Our Library is a Five Star Library!

Library Journal announced the America’s Star Libraries of 2010 and Ida Long Goodman Memorial Library is sitting at the top of its category. Library Journal rates 7,407libraries across the country. Two hundred fifty eight libraries received a three, four or five stars rating; seventeen Kansas libraries earned one of those ratings. Four Kansas libraries earned a five star rating. Ida Long Goodman Memorial Library is proud to announce it was rated first in the $100,000to $199,000 budget category not only in Kansas but nationally as well. This is the third time in the last two years! Congratulations to the other five star Kansas libraries: Buhler Public Library, Hays Public Library, and Seneca Free Library.

The criteria on which Library Journal bases the award is per capita, on four service categories: library visits, circulation (how many items are checked out in a year), attendance at library programs and use of public internet computers.

Libraries supply an important service to communities. The five star rating, based on the above categories, shows that our community and surrounding area are taking advantage of those services. Libraries have always offered materials and internet to the public free of charge. The Ida Long Goodman Memorial Library Board has looked for ways that the library can become a gathering place for our community.

Our library is served by a dedicated, friendly staff and provides our services to the public in a comfortable setting. Try a cappuccino from the Internet Café while browsing the newspaper or surfing the web from your lap top. Bring a group of friends and challenge each other to a game or two on the Wii or a variety of board games (look for a Scrabble tournament to be organized the first of the year!) Book Clubs are offered throughout the winter–let us know if you’d like to be a part of one any time! The library loans not only books, magazines and newspapers but also dvds and audiobooks. The community room currently provides a meeting place for regional Boy Scout leaders, hosts a Weight Watchers group, and serves as a room for local clubs and groups to meet. The library indexes births, deaths, and marriages so people all over the U.S. can use our genealogy room to search for information on their families. Wireless internet access, computers with internet access and a web-based circulation system allows patrons access to over 30,000 items from the comfort of your own home.

What makes our library stand out above the rest? Director, Christie Snyder, believes it’s the partnerships that have been developed with other service-oriented groups in the area. With a vision before her time, Mrs. Goodman built the library with a partnership between the school district and city in mind, offering an opportunity to the students and residents of St. John that few communities have that are our size. Local businesses and organizations support library programming without reservation. The fall concert which brought Celtic guitarist, Jerry Barlow to the library is just such and example. Our children’s librarian, Jill Rockenbach, partnered with Parent’s As Teacher instructor Cheryl Foster and Stafford County Home Extentsion Officer, Amy Collins ,to bring a program on nutrition for the Kansas Reads to Preschoolers program just last week. After school programming is being offered through a partnership with the St. John Recreation Commission (Contact the commission for more information about after-school movies and ZumbAtomics).

So, does it take a village to raise a library? Yes, we believe it does – a five star library anyway. Come check us out today!

It Has Been Awhile

I haven't updated my blog since we went to North to visit my son and family (which includes spending time with the cutest grandson EVER). After a wonderful couple of weeks exploring their world, it was back to work and the fast pace of life St. John, America. Yes, our sleepy little corner of the world has a lot going on.

Students have been in school for a month all ready. The buzz of almost 300 children and their grandparents reading at our Grandparent's Day celebration earlier in September has come and gone. Thank you to our Friends group for providing and serving cookies and lemonade for our guests.

We are excited to announce the beginnings of a knitting club at our library this fall. Our first group will meet Sunday at 2 pm beginning October 3. A second group will meet Tuesdays at 3:30 pm beginning October 5. Several patrons have been generous and donated needles and yarn to learn with so if you have always wanted to learn to knit or need to jump start your skills, join us!

Monday, October 4th Celtic guitarist, Jerry Barlow will share his talents with us in a concert at 7:00 pm in the basement of the library.

Thursday, October 28th Fall Community Arts Program 7:30 pm
Tumbleweed Tales of Amazing Kansans: Entrepreneurs of Rural Kansas by
Ron Wilson

Coming soon: The St. John/Hudson PTO donated a set of six scrabble boards (THANK YOU!)so a Scrabble Tournament is in the works. Details available soon.

Old Spice Guy and Libraries

Don't you just love the Old Spice Guy? Apparently there was an Old Spice Channel where the actor posted what the "people" asked him to post as his commercial character. This is a YouTube video about using your library.



And here is a clever take-off on those fun commercials promoting a Harold B. Lee Library that was posted on YouTube. Don't you just love it?

New and Improved

The library is in the midst of a variety of changes and we are looking at them as "all good". Over the last three months we have hired two new clerks, Mark and Brandon. They both are going to be great assests to our staff. Be sure to stop in and we'll introduce you.

Mark has been giving a new look to our web pages. We hope to keep information current with his help. You can find news about upcoming events, new books added to our collection, information about the staff, library contact information, a page of helpful and interesting web sites and what services we offer. Check us out at www.usd350.com. Click on the Library tab to browse for all this and more.

This past week we updated the Alexandria catalog. There are lots of user-friendly features. Check it out at http://65.166.185.106/#_ , find it on the USD350 Library webpage or if you'd like a more indepth lesson, come on in. We'll give you a tour!

Stay cool -- come in and check out our hot new books!

Hip, Cool, and GAGA

I can so see our staff doing this in the fall to promote the library...what do you think gang?

23 Things Kansas

I thought we had until midnight May 28 to finish up 23 Things Kansas. I had 3 lessons to go and a video to upload when all the lessons disappeared probably around shortly after 9. What gives? So this video was supposed to go into my blog about Week 13 but I wasn't able to go back and see what the actual assignment was. I did get week 14 done but Week 15 & 16 was lost. I wish things at the library and in my personal life hadn't got so crazy. I would have liked the 30 hours and would probably have just finished on my own if I didn't get them done. I learned a lot and am glad I saved most of the sites in Delicious I thought would be useful or I wanted more time to explore since none of the lessons are available now.

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Library Thing, Etc

I have explored on Shelfari, Goodreads, WhichBook, What Should I Read Next -- all wonderful tools for not only for my personal reading but for patron reader's advisory. I am spending way too much time playing on these...I only have three more lessons that I might be able to finish before midnight. Anyone else out there hoping to slip in under the wire? I liked Shelfari and What Should I Read Next--keeping a list of what I've read and liked. The only complaint is that it eats up so much time. I even managed to add a Shelfari widget to my blog on Blogger!

Screencasting

Again, I can not complete this because I don't have a mic to record the directions that go along with the screencast. I can do this after I get home from Texas with my son's laptop.

Video on the Web

This is probably the most challenging assignment and the one I am not going to be able to complete. I am trying to complete these while staying in the hospital with my Mom. Yes, I unfortunately waited until the last minute and I don't have my camera with me. My son has done this for his classes so I'm sure he can help when I get home.

Instant Messaging

I use instant messaging on Facebook and Skype. It's nice for quick conversations and catching up. And impromptu conversations. Some of my collegues have been using it to "discuss" issues that need immediate action with out interrupting the classroom with a phone call. It can be disrupting though. I'm not really seeing the application of it in a library setting.

Cloud Computing

I now realize I have been doing some cloud computing all ready. I accidently created a google doc so so I went to that and sent it to some friends to help improve upon. Our staff uses the google calendar to keep track of all our scheduling and library events. As long as we save our dates under the right calendar, it works slick! I store photos in Picasa and share them from the web feature. I think I'll probably use cloud computing to back up what I have on my computer or hard copies.

Microblogging

I've been resisting adding one more tool that would be sending more info my way. But I did it for 23thingskansas. Recently the superintendent suggested it as a way to promote library programming. He had set up an account for the school but I haven't found it yet. The list did help and I used my address book to find friends that were using Twitter all ready.

I have started following a co-worker, my sister, and I'm trying to figure out how to follow a Kansas library. I'll have to let you know if I find any posts that have been helpful. So far, no.

Some uses for Twitter and our library:
May help organize great, instant meetups.
Could be used to take an opinion poll.
Direct patron’s attention to good things happening at the library.
Bring great minds together, and give opportunities to learn (if you look for it, and/or if you follow the right folks).
May give critics a forum, but that means you can study them.

Tagging and Social Bookmarking

Delicious is probably one of the first internet tools I bought into. I tried sending Rebecca a url with the directions that were given but I never got the choice of "send" in my tag box. I did network rbrown3 and hopefully the url I sent shows up in her in box. I bundled a few of the url's I have all ready tagged. I can see me using this to bundle sites for classes when they are researching or bundling sites that the staff would find useful. I've even used it to pull together sites I used in doing a talk for SCKLS on Gaming in the Library.

Social Networking

It looks like I neglected to do my assignment for social networking. I was all ready had a Facebook account and just reviewed with this assignment. Most of my friends are on it. It's been fun catching up with old classmates and cousins that I have across the country. I have been following Hutchinson Public's Young Adult activities. I'm considering modeling a Facebook page promoting youth activities at our library after their page. The challenge to all of these new things we are learning is to keep it current because we are basically a one-man show. I added "Off the Shelf" to my Online Community profile.

RSS Feed

I am learning all about RSS feeds today. I chose Google Reader because I all ready use Blogger and have a g-mail account. I subscribe to the Kansas Sampler Foundation and multiple librarian sites such as Top Ten Facebook Apps for Librarians and How Librarians Can Save the World: NPR.

Here are the instructions for how to use Google Reader to subscribe to the RSS feed on anypage you want to follow. It is very easy because if the website has a RSS feed, Google Reader will have a button that directs to subscribe. You will need to click "Subscribe Now" or "Add to Google Reader."

I can see the value of subscribing to a feed. I think you could use RSS for following job openings, providing recently added services or promoting programming at your library and in our situation the school could relay homework assignments and quickly announce school cancellations. It could also be used for sharing lists of bookmarks that the librarian compiles for patorns or a calendar with listings of past or upcoming events, deadlines or holidays .

Photo Sharing

I played around with Flickr a bit but am more familiar with Picasa. I searched Flickr for Cinco de Mayo pictures and thought this one was interesting not only for the picture but also the comment that was posted with it.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chriztrax/4579722722/

Although I am more comfortable with Picasa and have edited photos with that program, the feature of Flickr that I will go back and investigate further is the "Make Stuff" feature where you can make cards, books, etc.

Webinars/Online meetings

In an attempt to "catch up" before the end of May, I have attended a SirsiDynix webinar archive that was very easy to navigate. Pat Wagner presented, "How to Understand Library Your Users - The Better Futures of their Communities and Institutions." I chose this because I've just attended several of Pat's Ethics sessions. The emphasis in this one hour session was to look at whether your library was relevant to the people who use it and how that would affect the mission of your library. It should be about being a tool to build better futures for the individuals, communities and institutions you serve. So we learned:

•How to identify seven areas of concern for your library users
•What mistakes to avoid while connecting with people in your community or institution
•How to communicate better futures in images, sounds and stories, not just in an abstract way and
•How to anticipate rather than react to critical community and institutional issues

I'm ready to take the informal polls and meet with small groups because our library is very much a traditional library. In this current setting, I don't believe we meet the needs of our users. For such a wonderful facility the usage by public patrons is relatively low. Stats show a different story because of the school's usage of the building.

I have also attended several live webinars that have been offered this spring. With professional development budgets been cut, I depend on the webinars and our library regional systems to help keep me up-to-date and current. I really appreciated the Everyday Ethics of Facebook.

Finally Friday

Can't believe two weeks have gone by so fast. The library biz seems to have picked up. Finished the Kansas State Library report and a report for our regional library system -- YEAH! Had a library board meeting and a young adult library advisory board meeting. We started an Adopt-a-Shelf program. The high school stuco students, the library advisory board and the middle school stuco volunteered to tidy the elementary and young adult shelves of the library. It is so nice to be able to find books when you go to the shelf to look for them. We so appreciate the help of these students and our library skills students.

I haven't kept up with my 23 Things Kansas so I hope to get caught up this weekend and see what new amazing resources are out there to help us promote our awesome Kansas libraries. I really love the databases the Kansas State Library provides for us. And we couldn't get by without the support of our regional system and it's staff at SCKLS. We have THE BEST network of library services here in Kansas!

Hope to have some Friday fun after a week of Work (with a capital W) before the cold snowy stuff moves back in. Have a good weekend everybody!

Snowy Day Treat

What a busy week! Sometimes the piles just get overwhelming...I am proud this week that I cleared two carts of books out of my office to be processed. Add to that, helping our Friends group make Valentine packages of romance novels, a chocolate bar, romantic bookmark all wrapped up in a pretty ribbon for their fundraiser AND going through about ten boxes of donations, I guess I did accomplish quite a bit! I was rewarded with a snow day and spent Kansas Day at home all cozy wrapped in a blanket reading Gilead. It is a wonderful book that I probably would have never read if I hadn't been participating in the library's TALK program. I'm looking forward to an interesting discussion on Sunday.

811 Emergency

Our middle school English teacher asked me to come over today and help introduce her poetry unit to the sixth grade class. Even before I started, just the mention of poetry brought a groan - hence the 811 emergency! Very few teachers of literature in our district have embraced poetry so I love introducing this unit. After the students explore what different types of poetry there are, Mrs. Rausch has the students write poetry and compile a book. I think we may have to have a poetry cafe -- with an open mike and let them read their poetry the beatnik way.

After a quick introduction about why poetry is important then we dived in to an Internet scavenger hunt to find definitions and examples of different types of poetry. It's fun to reintroduce Mother Goose rhymes and point out the lyrics to songs are poetry. I'm going back tomorrow to finish the lesson and read some poetry aloud. Be enthusiastic and the enthusiasm spreads. I can hardly wait until to hear what these budding poets create!

Monday, January 18

Good morning,

My name is Christie. I am library director in a small town in Kansas and I'm just learning to blog -- yes, hard to believe but this is my first blog! Maybe you're wondering about the name, KSbarbarian. When I was an elementary librarian, a young student had damaged a book and was sent over to tell me about what had happened. He summoned all his courage, went to the front desk and told the clerk he was "supposed to talk to that lady barbarian" and the label stuck. Now days I'm the Head Barbarian!