it must be respected and, thus, that resources must be dedicated to it. Resources might include specialists in web work, but perhaps a better choice might be to expend resources in training or further developing existing librarian-webmasters and in giving them the tools they need to make their jobs easier.

Healthology - Colon Cancer Treatment - Better Treatments for Lon

2006-03-01T11:37:00.000-05:00

Healthology - Colon Cancer Treatment - Better Treatments for Lon

If you're ever unfortunate enough to have someone close to you - or yourself - diagnosed with cancer, the challenges you're face with are daunting - and one of those challenges relates to finding good information about the condition and its medical treatment. In the Gale Health & Wellness Resource Center, you can access articles and reference information that can help, at least with the information end of things. I recently took the training on Gale's HWRC and discovered the new "Healthology" section, which features a couple of neat options:
(1) online videos about various health topics - a specific complication related to chemotherapy and its resolution was the subject matter of one little video, for example (one that I just watched, I should add - it was excellent, gave me some new info to pass on to someone close to me who's dealing with this issue)
(2) news alerts about specific and/or general health issues. I also signed up for this and have been receiving news about the specific cancer that my loved one is dealing with, as well as about general health topics, ranging from ADHD to what to expect when getting an X-Ray.

Hopefully, you'll never need this resource for the same reasons that I do, but it's great to know it's there, either way. There are sections on basic wellness, and that's something we can all use!

ALA | Download free photos

2006-02-28T13:04:00.000-05:00

ALA | Download free photos

In the realm of improving marketing materials, be they flyers, posters, brochures, or web pages, one thing can make a major difference - quality photos. I was poking around the ALA site for other reasons & ran across this page, which offers some beautiful downloadable pictures that were obtained through a photo contest sponsored by ALA. The terms of the contest, of course, were that the photos could be used in any way that ALA deemed. There are 17 downloadable pictures appropriate for libraries at the website. You should remember to attribute the images to the photographer who took the given picture and cite them to The Beyond Words: Celebrating America's Libraries Photo Contest.

Connecticut Local Politics: Researching Connecticut

2006-02-28T12:37:00.000-05:00

Connecticut Local Politics: Researching Connecticut

Hey, there's some buzz going on about us - yay, that's we want - get the word out there that we're available free to ALL of the state's residents -- up that usage! Anyhow, this entry is from a blog about Connecticut politics - haven't looked at the profile of the blogger, yet, but it looks pretty interesting, so take a gander for yourself!

TechCrunch � Google Pages Released

2006-02-23T16:44:00.000-05:00

TechCrunch - Google Pages Released

Speaking of websites - free, easy to create webpages, anyone? Google has a new product in beta called "Google Page Creator" and it allows users to create webpages through a web interface (say goodbye to FrontPage, Dreamweaver, Contribute, GoLive, etc., folks!)

"Google Pages allows you to upload files, create many pages that you can link up, and select from a smorgasbord of templates. The website which you can then push out to publish can then be found at username.googlepages.com... Google Pages does let you upload any file though, and gives you 100MB of space, which some may find more useful for sharing files or distributing SNL video’s... For instance, this is not going to be a threat to the younger crowd who are all creating pages on MySpace, nor to the audience of millions of bloggers who already have their online presence, nor to the players in the CMS space who offer a whole lot more in functionality and power."

OK, so the lack of domain mapping is indeed a problem in this beta phase and yes, it's true that if you try to make a page creator account right now, you'll get denied, as they've had too much of a traffic hit, but this could indeed be a good answer for our under-webpresented libraries out there in Connecticut. Check it out.

And, yes, I admit it, there's a tiny little territorial part of me that hesitates to share this tidbit with you all. Besides, if Google's creating this system for everyone, it sort of knocks my theory of most/all libraries needing web-fluent staff on its knees. Overall, however, I still believe that our profession needs programmers. With programmers, maybe libraries would be offering something like the services Google offers. Just an idle dream?

Web Librarians' Roundtable - Redesigning library websites

2006-02-23T10:00:00.000-05:00

Maria Miranda, of Miranda Creative, spoke at yesterday's Web Librarians Roundtable (don't forget to check out the web librarians' blog at http://weblibrarians.blogspot.com) about redesigning your library's website. Since so many people attended, I'm guessing a lot of us are interested in the topic these days and - for those of you who didn't get a chance to be there- I figured I'd give you a rundown of the presentation with my own spin on it all!

The most important point - one that you'd think we'd all sort of get by now, but then again, it never hurts to hear it again - is that the website is your new "front door"! (I would add to that - and the side door, back door, and emergency exits!) With hyperlinking, we can't control the usage of our sites and the path that our audiences take through our sites, but that shouldn't matter - every page should be as clearly presented as the home page, with salient information, such as the address and phone number of your organization being in the footer.

It was clear from her presentation, in which she reviewed many of the CLC members' sites in a cursory fashion, that we're not all at the best possible front door stage yet. (Think about what our iCONN Marketing Survey told us - only 20% of the general public in CT has gone to their library's website! And don't you think that disappointing experiences with library websites have led patrons to underestimate the technology and services they can access through the library... heck, how many people who finally get to our websites ever come back?)

Another key point that I think I should note before anyone gets too upset is that websites are always evolving, so redesign is a constant and does not mean that there's anything inherently wrong in what you've developed in the past - it just means that it's not meeting your audience's current needs. (Heck, I see that Miranda's website is undergoing some evolution itself!)

Oh, and here's a great insight, I might add - a quote from Maria Miranda:
"You know what a camel is, right? ... a camel is a horse designed by a committee." So if you're working on site redesign, you do want to be somewhat inclusive in the process, but don't let compromises and too many opinions turn your site into a camel. User-centered design is a good key to avoiding this problem. Work with your key audiences to develop something that meets their needs. Don't just go off of your own "instincts" as to what makes sense to you or your committee &/or looks good to you or your committee. Don't just talk to fellow library staff members - talk to the audience that you want to use the website to get ideas about terminology, what's intuitive for navigation, and what the most important information is to the user. Then get them there quickly. It doesn't all have to be on the first page, however -- in fact, too busy (particularly too text-heavy) a home page will be an immediate turnoff & frustration to audiences.

Text-heaviness was a common problem noted by Ms. Miranda in the webpages she showed from various CT libraries' websites. She talked about the power of photography and images. She even suggested that it would be worthwhile for libraries to spend the approx. $300 / annually (I haven't fact checked, but I think that I transcribed this info correctly) it takes to subscribe to a great stock photo outlet, such as photos.com. A professional photographer could be expensive, but might be a worthwhile investment for many institutions. If it's not possible, take photos with a good quality digital camera around the library. I'm sure that you'd have to work out how to get permission to use images of your patrons for the website, but I'm equally sure that it's quite doable.

Though there's a lot more "meat" to the presentation than I can cover here, including some interesting ideas about how to promote your redesigned website once it's nearly complete/readied for the "go live" date, there's one really important footnote to the presentation - throughout her talk, Maria said that she'd visited many Ct. libraries' websites of late and that she'd rarely found a "welcoming" home page. She strongly suggested a "Welcome to xxx Library" statement on the home page, ideally with current photos of the library or library use by patrons or staff. It's part of the friendly, warm, welcoming atmosphere public libraries should be offering patrons.

Finally, I wanted to raise the issue of why we don't prioritize web work in a professional way in the library world. Instead, it seems like libraries throughout the state (actually, that's not fair, it's throughout the nation, probably the world) just add web work as one more assignment (as though it's a simple project to build, maintain, and evolve web services for libraries) for people whose expertise is in information retrieval, circulation, and/or cataloging? It's as if library administrators all too often don't respect the world of web technology in all of its fast-evolving complexity. It's not simple html, Dreamweaver, or Front Page. Web development and web services encompass a set of programming languages and concepts that are as complex as AACR2 and MARC formats.

I know that there's a basic economic issue governing this lack of web professionalism, and I do think that we want to move more librarians into web professionals, rather than somehow getting our field out of web work, but I think we have to acknowledge that it is a specialty unto itself. It's not just a "fun" assignment (though I agree that web work can be extremely satisfying!) - ultimately, web development is a crucial means of communicating with, and providing services, to our patrons. So take your web-literate librarians, or those who can & want to be, and move them to the next level - give them tools to move them further into web programming, content preparation, and/or web design (the primary tools being time and training!). Might I suggest that it would be good to reduce their other duties, as well, and to prioritize this aspect of their work? Also, consider which pieces of your web development should be outsourced to specialists.

We also need to get our MLIS programs up to snuff. There's no reason why anyone graduating Library School should fail to know HTML (not just how to use WYSIWYG editors, though that's a good start). Ideally, MLS programs would even require you to take other programming/systems courses... XML, Javascript, MySQL, PHP, Apache, Linux, for example, could be part of the web librarian "track".

So there's a lot to think about as we engage with our library websites. Still, I'd hate to have anyone who was at the roundtable (or who's reading this) feel badly because their site was pointed out as needing improvement or for them to feel overwhelmed because there's so much work that needs to be done to improve it. Instead, I'd suggest that librarians concentrate on how this web development work will better serve their patrons. Remember, redesign=evolution.

And, for those libraries that realize that they're too small to devote time to website work, think about doing something to reduce the programming/design burden and just concentrate your limited web time & expertise to customizing (adding content to) existing products/systems. For example, Miranda Creative is creating a set of Dreamweaver-based website templates for libraries. Libraries can then customize them using nothing more than Macromedia's Contribute (or DW, if you already have it, but if you don't DW is so expensive and Contribute is much less $ & easier to learn). Think about buying into something like that. Or a content management system. More on that another time.

[BTW, if you're doing a site redesign, I want to remind you that you can hyperlink to individual iCONN databases, as well as the whole kit-and-kaboodle. For the individual URLs, go to our page http://www.iconn.org/staff/urltable.aspx.]

Don't forget, there will be another webmasters' roundtable coming up in about month(?), so keep an eye on the Connecticut Library Consortium's website for more information (meeting notices are usually published on CONNTECH, too). Get involved & good luck with your own web efforts. Remember, even Miranda's website could use some work - all of ours could!

Elder Wisdom Circle. Advice From Those Who Care.

2006-02-21T09:08:00.000-05:00

Elder Wisdom Circle. Advice From Those Who Care.

I heard about this on NPR this AM and - while it's not library-related, per se, I thought I'd share the site and the concept. I think it's a very touching idea - to use the internet to hook up elders and people seeking advice. The story can be read at National Public Radio's website.

Is there a place for libraries in expanding the Elder Wisdom Circle? I'll leave that to library-land, but it's definitely something to think about.

Library Grants Blog

2006-02-17T20:03:00.000-05:00

There's a new Library Grants Blog available from librarians Pam MacKellar and Stephanie Gerding, who also wrote the news book and CD Grants for Libraries. Worth a look-see, if you're looking for funding (and who isn't, really?)

The Cluetrain Manifesto - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

2006-02-17T20:00:00.000-05:00

The Cluetrain Manifesto - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. If you never saw the so-called "Cluetrain Manifesto", take a look, it's got a lot of ideas that informed the dot com boom, and even Web 2.0 (and perhaps the Web 3.0 that's forming in people's minds right now). The ideas in the manifesto are crucial to the evolution of libraries & their digital offerings, I believe. You can read the manifesto (which became a book) online for free at the Cluetrain site - http://www.cluetrain.com/.

Use of Specialized, Subject or Project-oriented Blogs to lead users to library resources

2006-02-17T13:53:00.000-05:00

An interesting post by the Undergraduate Services Librarian at Virginia Commonwealth University about their Black History Month specialized blog project: Library Marketing-Thinking Outside the Book: Short-term blog for long-term marketing gain

This is one of the marketing-esque ideas I had for iCONN -- do themed blog entries and subject-oriented webpages to guide users into the iCONN databases in ways alternative to (but in addition to) leading those users solely through the overwhelming federated/all-in-one search front door -- maybe what we need to think about, though, is doing themed iCONN blogs on various subject areas!

Woman's Day Initiative Asks Readers to Share Stories on How the Library Has Changed Their Life

2006-02-17T13:05:00.000-05:00

NEWS
For Immediate Release Contact: Megan Humphrey
February 16, 2006 312-280-4020
mhumphrey@ala.org

New Woman's Day initiative asks readers to share
stories on how the library has changed their life

Woman's Day magazine wants to learn how the library has changed lives.

The magazine announced the editorial initiative in its March 7 issue, which reached subscribers last week. In the issue, the magazine declares that "libraries are magical places" and asks readers to submit their stories in 700 words or less. Stories can be sent to womansday@ala.org from now until May 10, 2006, when the promotion closes. Four of the submissions will be featured in an upcoming issue of Woman's Day.

Librarians can promote the initiative in their library by downloading free promotional tools from the ALA @ your library® Web site, http://www.ala.org/ala/pio/campaign/sponsorship/wdchangelives.htm Tools include a sample press release, downloadable logos, sample newsletter copy and flyer.

In the same issue, Woman's Day highlights the two winners from last year's editorial initiative, which asked people why they would want to research their family trees at the library. The four-page article features librarians Howard Grueneberg from the Urbana (Ill.) Free Library and Shellie Cocking from the San Francisco Public Library guiding the winners through library resources to help them discover new parts of their family history. It also includes a sidebar with tips on plotting family history from ALA member Stephen C. Young of the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah. Young is chair of the genealogy committee for the Reference and User Services Association's (RUSA) history section.

The ALA partnership with Woman's Day began in 2002 with a series of workshops for aspiring writers led by writers from the magazine. It has developed into a multi-program partnership that has resulted in approximately $4 million in library-related editorial coverage in five issues of the magazine, donated ad space and an online book club featuring ALA members.

The writing workshops will kick off again this year during National Library Week at 10 community college and public libraries throughout the country. Currently, the Woman's Day online book club features YALSA members' book recommendations for young adults, and beginning this summer, the book club will highlight RUSA members. The book club is available by visiting www.womansday.com/community.

Woman's Day is a Founding Partner of The Campaign for America's Libraries, the ALA's multi-year public awareness and advocacy campaign to promote the value of libraries and librarians in the 21st century.
-30-

Mark Gould
Director
Public Information Office @ your library

Rollyo Again

2006-02-08T18:57:00.000-05:00

For those who shared their day hearing about "Emerging Metadata Topics" at the MLSC yesterday, here's a link of interest... most of you didn't know about Rollyo, so I've created a little personal Rollyo search engine that indexes the iCONN website (doesn't go into the Gale, Proquest, AP Photo, or Wilson databases themselves, but does allow you to search the title lists and documentation for those databases that we have posted at iconn.org) as an example. Just type in a term, like a subject area that iCONN databases include (e.g., I did "math") and choose the Rollyo search engine labelled "Connecticut libraries" from the drop-down box that sits below the search box. Again, there are lots of ways to improve this, but this gives you a feel for the power of Rollyo:

Hartford Courant Historical Collection on the CT.gov Portal

2006-02-08T12:50:00.000-05:00

The new Hartford Courant Historical Collection is the latest addition to the CT.gov portal's "News" section!

Black History Month Ideas

2006-02-03T16:57:00.000-05:00

A recent announcement from Thomson Gale:
Gale - Free Resources - Black History - Home Thomson Gale is providing some ideas for curriculum support for Black History Month, using free web resources. Take a look if you have some extra time and haven't figured out anything on your own.

But I found that their offerings were a little anemic. And there are so many worthwhile resources, both in the iCONN databases and on the web, in general. For example, wouldn't it be great to go into our new Hartford Courant Historical Collection, which features editions of the newspaper from 1764-1922, to see what the people of that era were saying about slavery? (abolition and slavery were big topics in Connecticut in the 19th-century). The Encyclopedia of Connecticut History, is available at iCONN, just go to www.iconn.org and choose "Select iCONN resources". Here, for example, is an entry about slavery from this resource (and I feel fairly certain that other topics appropos to Black History Month can be found there).

There are, of course, our many other databases with biographical, subject, and even timeline-based resources (e.g., History Resource Center - U.S. & Discovering Collection) that could be mined.
There's also the AP Photo Archive for the multimedia effect of images of civil rights leaders and marches.

ON the web, I'd also go to sites such as: Library of Congress' American Memory Project. Or to one of their many classroom projects, such as "From Jim Crow to Linda Brown: A Retrospective of the African-American Experience from 1897 to 1953".

And there are, of course, online slave narratives, which are a fascinating insight -- the very words of the people who survived slavery: North American Slave Narratives from the "Documenting the American South" website at UNC. There are even
African-American History Lesson Plans from the "Documenting the American South" website at UNC.

Rebranding librarianship

2006-02-03T14:42:00.000-05:00

The Shifted Librarian: 20060120 OCLC Symposium: Extreme Makeover - Rebranding an Industry

OCLC's findings about the world's perception of librarians and libraries have led to discussions and articles on the concept of rebranding our industry, something worth taking a further look at. OCLC's new newsletter NextSpace ran its first issue with the headline "Extreme Makeover: How legacy brands reinvent themselves, and what libraries can learn from them".

It's not just iCONN with a lack of awareness issue, it's all library projects, and it's related to the public's perception that ALL we do is books (in the traditional, physical sense).

BBC NEWS | Technology | Libraries fear digital lockdown

2006-02-03T10:06:00.000-05:00

BBC NEWS | Technology | Libraries fear digital lockdown

This is a fascinating story - one that you've all heard about before, but the way that they've expressed it in this article has helped me to crystallize my own thinking about DRM. I have to say that on a personal - non-iCONN-related - level, I'm a huge advocate of the free flow of information; the democratization of information access. And I have had concerns about how moving into the digital world affects our ability to provide information to the masses. Think about it (if you haven't already!), the way ebooks and electronic articles are provided online, they are controlled by licensing in a way that restricts their distribution far more than the way physical items are controlled.

For example, in my personal life, if I purchase a book in physical form, I can then hand it around to anybody. I don't get the publishers breathing down my neck about it - I don't get in trouble, even though it means reduced sales of that book. I bought an interesting ebook through Amazon last year, however, and I wanted to give it to a friend after I was done with it. But it was locked up on my pc, under this Microsoft DRM setup and I could not for the life of me get it to her. So unless I gave her my whole laptop, the book was useless - I'd paid the full-price (which normally would get me the endlessly multi-use physical book) for a single use! Further, I can't get to it anymore because the software has been updated and the DRM seems to be locking me out now. If my hard drive had crashed, I also would have lost access to it.

I'm not clueless - I know why publishers are nervous about peer-to-peer, given that peer-to-peer is no longer restricted by the physical, as an actual book (paper-based) would have been, but don't you think that we - consumers and libraries - are getting a raw deal on this thing? Fair use allowed libraries to exist. In the new world, fair use doesn't seem to protect us. We are unable to purchase permanent collections, only transient access. Who controls the access at all times? the database or ebook vendors... It's as though the publishers set up camp in our libraries and made sure that everyone who came to borrow books from us was - to their eyes - using the items appropriately (that they were residents of our town, etc., etc.). And we're facilitating this by agreeing to the terms - not that we have a choice, but maybe we should be a little more vocal about protecting our readers' rights and a little less concerned about protecting the vendors' rights.

Groundhog Day 2006

2006-02-02T13:39:00.000-05:00

Well, he saw his shadow - I found some pictures for Groundhog Day on the AP photo archive, so thought I'd share one to give you a little nudge to use this fun and helpful resource. There's a link below, though I'm not sure if you'll be able to enter the AP Archive directly that way - if not, you can always go to www.iconn.org, then choose "Select iCONN resources" or "Link to Individual Databases" to get listings of the databases available to you - the AP Photo Archive will be an option. Enjoy!

AP Preserver accuweather.ap.org [ iconn20231 - AWAPTwav ] Search/Browse

CREATIONDATE: 20060201
CAPTION: In this photo provided by Vaseline, Groundhog Punxsutawney Phil gets a reaction from Vaseline employees Laurel Johnson, left, and Margaret Baker, center, as he emerges from a box after handler Bill Deeley, right, placed him there while visiting Vaseline's exhibit tent in Barclay Square in the center of Punxsutawney, PA, Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2006. When throngs of people descend upon Punxsutawney to celebrate Groundhog Day on Thursday, businesses and other groups will try to ride the coattails of the cute and cuddly Punxsutawney Phil to gain publicity. (AP Photo/Vaseline, Ray Stubblebine)
ARRIVALDATE 20060201
Database: Intl_Photos Docid/ImageId: 9353807 / 5KHFZ Server: accuweather.ap.org:80

CT Web Librarians

2006-01-31T17:44:00.000-05:00

CT Web Librarians - is a new blog set up by the intrepid leader of our CT Web Librarians' Roundtable (yes, Cecelia, you qualify as intrepid!) Take a look and add your comments, as you desire. It's a safe space for webrarians in CT to experiment with posting to blogs and for these librarians to see what blogs can do for building online communities. Enjoy!

New Professional Titles at Library Service Center

2006-01-31T17:32:00.000-05:00

WebJunction - CT
Just a reminder for library staff, the library service centers' collection of professional titles continues to expand and -- if you go to WebJunction-CT -- you can view the list of new acquisitions. Enjoy!

Another loss - Playwright Wendy Wasserstein

2006-01-31T17:07:00.000-05:00

Wendy understood that being considerate in a society of self-involved strivers was not for wimps. It required a steely inner toughness that was the hallmark of many of her heroines.

She also knew her own nature. ''Frankly, I never want to leave a room and be thought of as a horrible person,'' she admitted. But Wendy never explained what the rest of us were supposed to do when she left the room before us.
-- Gail Collins, Copyright New York Times Company Jan 31, 2006 (http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=978529471&Fmt=3&clientId=20549&RQT=309&VName=PQD)

This is the conclusion of an article about the loss of playwright Wendy Wasserstein - a Pulitzer Prize winning author and someone whom I mourn on a more personal level than I do most celebrities because of my connection to her through our respective alma mater - Mt. Holyoke College. She was one of several "favorite daughters", along with Emily Dickinson and an array of other luminaries who shone the way for those of us struggling to achieve in a lovely but sometimes intensely competitive scholarly environment.

You can find information about her throughout the iCONN databases, often in The New York Times as many of her plays were performed in NYC. Her biography is available in Wilson biographies and her photo is available at the AP Photo Archive.

Here's the beginning of the Wilson bio of the late Ms. Wasserstein:
WASSERSTEIN, WENDY (October 18, 1950-), American playwright, was born in Brooklyn, New York, the youngest of four children of Morris Wasserstein, a prosperous textile manufacturer, and the former Lola Schleifer, who had both arrived in the United States as children in the 1920s. She was raised on Manhattan's Upper East Side, attended the exclusive Calhoun School, took dancing lessons every Saturday morning at a class run by the famous choreographer June Taylor, and was afterwards permitted to attend a Broadway matinee performance every Saturday afternoon. She moved on to Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, majoring in history; she took her bachelor's degree in 1971.

King forged a legacy in pushing her husband's | csmonitor.com

2006-01-31T16:21:00.000-05:00

King forged a legacy in pushing her husband's | csmonitor.com
How sad and ironic that it was just a couple of weeks ago that I blogged the photo of Martin Luther King, Jr., from iCONN's AP Photo Archive to celebrate MLK day and that I'm now blogging the obituary for Coretta Scott King.

Photos of the late Mrs. King are available at the AP Photo Archive. She is also featured in our Wilson Biographies database. More information about Mrs. King can also be found in our other databases, such as the newspapers and the general reference databases (e.g., InfoTrac OneFile). I'm including but one picture from the AP Photo Archive for you.

And to tempt you to look into this amazing woman's life further, using iCONN resources, here is an excerpt from Wilson Biographies:
Civil rights leader; singer
Unbowed by grief and undaunted in her dedication to the civil rights and peace movements so eloquently championed by her late husband, Mrs. Coretta King has since his death shown herself to be an effective and forceful public figure in her own right. Although active behind the scenes for years, Mrs. King emerged into the public spotlight after Martin Luther King's assassination on April 4, 1968 to help bridge the void created by his sudden death. At that time her simple dignity and deep religious faith earned Dr. King's widow the sympathy and admiration of millions of persons around the world....

System Notes/Updates

2006-01-26T10:23:00.000-05:00

iCONN, including reQuest, will be down from 1 a.m. to approximately 1:30 a.m. early morning Friday, January 27 for emergency maintenance

Hartford Courant Historical is live on the federated search menu now - so it's available to everyone (we still have some missing issues & quality control is going through and dealing with poor scans of some pages)

We've gotten some spotty reports from some LION libraries about not being able to get to www.iconn.org; the symptoms appear to be network-related and do not appear to affect non-LION libraries.

The new additions to the Health resources section of the federated search menu have been in place since earlier this month - but if you haven't looked at them, you may want to - they include MedlinePlus for public libraries/PubMed for academics; 2-1-1 Community Resources Directory; Connecticut Consumer Health Information; and Connecticut Physician Profiles. Medline/PubMed are now part of the federated searches for public/academic libraries, respectively, but the other resources are just links off the federated search page.

Hartford Courant Historical Available at iCONN portal

2006-01-23T10:07:00.000-05:00

The CT Digital Library is excited to announce that the Historical Hartford Courant is now available through the iCONN portal.

The Connecticut State Library wishes to thank all the donors who helped make this resource possible. If your library hasn't pledged its support yet, please contact the State Librarian, Kendall Wiggin, at kwiggin@csib.org.

The Historical Hartford Courant database will include full-page coverage from issue 1, volume 1 of the newspaper starting in 1764 with coverage to December 31, 1922. This searchable digital archive of more than 280,000 pages of important historical content will offer article-level search results, article zoning and edited metadata, including headlines, bylines and first paragraphs.

All academic libraries, all public libraries and branches, historical society libraries, and all schools will have statewide access, as well as any Connecticut government department. There will be remote access for anyone with a public library card.

In an effort to improve the quality of the Hartford Courant images, ProQuest and the Connecticut State Library will source and film from paper any issues that do not meet ProQuest's rigorous quality standard. Issues will be added to this database as better originals are found. We appreciate your patience during this effort to improve the product. For a complete list of issues noted as missing or marked for re-filming, please go to: http://www.iconn.org/HartfordCourantMissingIssuesList.pdf

Libraries that wish to create links directly to the Historical Hartford Courant may use: http://rqst-agent.auto-graphics.com/LoginModule/Goto.aspx?cuid=rqst&dataid=765

Due to ALA, there is a delay adding this new resource to iCONN's "Direct Links to Resources" pages, but it will be added as soon as possible.

Training sessions will be set up soon. Watch for announcements regarding these - they're bound to fill up fast! In the meantime, please use ProQuest's Guide for their Historical Newspaper interface: http://training.proquest.com/trc/training/en/hnp.pdf

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Lorraine Huddy
Electronic Resources Coordinator
Connecticut Digital Library
786 South Main Street
Middletown, CT 06457-5101
Tel 860.344.2521
Fax 860.344.2556
lhuddy@cslib.org

It's a Google World...

2006-01-20T09:14:00.000-05:00

I think we're getting through to Google (or maybe Google's getting through to us)... The reason I say this is two-fold - first, the Google newsletters for librarians, lean though they may be, show a level of involvement/interest in our profession that we hadn't seen so clearly articulated by Google until they began the endeavor last month.

The second newsletter is now available at http://www.google.com/newsletter/librarian/librarian_2006_01/newsletter.html. It's got an article by one of the Google software engineers on how Google determines which sites are most "trusted". It's worth a look!

Also, we're hearing a lot - some of it on the confidential side, so I won't comment too much - from databases and Google themselves about attempts to get library resources into the mix. Wouldn't it be great if our users were able to search for articles found in iCONN databases from Google itself? What a promotional tool that would be! Talk about raising the public awareness numbers.

Martin Luther King

2006-01-17T09:37:00.000-05:00

A little belated for MLK day, but still worthwhile, I found this photo from the AP archive by searching on: King and "civil rights".

Google Scholar & Libraries

2006-01-13T17:20:00.000-05:00

Five College DEDCC : DEDCC brown bag discussion 09/23/05

Bill & Lorri (our new Electronic Resources Coordinator) went to yesterday's Google Scholar workshop up at Mt. Holyoke. I've put the link here for everyone else (myself included!)to get to the program's page & references. Take a look to see what's happening. It's pretty exciting - librarians are trying desperately to figure out how to get into the Google-dominated web world. Our patrons are out there Googling regularly, but both the OCLC survey & our own UCONN-run survey indicate that only 20-30% of the general public have ever gone to their library's website!

The Gale folks came today, as well, to talk about the same issue with a different approach - AccessMyLibrary.com, which is a gateway to Gale content that guides users who find interesting-looking articles through web searching back into their library (it runs appropriate authentication measures to allow the user to get the full-text of the article they've found via their library's subscription). It's still in Beta, but should be out by ALA. More on this later - or see them at ALA MidWinter & ask about it.

Have a great weekend all! I'm happy to report that my contract's been renewed & that I'll be able to continue to work with the good folks at iCONN for a while longer.

ProQuest Information and Learning :: Press Release

2006-01-13T16:05:00.000-05:00

ProQuest Information and Learning :: Press Release on Hartford Courant Historical

For those of you on the iCONN listserv (if you aren't & want to subscribe, go to http://lists.auto-graphics.com/mailman/listinfo/iconn), I wanted to remind you all that we're nearly "live" with the Hartford Courant Historical project, which will bring us a searchable digitized archive of the state's paper of record (and the oldest continuously published paper in the nation) from its inception in 1764 up to the cutoff for out of copyright material 1922... (the gap between 1922 and 1992 will probably be something CT libraries will want to address in the future... for now, I know that funding this digital archive itself has been a challenge & is still our focus).

It's all very exciting - you can already see some of the results in the archive's not-quite-ready for primetime state by going into a ProQuest database (e.g., The Hartford Courant), then choosing the historical newspapers from the dropdown list of available databases. I've already enjoyed reading about the end of the Civil War from that era's reporters and ads for "snake oil", and so on.

When we go live, we'll be sure to announce it. As I said, my understanding is that funding is not quite a done deal, but we're extremely close. This will be an invaluable resource for all CT libraries and their patrons - of that I have no doubt!

Thomson Gale * Thomson Gale Product Update Bulletin * December, 2005

2005-12-30T10:50:00.000-05:00

Thomson Gale * Thomson Gale Product Update Bulletin * December, 2005 has a couple of exciting new features to report, particularly for the InfoTrac Onefile (in the new tabbed version of the Gale interface known as the "PowerSearch" interface). For example:

Search within this Publication/Work — Search within a publication from the "About this Publication" option or when viewing a given article... when you've conducted a Publication Search and pulled up results, you'll see the Quick Search box on the left-hand side of the page & below that, you'll now find checkboxes for searching either the whole publication run or the specific issue you're already looking at... This is a great feature, adds easy sophistication to searching within a given magazine, such as Consumer Reports, for example

On-demand content translation — Automatically translate any eBook or periodical article into Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Italian and Portuguese... once you've pulled up an article, you can choose to translate into any of these languages... be aware that it's machine-based translation, such as the automatic translators you'll find on many of today's search engines

On-demand interface translation — View the interface in English, Spanish, French or Portuguese... choose Preferences and then set the language as desired from the drop-down menu of choices

Talk to the hand

2005-12-27T16:49:00.000-05:00

...so, it's the size of a book of matches and it hangs off a keychain -- it's a tiny digital camera that Steve here at iCONN got for an Xmas present. How fun - as long as it's not pointed at me, that is!

For more on mobile electronics, don't forget to check out iCONN for articles, such as this buyers guide in December's Popular Science:
Brown, Joe, Morgan Clendaniel, Jenny Everett, and Suzane Kantra Kirschner. "Gadgets: A QUICK-CHARGING MP3 PLAYER, PRINTABLE PICS FROM A CAMERA PHONE, SATELLITE RADIO TO GO.(Best Of What's New 2005)(Review)(Buyers Guide)." Popular Science 267.6 (Dec 1, 2005): 30. . Thomson Gale. Connecticut State Library. 27 December 2005 < http://find.galegroup.com/itx/infomark.do?&contentSet=IAC-Documents&type=retrieve&tabID=T002&prodId=ITOF&docId=A138054555&source=gale&userGroupName=20231&version=1.0>.

Holiday reminders & wishes

2005-12-22T09:16:00.000-05:00

A reminder on holiday closings:
In observance of the Christmas and New Year's Day holidays,
Auto-Graphics will be closed Monday, December 26, 2005 and will also be
closed on Monday, January 02, 2006.
The State Library, including offices at the Middletown Library Service Center (such as iCONN's) will also be closed on those dates.

I'm posting a few great seasonal photos from iCONN's Associated Press Photo Archives, for your enjoyment! Our best wishes to you for happy & healthy holidays! - iCONN staff

Wiki's wild world - Researchers should read Wikipedia cautiously and amend it enthusiastically.

2005-12-15T18:31:00.000-05:00

News @ Nature.com- Wiki's wild world -Researchers should read Wikipedia cautiously and amend it enthusiastically.

A recent article from Nature shows that the number of errors found in Wikipedia science articles is not significantly higher than the number of errors found in articles in Encyclopedia Brittanica. An editorial that went along with it encouraged scientists to get more involved in the creation and review of Wikipedia entries. What does the comparative accuracy of Wikipedia vs. EB tell us? Perhaps it doesn't tell us so much about Wikipedia, but about the encyclopedias that we hold up as the "gold standard". Not to be flip, but the postmodernist in me says that - just because something is written in a book does not make it the truth. I know it sounds heretical coming from a librarian, but researchers should always question - regardless of how "authoritative" a resource may seem. Go to iCONN databases to double-check something you've found on the web. Verification and confirmation are among the researcher's best friends (along with a willingness to question the "facts").

Collaborative work can be a key to high reliability (hence, the importance of peer-review to scholarly publications), strong arguments, and powerful ideas. But we should not downplay the reality that an open forum without a mechanism for accountability built into it does not lend itself to the provision of authoritative information. Certainly, if the scientists and experts in academic fields would heed the message that Nature is sending and take the time to get involved with Wikipedia's efforts, it would be a positive for everyone.

Try this out - a personal search engine!

2005-12-15T12:57:00.000-05:00

It's true - I am such a web geek! Honestly... but what else do you expect from an information professional? I've been looking at some of the latest developments in web technology, particularly those related to social networking - basically putting bookmarks and other things of interest to you personally online (& sharing them with others). For example, here's Rollyo, a tool that is billed as your own "personal search engine". I've added it to the blog for you to see how it works. I made a "searchroll" for www.iconn.org and if you actually type in something like "Connecticut history", you'll get links to our free resources relating to the topic (no, not the databases yet, which are behind the walls of our vendors - proprietary and closed unless you make it in via the strict authentication required by those vendors' licensing agreements).

We still have a lot to offer on our website that this Rollyo search will reveal, hidden though it may seem (since implementation of the federated search interface and the use of that interface as the default homepage for iCONN, it's been harder to know how to get to this info - all linked, BTW, from www.iconn.org/SiteIndex.aspx). Using this little tool, which took less than two minutes to create, can reveal such hidden information on our site. And yes, I believe one day we'll have to find a better way of getting our databases' content to our users - and when that day comes, I hope that we'll all be able to create personal search engines that include the great subscription iCONN resources.

Directions for using Rollyo - enter search term(s) in search box, choose iCONN from pull-down menu, hit GO!

MercuryNews.com | 12/12/2005 | Wikipedia needs safeguards that work

2005-12-13T17:22:00.000-05:00

Wikipedia faces information reliability problems. Not surprisingly, the open-source encyclopedia has been repeatedly vandalized by anonymous posters. The credibility of information on the site has hit an all-time low with the recent discovery of a "hatchet-job" biography of retired newspaper editor and civil-rights crusader John Seigenthaler Sr. posted anonymously.

Michael Gorman, president of the American Library Association and dean of library services at Cal State Fresno, told The San Francisco Chronicle. "The problem with an online encyclopedia created by anybody is that you have no idea whether you are reading an established person in the field or somebody with an ax to grind. For all I know, Wikipedia may contain articles of great scholarly value. The question is, how do you choose between those and the other kind?"
[Good Morning Silicon Valley - December 12]

Of course, with iCONN resources, as with all library resources, Connecticut residents are assured that the information they are getting is reliable! iCONN's recent market survey showed us that for the general public in Connecticut, librarians are more trusted than the internet in providing trustworthy resources.

Survey Results - Libraries and Information Resources & iCONN

2005-12-09T14:59:00.000-05:00

Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources (2005) [OCLC - OCLC Reports]: "The findings indicate that information consumers view libraries as places to borrow print books, but they are unaware of the rich electronic content they can access through libraries. Even though information consumers make limited use of these resources, they continue to trust libraries as reliable sources of information."

I've been noticing that in response to the results of the OCLC survey and iCONN's own market/public awareness and perception survey, some librarians are flagellating themselves over the fact that the library brand (or, to a lesser degree, the iCONN brand) needs considerably more publicity than it has had to remain relevant. These findings - while clearly a "call to action" for librarians - do not indicate that we've failed in doing our jobs. No, in fact, conducting the survey to be able to better respond to changing user needs means that we're doing our jobs!

iCONN is just four years old (will be five this spring), a very new service. And yet, we have 100% user satisfaction rates when it comes to the information we provide. We have tremendous room for growth in public awareness. We hadn't focused on publicizing iCONN to Connecticut's residents in a general way - at least we hadn't done so until the project got the opportunity to have an Outreach Coordinator (this summer). We relied on our already overburdened libraries as our primary means of getting the word out to the public. While that was a good "first wave" strategy, we see a lot of room for growth among Connecticut's residents with more coordinated and targeted public relations emanating from iCONN itself.

I look at these surveys and say, "At last!" Like the 51-year-old U.S. respondent cited in the OCLC survey "I think this survey is right on track. The libraries should look at community spaces like Starbucks and Borders, and should also look at the value of online material like Google, and they should try to be more relevant in the current age." (4-8)

I couldn't have said it better myself. So now I'll return to the work at hand, which is to say, publicizing the service we offer and improving it whenever and however it is possible to do so.

Research results: Market research on the information consumer - in CT & internationally - now available

2005-12-07T09:01:00.000-05:00

The iCONN Market Survey: Measuring Current Awareness, Usage and Interest is now available online. The final report includes some interesting findings about the general CT information consumer and their attitudes, perceptions, and usage of library services ranging from iCONN to Connecticard. George Pettinico, the Associate Director of UCONN's Center for Survey Research Analysis (CSRA) will present his findings at today's Connecticut Digital Library Advisory Board meeting (meeting at 1 pm, his presentation at 2 pm). We've even invited a couple of the people from other statewide or regional agencies (including the library automation networks) to sit in, if they're so inclined. I think that the findings are of interest to all CT librarians because they give us a much better picture of the average CT resident's perceptions than we have ever had before!

Additionally, on the research front, OCLC's report has finally been released - on perceptions and habits of information consumers. It's got some interesting findings for librarians - findings we have to pay attention to - for example, "the place libraries hold today is no longer as distinct as it once was.
"Libraries, many of their resources and services, and the information experts who work in libraries appeared to be increasingly less visible to today's information consumer." (6-1)

Finally, we - CLC and iCONN - are collecting feedback from librarians about their experience with the Barnes & Noble Love Your Library promotion. I really enjoyed spending time at the Manchester and Waterbury stores. I helped Deb from CLC gift-wrap items at Manchester on Saturday (to benefit the South Windsor Public Library)... though Deb actually did a lot more of the gifts than I did, I think! And she was there all day on Friday gift-wrapping, as well. We haven't gotten the results from B&N yet, but will let people know once we do about the totals.

InfoTrac OneFile Results

2005-12-02T09:23:00.000-05:00

Some exciting news - Gale has added podcast feeds to its databases. For example, you can find podcasts of presidential speeches via the Gale Power Search, Multimedia tab. Try "economic policy" to test this new features. Then click on the multimedia tab. If you haven't already switched to Power Search, you might want to think about trying it out...

Links & excitement

2005-12-01T18:00:00.000-05:00

Love Your Library excitement is building! Check out the website for the latest. We've gotten publicity on the WTIC, in the Hartford Courant, the Danbury News-Times, and more! And do NOT forget to go shopping at B&N with your LYL vouchers this weekend. Encourage friends, loved ones, colleagues to join LYL & raise money for Connecticut's libraries...

Next week is the Advisory Board meeting, during which the findings from the UCONN CSRA survey on public awareness of iCONN (and an array of other library-related public perception questions) will be released. George Pettinico, Associate Director of the CSRA, will be presenting the wealth of information gathered in this study.

The Pew Center for the study of Internet & American life announced in a recent report (link to the report in PDF format) that more Americans than ever are using search engines. Increasingly, people are feeling confident and self-sufficient about their ability to procure information...

The iCONN schools' toolkit CD is online for those who are interested in doing a test drive of it - I've asked some school library media specialists to try it out (click here to download it for yourself, it's 99 MB zipped) before we do the en masse pressing of the CD (the Dept. of Education is going to help us with that). Then, you'll have to unzip it. To begin using it, find the intro.htm file and open it up in your web browser. Note: Make sure that you unzip/extract/copy over all of the contents as they were originally zipped up, including subfolders, etc. Without the proper files in the proper order, the intro.htm file will not look normal when you pull it up.

courant.com | Librarians' Favorites List Has A Twist This Year

2005-11-29T11:11:00.000-05:00

How excited am I about Carole Goldberg's story - Librarians Favorites List Has a Twist This Year? Can you guess? I'm thrilled - more so because the words "iCONN - the Connecticut Digital Library" appeared before the jump line - were still on D1 - while page D8 completed the section on iCONN describing it as a "statewide online rsource that includes research databases, ebooks and an online catalog used by public school and academic libraries"! I'm so grateful to the Connecticut Library Consortium, whose most excellent Deb Zulick is coordinating the project on their end and whose Christine Sarrazin put together a great press release on the holiday recommendations booklist!

In fact, I think it was the intersection of Christine's press release and the perfect timing of my noticing a Susan Campbell column - the one about turning Connecticut librarians into action figures/heroes for standing up to the FBI - and sending her a thank you for her advocacy of CT librarians, along with a quick description of Love Your Library and a voucher, that brought Carole Goldberg's story together so nicely. Susan Campbell had mentioned that she was going to send the Love Your Library event on to Carole, because it sounded exciting to her! I think it hit Carole right after Christine's press release got there. Somehow, between those factors & my omnipresence in the office, even late in the day Wed. and right after Thanksgiving on Friday, that got us the coverage. I helped Carole verify some facts before the weekend hit.

The fact that I didn't get straightened out for the article - of all things - was one that I was quoted on - which said that the purchases on LYL days had to exceed $10,000 per store for the 25% donation to take place. The reality is kinder to us - we only need to get $10,000 total among all stores on those days to hit the 25% donation level. I've asked the Courant - via their online form - for a a correction on the story.

More disconcertingly to B&N corporate was that a statement about the vouchers suggested more active B&N involvement than there will be in distributing those vouchers. It read "Also, Barnes & Noble Booksellers will have vouchers on hand for shoppers." While technically correct, the truth is that B&N did not want to highlight this. Instead, they are only offering the vouchers to shoppers who come up to them and specifically ask for them, saying that they've misplaced or forgotten theirs.

Overall, however, I have to say that I think B&N will be happy, we'll be happy, and the authors involved will be happy. I'm hoping that we really do have that elusive creature - the win-win-win - in our grasp!

Love Your Library days countdown

2005-11-28T17:02:00.000-05:00

Only 3 days until the pre-event kickoff with Anne Margaret Lewis' Has Anyone Seen Christmas? and 4 days until the main event. I'm pretty proud of the evolution of our website to accommodate the entire Love Your Library project. More importantly, I can't tell you how grateful I feel to the many librarians and Barnes & Noble managers who are working outrageously hard to make this thing a success! I think that it will be - I certainly hope that it will. If so, perhaps we can repeat and exceed the experience in 2006!

Posters for LYL

2005-11-18T17:46:00.000-05:00

Love Your Library posters went out - we had budget only to produce 1 11x17 for each public library. We couldn't do library branches, school library media centers, or academic libraries, though I feel torn if someone calls me - I want to help them to help us promote the event, but the costs actually come off the top of the funds raised, thus, the greater the costs, the lower the net. It's a tough balancing act. If all goes well, next year we may find this easier to deal with. Anyhow, the posters are available in PDF format on the Love Your Library website, so libraries can print them out or have a copy shop print them up.

Connecticut Library Consortium's Holiday Gift-giving booklists

2005-11-18T17:41:00.000-05:00

Connecticut Library Consortium Holiday Gift-giving Booklists.. in case you haven't already checked them out, there are 4, with recommendations for children of different age groups.

Dr. Siegel Speaking at a Love Your Library Event

2005-11-18T17:33:00.000-05:00

Has it really been 9 days since I last posted? It's hard to describe what we've been busily, crazily, trying to get done here that's taken up so much time. I've completed the Schools' Toolkit CD, now I have to find out how to reproduce them en masse, something that should be possible through the Dept. of Education, I believe. I just noticed, however, that the draft of the Information Literacy Framework document that's on the CD is NOW outdated - there is a Nov. version and I only have the July version on the CD. Now, do I redo the CD again? This is the difficulty with CDs. They're great for using as a portable information source, but that information just gets outdated so easily. In much of the CD, I point users to online resources, as those are more likely to be up-to-date. A CD is just a snapshot in time.

Anyhow, some exciting news (with perhaps more exciting news to come, pending talks between B&N and a certain publisher)... Dr. Bernie Siegel will be at the North Haven B&N for Love Your Library days:
Date: Saturday, December 3 from 1:00 PM until 3:00 PM at Barnes & Noble in North Haven

Event: Meet Dr. Bernie Siegel

Dr. Bernie Siegel, legendary author, physician, and alternative healing
pioneer, will be present for a special holiday signing of his many books
including his latest, "101 Exercises for the Soul: A Divine Workout Plan for Body, Mind, and Spirit".

Love Your Library Voucher in CT PTA Bulletin

2005-11-09T18:16:00.000-05:00

In this month's PTA Newsletter (page 4), you'll find the Love Your Library voucher! Also, note the LYL program on the WebJunction CT website ... in fact, if you haven't checked out the CT WebJunction site, you should take some time to poke around - there's great resources there for Connecticut's librarians!

FBI requiring libraries, universities to offer "back door" to internet surveillance of patrons & students

2005-11-08T14:38:00.000-05:00

On the intellectual freedom front, we aren't hearing as much uproar on this issue - but it is at least as problematic as the surveillance of our patrons' reading records... see "U. Penn: Universities required to update networks to assist FBI surveillance." The America's Intelligence Wire (Oct 26, 2005): InfoTrac OneFile Document: "http://find.galegroup.com/itx/infomark.do?&type=retrieve&tabID=T003&prodId=ITOF&docId=A138045678&source=gale&srcprod=ITOF&userGroupName=20231&version=1.0".

I recall internet alarmists sending out warnings back in the mid-90s about the government trying to establish back doors to the internet in order to keep closer tabs on what information users were seeking. To follow this and other stories, check out iCONN - try out ProQuest's alert services if you'd like the latest such stories pushed to you automatically.

Washington Post article, 11/6 - The FBI's Secret Scrutiny; In Hunt for Terrorists, Bureau Examines Records of Ordinary Americans

2005-11-08T14:24:00.000-05:00

Sunday's Washington Post article - The FBI's Secret Scrutiny; In Hunt for Terrorists, Bureau Examines Records of Ordinary Americans is a fascinating look at just one of many issues related to patrons' privacy in our libraries. And of course, it involves our own Connecticut libraries, so it really hits close to home. Read it and pass it on - it's on iCONN!

CEMA Home Page

2005-11-07T12:05:00.000-05:00

Live from the CEMA Conference in Cromwell - it's iCONN! We're at the former Radisson, now Crowne Plaza, in Cromwell today, visiting with school library media specialists. Steve will be speaking about reQuest, (since Gail is out on maternity leave - a little early) and Jane about the iCONN databases. There are also several sessions that cover some of the Gale resources that are part of iCONN - such as a session on the History Resource Centers and one on their Ebook collection. I'm trying to get SLMS' to fill out my survey on their use of informational resources. We'll see how many will be filled out by the end of the day. I'll be excited to see the results - what is the level of iCONN awareness & use among the SLMS'? That's all for now from Cromwell!

Ask A Librarian - 10/01/2000

2005-11-01T16:43:00.000-05:00

Check out these "Ask a Librarian" graphics - free at Library Media & PR's website. This website also offers holiday-appropriate bookmarks & graphics.

Love Your Library showing up on websites throughout the state... must be getting closer to the holidays

2005-11-01T12:13:00.000-05:00

LION now has the Love Your Library project linked from their homepage. I'm also getting exciting reports in from libraries about how they're using LYL to create partnerships with neighboring libraries. This may be one unanticipated but wonderful side benefit from the project. Congratulations to Enfield, Farmington, and Manchester for facilitating such partnerships. And a huge thank you to the other libraries who are taking their time to get involved. We've shipped out the LYL vouchers via C-CAR. We're getting the posters finalized this week.

In other iCONN outreach-related news, Steve Cauffman brilliantly redesigned our 10 Big Ideas for Educators brochure. It looks great and is completely updated. It will be available at our booth at CEMA next week. Bill Sullivan, our project Administrator - not to be outdone - has created enlargements of the updated "Attention - Free to All Connecticut Residents" flyer, which lists all resources currently available through iCONN. He's made these into posters and has them being mailed out in the coming week, so libraries can hang them up wherever they think it will be helpful to patrons. The October (fall quarter) iCONN Times is also now available online.

A lot of the recent work on flyers, posters, and brochures has been facilitated by our new, high-capacity, full-color, ImageRunner copier/printer/scanner - I guess you might say, "document center". It's got more features than we'll probably ever figure out how to use. But since it arrived a few weeks ago, we've been doing our best to try it out!

Classroom of my Dreams - CECA Monday in Meriden

2005-10-20T18:22:00.000-04:00

The 2005 CECA - Connecticut Educators Computer Association Conference is on Monday, don't forget! Jane E., Sharon B., Bill, and Ken will be all be at the Library Trendspotting workshop offered by CLC tomorrow in Hartford. The whole event sounds exciting, but I will be here at the office. Maybe next year!

The manager of the Farmington B&N store was wonderfully enthusiastic about Love Your Library in a meeting with him and Farmington Library's point person - Hal Bright - on the LYL project this AM. It looks like they'll probably work out a 3-library wish list table, because the Farmington store's patron base extends to people from New Britain & Newington as well. I'm glad that to see that partnership starting off on a good note!

Bibliomation has the Love Your Library promotion already up on their homepage. I'm hoping that the other library consortia will be able to support the event, as well (I suspect they will)!

iConnTimes

2005-10-19T17:30:00.000-04:00

The October edition of iCONN Times is now available! Today's Connecticut Digital Library Advisory Board was well-attended with a number of projects being highlighted, including Steve Cauffman's recent update of the "10 Big Ideas for Using iCONN to Raise the Challenge Level of all Students" brochure, which will be out at CECA on Monday and CEMA on Nov. 7. As soon as it's finalized, we'll be posting it on our website as well.

We've updated the loveyourlibrary.com site and are almost finished with the Schools' Toolkit CD. Tomorrow will see us busily producing brochures, working on Love Your Library (I'll be in an AM meeting at Farmington PL... in the afternoon, I'll be getting press releases out to media outlets about the LYL event). We also got several requests for bookmarks & similar materials that we'll have to produce & ship out. Keeps us "out of trouble", as Steve C. here at iCONN would say!

Love Your Library Days - a partnership effort

2005-10-18T16:06:00.000-04:00

CLC features Love Your Librarydays on their webpage! They've done a very nice job - I like how they "watermarked" one portion of their page with the Love Your Library logo.

It's great working cross-agency on a project like this. Deb Zulick, the Connecticut Library Consortium's Project Manager, is working very closely with myself and Donna Serafino from the Manchester Barnes & Noble (their Community Relations Manager). Of course, what makes the project so exciting is also the level of participation and enthusiasm we're seeing from so many Connecticut librarians!

Though everyone's busy with their own projects and events, the response of CLA was to wholeheartedly endorse Love Your Library days! We've already begun our "road trip" to various roundtables to inform librarians not already in the know about the project. We're doing 5 meetings this week, if you include the CT Digital Library Advisory Board meeting, which takes place tomorrow afternoon.

Love Your Library this Holiday

2005-10-14T13:50:00.000-04:00

The Love Your Library website is now live (it will be www.loveyourlibrary.com once the domain name registration filters through the internet! From the website, you should be able to get to whatever information you may need to support the Love Your Library holiday shopping event at Barnes & Noble stores on December 2nd and 3rd! There are ideas on how to promote Love Your Library, lists of participating stores, press releases, and - of course - the all-important Love Your Library vouchers that must accompany purchases used to support Connecticut libraries!

In order to get the word out among our fellow librarians, Deb Zulick and I (and Kirsten Kilbourn in some cases), will be doing the Love Your Library tour - crossing the state to attend various CLC roundtables and promote the program. Here's the current schedule of LYL-related meetings for October:

Mon., Oct. 17 - Children's Librarians' Roundtable - Windsor

Wed., Oct. 19 - Connecticut Digital Library Advisory Board Mtg - Middletown

Wed., Oct. 19 - School Library Media Specialist Roundtable - West - Torrington

Thurs., Oct. 20 - Farmington meeting (Farmington P.L. & Farmington B&N point people)

Fri., Oct. 21 - Enfield meeting (Enfield P.L. & Enfield B&N point people)

Mon., Oct. 24 - CEMA - Meriden

Tue., Oct. 25 - School Library Media Specialist Roundtable - Northeast, Willimantic

Wed., Oct. 26 - School Library Media Specialist Roundtable - Southeast, Old Lyme

"Love Your Library" with Holiday Shopping at Barnes & Noble

2005-10-04T18:08:00.000-04:00

"Love Your Library" with Holiday Shopping at Barnes & Noble
The Connecticut Library Association, Connecticut Library Consortium and the Connecticut State Library are partnering with Barnes & Noble Booksellers to Love Your Library this holiday season.

On Friday, December 2nd and Saturday, December 3rd, Barnes & Noble will donate up to 25% of every sale at Connecticut and select out-of-state store locations to Connecticut's libraries! To qualify, purchases must be accompanied by a Love Your Library voucher. The funds will be used to help underwrite the purchase of additional iCONN databases, thus benefiting all of Connecticut's libraries.

Love Your Library vouchers and promotional materials are being designed and will be distributed to all public libraries in the state electronically and via ConnectiCar this fall. The voucher will also appear on the back of this year's "Children's Books for Holiday Giving" brochure.

The Love Your Library program is not applicable to purchases made through barnesandnoble.com. See below for directions and hours for all participating store locations.

Please invite your patrons, students, colleagues, family and friends to "Love their Libraries" by shopping at Barnes & Noble stores on December 2nd and 3rd. Libraries will benefit - and thus, so will they!

Canton
Danbury
Enfield
Farmington
Glastonbury
Manchester
North Haven
Norwalk
Orange
Waterbury
West Hartford
Westport
Holyoke, MA
Worcester, MA
Warwick, RI

And how could I forget?

2005-09-30T11:50:00.000-04:00

The Gin Blossoms...

And, Mona from Three Rivers...

More Fair photos...

2005-09-29T15:53:00.000-04:00

Fair photos

2005-09-29T14:47:00.000-04:00

Durham Fair - a good weekend

2005-09-27T23:44:00.000-04:00

Every Year - Durham Fair - Hartford Courant article view: "http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=900520841&sid=1&Fmt=3&clientId=61652&RQT=309&VName=PQD"

So the Durham Fair is now behind us and we have the "Love your library days" Barnes & Noble Book Fair to look forward to on Dec. 2 & 3. But let's get back to Durham Fair. The fair was attended by over 220,000 people. iCONN had a booth in the commercial Exhibitors' Hall building. The booth was staffed by CT State Library personnel and volunteers from libraries around the state (thanks to our intrepid volunteers), all of whom got a chance to talk with lots of Connecticut residents, to give out iCONN literature, and to explain about the online databases available to them via iCONN. We also gave out balloons, fridge magnets, and even caramel candies. We ran out of balloons by Saturday night.

Some fun moments for me:
(1) hanging out with (and meeting for the first time, in some cases) colleagues Susan, Cecelia, Helen, the 2 Monas, and my fellow officemates (especially Steve, who is a balloon-tying master!)
(2) meeting and talking with adolescents and young adults whom I don't normally get much opportunity to talk with (after I learned from some other booth workers that - doh! - the reason they probably wanted balloons was to suck out the helium), I decided to engage with any of them who wanted a balloon... I quizzed them about iCONN and/or subjected them to a "librarian spiel"... it was sort of my Napoleon Dynamite moment... I think... not that I've actually seen the movie, but I'm guessing
(3) giving out balloons to the little ones - who were just fascinated - thrilled even - by the balloons... ah to get such joy from such a simple thing... one little girl came to our booth for a balloon - then, after I'd tied one to her wrist, she explained that she also wanted the one with the word "FREE!" on it... so I told her that I was going to do a magic trick and turned the balloon around and wallah! the word FREE! now showed on her iCONN balloon. She was suitably impressed;
(4) seeing - or should I say, listening to - the Gin Blossoms on my break on Sunday afternooon;
(5) playing "liar's poker" with Steve and our booth-mates to either side - the guy selling the "oldies" cds on one side and the couple running the pet supply distribution booth on the other side... even though I have some sort of mental block against how it's supposed to work, the good news is that I didn't lose any money
(6) can you say "fair food"? how about "the fudge booth was right across from us" - hmmm?

I also loved hearing people's reactions to iCONN - "why didn't anyone tell me about this" one older lady asked me on Friday night... "That's why we're here," I told her, "To tell people about it!" One guy who seemed a little gruff told us "the state finally got it right" when he learned about iCONN. I'd thought he might be a taxpayer who was opposed to anything that cost money, even for the greater good, but I'd underestimated the sense of civic responsibility that many people have.

I'm always surprised when I hear people say that they've never heard of iCONN if they're a teacher or school library media specialist, but I've finally realized how commonplace it is... and that’s alright, because I’m here to help spread the word! What was most surprising to me, however, was when a woman who worked in a large public library said that she’d never heard of iCONN. Granted, she told me that she didn't work the information desk and was a part-timer, explaining away her lack of familiarity with iCONN for that reason, but she worked for a decent-sized library and I would’ve thought that somehow word of resources like iCONN might be part of their employee training (or staff development).

So, you can see, not only was the Durham Fair an enjoyable experience, it was productive for an outreach coordinator!

Durham Fair

2005-09-17T14:52:00.000-04:00

Durham Fair is this weekend, folks -starting Friday, Sept. 23 and going through Sunday, Sept. 25th! If you've signed up to staff the booth - great, we're looking forward to seeing you - and I sure hope that you're better at tying balloons than I am! This should be an exciting event with lots of outreach opportunities. If you're at the fair for recreational purposes, drop by our booth & say "hi", as well. We won't put you to work (unless you're good with balloons).

Press Releases

2005-09-17T14:45:00.000-04:00

FYI -- The press release section of the iCONN website at http://www.iconn.org/PressRelease.aspx has been updated to include two new press releases (first two bullets):

"Another Huge Increase in Use of iCONN, the Connecticut Digital Library"
"iCONN and UCONN Survey State Residents About Digital Library Awareness"

The first press release was also included in an iCONN Update package that was distributed to all legislators on September 6.

Both press releases were distributed to all CT newspapers this past week.

New Google feature sorts through blogs / Test search engine likely to undercut smaller rival sites

2005-09-15T17:33:00.000-04:00

Blogging has - not surprisingly - gone mainstream via Google. Google purchased Blogger.com quite a while back, so this is no surprise. What's interesting about it is that it will use the RSS technology, rather than crawling the blogs as a traditional website search engine does. Whether or not it will do relevancy well yet remains to be seen...

Barnes & Noble Book Fair & Statewide Library Appreciation Days

2005-09-08T17:32:00.000-04:00

I'll be telling you all more about this when we have a concrete implementation plan, but it looks like there will be a statewide event which partners CLA, the CLC, and the Connecticut State Library (by way of iCONN) with Barnes & Noble on December 2 & 3. (I'm offering you this sneak preview so you'll know to wait until 12/2 & 12/3 to purchase books from B&N!)

A percentage of book sales made using special vouchers on those dates will go to Connecticut libraries. CLC, CLA, and the CT State Library have been in discussions about how best to distribute the earnings from this type of statewide book fair. Because it would be a statewide event, trying to divvy up the proceeds among almost 200 libraries as individual $ amounts would create a lot of logistical problems and yield very low (& possibly inequitable) numbers for each library. Instead, the CLC and CLA have decided to pool that money and use it to enhance the iCONN program.

Since iCONN is something that all Connecticut librarians and all Connecticut residents benefit from, putting the money into this program seemed to make the most sense. I will be explaining much more about this project in the coming month, but again, save your B&N book purchases until December 2 & 3! Also, be aware that a number of promotional opportunities will be coming all CT libraries' way in conjunction with this statewide "library appeciation days" book fair at B&N locations on those dates. There are a lot of p.r. opportunities for you and your library, so keep this new project in mind as you plan press releases, newsletters, and meetings with your friends' groups.

New Jersey is conducting an event like this in their local B&N stores tomorrow and Saturday. It will be interesting to hear how they "fair"... so to speak.

Gale - Press Room - 2005 - 08 - Thomson Gales Infotrac Onefile Exceeds 10000 Periodical Mark - Home

2005-09-02T08:33:00.000-04:00

This announcement from a month ago gives us up-to-date numbers on the number of periodicals and articles available in InfoTrac OneFile. Just remember that this number includes citations and abstracts, as well as full-text. Jane Emerson tells me that the number of full-text periodicals is more like 5,777 (still a pretty large number)! The other good news is that 40% of the periodicals added are peer-reviewed scholarly titles, enhancing the quality of the collection.

Gale - Press Room - 2005 - 08 - Thomson Gale's Infotrac Onefile Exceeds 10000 Periodical Mark: "Thomson Gale's InfoTrac OneFile Exceeds 10,000 Periodical Mark
FARMINGTON HILLS, Mich., Aug. 2, 2005 - Thomson Gale, part of The Thomson Corporation (NYSE: TOC; TSX: TOC), today announced that they now offer more than 10,000 periodicals through the popular InfoTrac OneFile.
Researchers at all levels will find more than 10,000 periodicals in InfoTrac OneFile - newspapers, newswires and a collection of refereed academic journals, business publications, technology periodicals, general interest magazines as well as specialty titles in law, health care and computers.
To date in 2005, more than 300 full-text periodical titles have been added to InfoTrac OneFile. More than 40% of these titles are academic journals, increasing the number of peer-reviewed journals added to InfoTrac to more than 900 in the past year.
Included are a collection of eleven refereed titles from the Lancet Publishing Group, a collection of nine refereed titles from Indiana University Press, Blackgirl Magazine, Comparatist, Harvard Journal of Hispanic Policy, Harvard Review, Kennedy School Review and Sky & Telescope.
Through agreements with publishers, InfoTrac OneFile maintains its status as the largest periodical file on the market with more than 74 million articles and growing. Backfile coverage dates back to 1980.
For a complete InfoTrac OneFile title list, look at the "Find out More" section on the following webpage: http://www.gale.com/onefile.
For a tour of OneFile: http://www.gale.com/onefile/tour.htm."

Back to School

2005-08-31T14:53:00.000-04:00

The Connecticut PTA has included iCONN in its September newsletter, found at http://www.ctpta.org/bulletin/Sep-2005.pdf and mailed out to Connecticut PTA members. There are 4 columns of detail about the iCONN databases, beginning on page 5. The bulletin goes out to approximately 1,000 members, as well as being handed out at various community events and to PTA office visitors. We're very happy about getting this level of coverage & look forward to working with the PTA in the future.

I'm also busily revising the learning activities available at the iCONN website. The steps in the learning activities are outdated due to the change in technology/interfaces, so I'm going through each one and revising accordingly. Ultimately, (by the end of this week), we should be able to update the website and to create a prototype CDROM of all content. Then we'll reproduce & distribute those CDs to the schools.

XML and libraries

2005-08-26T17:03:00.000-04:00

While we're busily preparing for the back-to-school crowd (with a 4-column article in the CT PTA newsletter coming out this month) and the fair season, I took a little time out for professional development this week. I took Patrick Yott's excellent 2-day XML course at the MLSC. We've got a lot of "balls in the air", but this breather really helped me to understand ways in which data could be packaged for infinite transformability. I mean, you may be asking, what good is XML to me? It just sounds like geek-speak doesn't it?

But let me paint a blue-sky scenario, brought to you courtesy XML. Imagine a world in which data -- say, for example, the articles in our iCONN databases -- were packaged solely as content... that they didn't have a single interface controlled by a vendor. If you didn't care for the front-end of one of those databases, you could make your own. Then you could funnel all information into that one easy-to-use front end. You'd never be beholden to someone else's idea of what you wanted to do with the data, it would all be there for you to play with. To see only the grade-appropriate articles for an elementary school child - currently we need to purchase a specialized database, like Kids' InfoBits. But maybe that's not the answer we want. With standardized, portable, and readable data (from the information being input in XML format), we could ourselves specify what we wanted at any given moment in time. That is the power of XML.

Forbes.com - Magazine Article on What your library has to offer above & beyond Google

2005-08-15T15:30:00.000-04:00

Check out the article at Forbes.com - Magazine Article on "Google Isn't Everything" by Stephen Manes. It extols the virtues of the online databases available through libraries and the quality olf data found within these little treasure troves. If you don't want to register to see the article, you can always use bugmenot to get a quick username and password. It's also - of course - available in iCONN through InfoTrac OneFile.

I'm going to excerpt the article for you to give you a feel for the work. It's just an excerpt, in order to try and ensure that I'm respecting "fair use" copyright rules, so I encourage you to follow up at Forbes' website. BTW, I've bolded one paragraph of salient interest to this blog (emphasis added is mine):

www.Forbes.com
Google Isn't Everything
Stephen Manes, 08.15.05, 12:00 AM ET
In the mood for beach reading, an audiobook, homework help or stock research? Your public library offers them free via the Net right now.

In the age of Google, when we wonder about stuff we want instant answers. I happened to wonder about the first recorded use of the term "personal computer," so I Googled around and ended up at Wikipedia, the hit-or-miss user-developed encyclopedia, whose "personal computer" entry declared authoritatively that "The earliest known use of the term was in New Scientist magazine in 1964, in a series of articles called ‘The World in 1984.'"

I still don't know the answer to my question, but I do know--no thanks to Google--that Wikipedia got it wrong. That's because I found an earlier citation with the help of an even older purveyor of information: my public library. And I didn't have to move an inch to do it...

Like its counterparts across the country, my Seattle Public Library offers Net access to an increasingly wide range of databases that don't exist on the open Web and, because they reside behind a fee-based gate, don't get indexed by the likes of Google (exception:the academic and scientific works uncovered by the new Google Scholar project). Since libraries license the info in bulk, it typically costs individual users not a penny. Which is a lot less than it can go for on the open Web...

The New York Times charges from $1.60 to $3.95 for most articles eight days or older, depending on how many you buy at once....

None of these databases is perfect, since most were initially designed for trained librarians rather than mere flailing mortals, so the user interfaces can be daunting until you get the hang of them. But libraries increasingly have online chat services that let you consult with live experts if you get stuck. Even if your community's library is not in the vanguard, all may not be lost:States such as Michigan offer similar services in exchange for your driver's license number....

My biggest complaint is that some libraries' Web sites don't detail the amazing range of services they offer online until you cough up a card number. Memo to those insular institutions: Put the info in the shop windows out front and I bet you'll see a lot more card-carrying customers walking through the electronic doors.

Stephen Manes (steve@cranky.com) is cohost of PC World's Digital Duo, which appears weekly on public television. Visit his home page at www.forbes.com/manes.

Library Marketing-Thinking Outside the Book

2005-08-15T13:20:00.000-04:00

Take a look at this blog: Library Marketing-Thinking Outside the Book... Because ours is neither the first nor the only blog concentrating on using blogs to communicate about marketing library services. Ours is the only iCONN oriented blog, however!

Small & Minority Business Showcase

2005-08-12T14:16:00.000-04:00

2005-08-12T14:08:00.000-04:00

I should’ve brought gold stars to give to the many people who dug into their wallets and showed me their public library cards on August 9th! That was just part of the overwhelmingly positive response that Steve Cauffman and I got from an estimated 700 attendees while exhibiting iCONN at the Small & Minority Business Showcase in Waterbury. When I explained to passersby that all of the iCONN resources were free and that all they needed to use iCONN was their library card, people would not only tell me – but insisted on showing me – that they had their library cards.

The showcase is run by the Secretary of State’s office twice a year. Members of the public can attend the showcase for free and vendors can get a booth at the low cost of $99, making it an attractive venue for both. When we noticed the promotions for the Small & Minority Business Showcase, in the CT Calendar of Events at http://www.ctcalendar.com/ and in Waterbury’s Republican-American newspaper, we realized that it would be a great opportunity for us to get in touch with the public and, in particular, with small business owners.

There were over 105 exhibitors present at the showcase. The sponsorship of such entities as the Greater Waterbury Black Business Association and the nationally renowned Black Enterprise magazine, of course, helped. We connected with a number of representatives from various state departments (the Department of Economic and Community Development, for example), nonprofit organizations, and community colleges. We were surprised to see how many people weren’t aware of iCONN or didn’t realize how much the service could do for them (even people representing our fellow state agencies), but we were glad that we were there to tell them about it.

We’re grateful to the Secretary of State’s Director of Community Outreach and Business Development (Mr. Harland O. Henry), who gave us booth space for the Connecticut Digital Library and free wi-fi access to show the service off live. Due to the positive response at this conference, we hope to continue attending these business showcases. We hope to further the partnership with the Secretary of State’s office by providing links from the Connecticut Business Showcase’s website (http://www.ctshowcase.biz/) to iCONN’s high-quality business resources.

Submitted by: Sharon Clapp, Outreach Coordinator
Date: August 11, 2005

P.S. To read more about the event, check out the Waterbury Republican-American for an 8/10/05 article by Marc Silvestrini (http://www.rep-am.com).

What is an outreach coordinator anyway? And what does she do?

2005-08-12T09:07:00.000-04:00

One of the great challenges an outreach coordinator faces is to explain to everyone what they've been doing. The soft art of p.r. requires a certain amout of time spent on building relationships, attending events, and such. So you may have heard that iCONN has an Outreach Coordinator - yes, that's me - but you may be wondering what I'm doing and what it all means to you.

The Connecticut Digital Library - iCONN - has been doing p.r. since before its "go live" in 2001. Only now has iCONN been able to devote resources to a concerted effort to raise public awareness of iCONN. Fine and well, but what does that do for me and my library, you might be asking.

As you already realize, the Connecticut Digital Library project provides you with thousands of dollars worth of free resources. Our work in public outreach reminds Connecticut residents of the value of their library card!

That's where the community outreach coordinator comes in. We have big plans - plans to plan (yes, that's consultant-speak), to create metrics to measure effectiveness of our efforts, to get more community involvement, feedback, and, of course, to increase public awareness of iCONN. Moreover, we'll be working (with the help of our public and librarian constituencies) to tailor our messages for specific audiences. There's a lot of exciting work to be done.

This blog is an easy way for me to keep you up-to-date on iCONN's development and my efforts in public relations. There will even be an RSS feed should you want to have the blog entries aggregated for your perusal at your convenience (and yes, you can skip the overly long ones if you desire... no need to clog up that overflowing inbox on your email program any more!)
- Sharon Clapp, iCONN's new Outreach Coordinator