Cumberland Library Invites You to Their Thank You Party April 10th

Thomas St. Angelo Public Library in Cumberland cordially invites you to attend their Thank You Party on Sunday April 10th from 1:30 - 3:30pm.  

Thank you to all the donors who supported the creation of our beautiful building and to all the patrons who turned the bricks and mortar into a vibrant and growing community center.

Come see the beautiful new painting in the children's area and chat with the artist, Jeff Hile.

Workshop: Autism 101 and Adapting Programs and Services for People on the Autism Spectrum

Sign up for this workshop by Friday April 1st!  Send name, email address and library of each person participating to registration@ifls.lib.wi.us . Many many children, families and adults are affected by autism. Learn the basics to help you problem solve and provide better service.
http://docs.iflsweb.org/pr/Autism_flyer.pdf

Summer VISTA Positions Available for Placement in Public Libraries

The Department of Public Instruction is excited to announce the availability of a second summer VISTA grant for communities across Wisconsin. This grant will be administered in partnership with UW-Extension and the US Department of Agriculture.

Basically, this grant will allow us to sponsor 20-30 summer VISTAs across the state to serve your site (at NO cost) for 8 weeks to work on the following types of issues:

*       Benefit (i.e. foodshare) outreach, screening and application assistance
*       Farmers market and community garden development
*       Facilitate community nutrition education workshops
*       Improve the participation rates and efficacy of Summer Food Programs
*       Assist in the collection and distribution of food at area food banks

The focus must be on hunger, but if there are other activities that you feel might relate, please let me know. We are open to placing VISTAs at schools, non profits, libraries, or other community based organizations.

At this time we are trying to get a sense of how many sites might be interested in having summer volunteers to do this kind of work. Please let me know if you would be interested and how many members you feel you could support.

Once more information is sent to us from our State Office we can get a host site application and other information out to you. But letting me know of your interest will hold a spot (or spots) for you.

Summer VISTAs, in return for serving your site full time for 8 weeks, will receive a monthly living allowance of $891/month in urban areas and $858 in rural areas. They will also receive an education award of $1,174.


Contact: Betsy Prueter
Project Coordinator
VISTA Family-School-Community Partnerships AmeriCorps Every Student a 
Graduate Community Learning and Partnerships Team Department of Public Instruction
125 S. Webster Street
P.O. Box 7841
Madison, WI  53707
608-267-7290
608-267-2296 (fax)
betsy.prueter@dpi.wi.gov

Leave the libraries alone. You don't understand their value.

Best-selling author Philip Pullman spoke to a packed meeting on 20 January 2011, called to defend Oxfordshire libraries. He gave this inspirational speech. This is a repost from falseeconomy.org.uk/blog.


Read the full speech at http://falseeconomy.org.uk/blog/save-oxfordshire-libraries-speech-philip-pullman

Rural Libraries Deal With Huge User Increase Despite Stagnant Budgets

Library directors in Bloomer and Colfax tell us they've seen lots of growth, particularly in their computer usage, in just the last two years. Watch the video clip from WEAU-TV Eau Claire. http://www.weau.com/home/headlines/Rural_libraries_deal_with_huge_user_increase_despite_stagnant_budgets_113314979.html

Start the Conversation

Library Funding isn't a given.  Make a positive change in your community.   Visit this link to Geek the Library to see ideas for Who You Can Talk To,  What You Can Say, and What You Can Do today.

BackTalk: We Need Big Tent Librarianship

By Andy Woodworth

In politics, there is a term known as the “big tent.” It is used to represent a diversity of groups that are united under one political party. Though these groups often differ in their stances on certain issues, they have enough in common to be drawn together under the same soaring roof. What they lack in ideological compatibility they make up for in the strength of their combined numbers and the opportunity to act on the broader themes of the coalition.

With this definition in mind, I would like to propose that we all engage in what I call “big tent librarianship.” The guiding dogma to this concept is that all librarians are intrinsically connected in their personal motivations for entering the profession, whether it is a desire to provide a service to a community or population, to act on the belief that information should be easily and readily accessible to those who seek it, or to ensure that literacy is an integral aspect of modern society. These are the elementary constants that bind the profession together.

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BackTalk: We Need Big Tent Librarianship