Tag Archives: ALA

Gaming in the library; soft skills webinar announced

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On Friday, Nov. 8, the Indiana State Library held a small gaming demonstration for library employees. The event was designed to help librarians and library employees begin to explore the use of board games in a library setting; especially the games’ ability to help promote the development of soft skills. It was held in conjunction with the American Library Association’s International Games Week. In the future, we hope to bring this type of discussion to library communities as a training opportunity.

In 2007, two librarians whom I consider pioneers in the use of games in libraries, Jenny Levine and Scott Nicholson, had the idea to attempt to set a world’s record for the number of people playing the same game at the same time at libraries. This day became National Games Day and libraries around the United States were encouraged to hold events to promote and play games and, if possible, help set this record. Five years later it was re-branded International Games Day and five years after that, on the tenth anniversary, it was expanded and re-branded again to International Games Week. For a full history, check out their website.

As I wrote about in my last blog entry, “Fun and games or secret career-building tool?,” games of all types can help the players learn and practice skills that are coveted by many employers. The participants at this event got a chance to discover and discuss these concepts and the consensus was to bring this discussion to the larger Indiana librarian community. Join me on Wednesday, Nov. 27 at 10 a.m. for a webinar on this topic: “Engagement with soft skills – using board games at the library to engage patrons and improve career readiness.” Please see our calendar for this event and for other training opportunities.

This post was written by George Bergstrom, Southwest regional coordinator, Professional Development Office, Indiana State Library.

Dr. E. J. Josey: A library leader

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Dr. E.J. Josey was a librarian, activist, professor and the founder of the Black Caucus of the American Library Association.

Born in 1924, Josey grew up in Portsmouth, Virginia. He received his undergraduate education at Howard University in Washington, D.C. He then went on to earn a master’s degree in history from Columbia University. Josey later earned his master’s in library science at the State University of New York in Albany, New York.

Josey held several librarian positions in New York, Delaware, and Georgia. He was very active in the civil rights movement and was a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. He authored a resolution during the 1964 American Library Association Conference forbidding the organization’s staff and officials from participating in state library associations that discriminated against African-American librarians. This action led to the desegregation of library associations across the Southern United States. In addition, Josey became the Georgia Library Association’s first African-American member.

In 1970, Josey founded the Black Caucus of the American Librarian Association during the ALA Midwinter Conference. He was the association’s first president, serving from 1970 to 1971. He also served as president of the ALA from 1984-85. In addition, Josey was a library science professor at the University of Pittsburgh from 1986 to 1995.

Josey authored numerous articles and books during his lifetime. The Indiana State Library has several of his books in its collection:

 

In April of 1998, Josey delivered an address at the National Sankofa Council on Educating Black Children Conference in Merrillville, Indiana. You can read the text of his speech here.

On July 3, 2009, Josey passed away at the age of 85. ALA issued a statement mourning his loss.

In 2012, in honor of Josey and his work, a collection of essays, “The 21st Century Black Librarian in America: Issues and Challenges,” written by and about African-American librarians and the services they provide to the African-American community was published.

This book is also in the Indiana State Library’s collection. Members of BCALA served as editors and contributors; two of the book’s essays were authored by three Indiana librarians.

As an additional honor to Josey, BCALA offers the E.J. Josey Scholarship Award for African-American library science students. The scholarship is offered each year.

In 2020, BCALA will celebrate the 50th anniversary of its founding by Josey. It will also mark the commencement of its 11th National Conference of African-American Librarians in Tulsa, Oklahoma. To learn more about BCALA, you can visit its website.

BCALA also has affiliate chapters across the country. In Indiana, the BCALA affiliate is the Indiana Black Librarians Network. Founded in 2001, IBLN is an organization for African-American librarians and support staff to network, share ideas, work together on projects and to invest in professional development, research and scholarship to better serve the communities and organizations in which they work.

To learn more about Josey and his work, there is a video from YouTube.

This blog post was written by Michele Fenton, monographs and federal documents catalog librarian.

Professional conferences – There’s an app for that!

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Professional conferences are a great way to refresh, get inspiration, meet new people and see new places and things. In graduate school I attended my first professional library conference and was totally lost. Which sessions should I attend? How do I figure out this big bulky book that has anything and everything I ever wanted to know about the conference in it? What is the exhibitor’s hall and why should I care? I was so overwhelmed! Twenty eight years later – conferences haven’t fundamentally changed.  You still need to bring the essentials: a sweater, refillable water bottle and comfortable shoes. But what is relatively new is the conference app! They are amazing! No more carrying that big bulky book or tearing out pages – yeah! This year’s ALA Annual Conference was my first time using a conference app.

With this app you could view exhibitor information, contact information and location of their booth, all easily accessible. It also included a floor plan of the exhibit floor. You could also browse the speakers, poster presenters and other attendees. Forget your business cards? No problem! Each attendees’ badge had a QR code so you could scan other attendees’ badges with their QR code when making connections. And you could also send messages to other app users. The app would also send alerts and updates for the conference right to the app.

Best of all, you could create a personal schedule by starring the sessions you planned to attend. You could see exactly what you want to attend, what time and where the session located. Having back up sessions starred was a must just in case the session you wanted to attend was full. Presenter’s slide presentations were also available on the app. You could draw on presentation slides, highlight text and take notes. It was even better if you had the conference app on a tablet or iPad.

The upcoming Indiana Library Federation Annual Conference on Nov. 13-15 also has an app. Search the Google Play or Apple App stores for “2017 ILF Annual Conference” to download this app. Like the ALA conference app, it also includes links to attendees, favorites, notes, schedule, speakers, sponsors, exhibitors, interactive map and more!

Want to learn how to get even more out of attending conferences? Be sure to sign up for this upcoming webinar: It’s Not Just Packing a Cardigan: How to Attend a Conference to Get the Most out of Your Experience on Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2017 from 9:30 to 10:30 am, EST. No LEUs will be offered, but we still hope this is a great event to get ready for all the library conferences!

This blog post was written by Paula Newcom, northeast regional coordinator, Indiana State Library. For more information, contact the Professional Development Office at (317) 232-3697 or email.

Fair Use Week: Feb. 20 – Feb. 24

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Everybody loves “Weird Al” Yankovic. Okay, maybe not everybody, but most people can find humor in his parody songs like “White and Nerdy” and “Amish Paradise.” Well, almost everybody not named Coolio. Word on the street is that “Weird Al” is a nice guy and gets permission to parody songs from the original artists. However, he is not legally required to do so thanks to fair use. A 1994 court case, Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, 510 U.S. 569, ruled that parody qualifies as fair use.

Photo by Kyle Cassidy

In the United States, fair use permits the restricted use of copyrighted material without obtaining permission from the rights holders. This allows everything from “Weird Al” parody songs to movie reviews to certain “Saturday Night Live” skits to exist. Fair use is even the reason we’re allowed to use DVRs. So, if you DVR “Saturday Night Live” it’s double the fair use. Of course, there are academic applications relating to fair use, too. Try writing a scholarly paper without quotations. Thanks, fair use.

Fair Use/Fair Dealing Week, a week dedicated to celebrating the doctrines of fair use and fair dealing, is in full swing, running from Feb. 20 – Feb. 24, and is commissioned by the Association of Research Libraries. According to the Fair Use Week website, the event “is designed to highlight and promote the opportunities presented by fair use and fair dealing, celebrate successful stories and explain these doctrines.”

So, next time you try to imagine a world without “Addicted to Spuds,” research papers, movie reviews or an “SNL” cold open, remember that fair use makes it all possible.

This blog post was written by John Wekluk, communications director, Indiana State Library.

ALA San Francisco Recap

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The 2015 ALA annual conference #alaaac15 has come and gone and it was another memorable one for the books – literally and figuratively. If you have ever experienced this conference before, you know that some of the battle is getting back home without picking up too many Advanced Readers Copies of books. For bibliomaniacs everywhere, the struggle is real. I try to resist, having purposefully packed only a small carry-on, yet alas ended up shipping 2 boxes of books back anyway. Yay, books!

ALA_2

I was fortunate to be able to garner support and go to the annual conference this year, only having a few months under my belt as Children’s Services Consultant at the Indiana State Library. With a new city to navigate and different sessions from which to learn, it’s definitely a whirlwind and one you have to plan ahead of time. The ALA conference website has a nice online scheduler to assist you with jam-packing your days with high-conflict/high-priority sessions. Whee! Most times, though you’ve planned, you still roll with the punches – seeing how you feel (“I need coffee!”) and where you are actually located to see if it’s feasible to attend the session you wished. And, of course, you HAVE to compare your session times against all the great author signings in the exhibit halls.

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Time for Adventure @ The Library

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I-heart-geocaching
We’re all familiar with the adventures we take when reading a great piece of fiction from our local library. But what if the library could inspire an actual physical adventure? A real, live treasure hunt unlike anything you’ve ever experienced before?
Guess what? It can!

Libraries all over Indiana have known for years about a sport called geocaching (pronounced gee-oh-cashing). The Indiana Department of Natural Resources has a geocaching website to explain what it is and how to use it in Indiana parks. Geocaching can be done anywhere on the globe, but it needs to be organized first. Once you’ve decided what group you’d like to geocache with, you’re in for an adventure!

In 2013, the American Library Association’s magazine published a story called Libraries “Cache” in on Geocaching Treasure Hunts. It featured New York’s Liverpool Public Library and its summer programming that included all sorts of fun geocaching activities.

If you want to know more about this new sport, or about other libraries in Indiana which have already incorporated geocaching into their programming, look below!

  • A Modern Day Treasure Hunt Indiana Insider Blog
  • Geocaching at the Libraries Lake County Public Library
  • Geocaching at Jasper County Public Library
  • Geocaching: How to get started REI