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October 31, 2008

Scary or just cute?

As NSLS staff started floating into the building today, it did take a couple guesses to figure out who Snow White was. That would be Executive Director Sarah Long. If I had known, since I was a little lacking in inspiration this year, I would have dressed up as one of the seven dwarfs (or dwarves, if you prefer.) Sarah is ALWAYS inspired by Halloween.

Kay Schlumpf and Anna Yackle (back, right of center) are Crazy Cat Ladies # 1 & #2. In retrospect, Anna wondered if this should have been our design for the ILA Style in the Stacks event at conference! The NSLS staff wishes you all a scary, spooky, ghostly, trick & treat-filled Halloween.

posted by Judy H. at 10:53 am | Comments (0)

October 28, 2008

A fun, informative time was had by all.

Our open house on Friday, October 24 was a success and a lot of fun!

Judy Hoffman and Anna Yackle try to draw Andrew Kim of Glenview Public Library to their tables.

We met some who were new to libraries and others who were new to NSLS. We also saw some familiar faces. It was a nice time to touch base and let everyone know what we’ve been working on here at the System and offer information on our many services.

Kris Dieter, NSLS; Jane Keefe, LTA student; and Mary Siarkiewicz, Mount Prospect Public Library

We talked about many of our services, such as MyMediaMall, networking groups, communities of practice, marketing, professional development, and DigitalPast. We also had a table covering the Library Partnership Trust. Staff members who cover those areas were on hand to answer questions and offer information.

Sheila Urwiler, Deerfield Public Library and Anna Yackle, NSLS

We also had a booth to cover some general information about the NSLS website and weekly e-newsletter. One area that visitors liked was the Manage My Account section, where you can change your password, check your maillist and community of practice subscriptions, and update your profile with information about yourself and a photo.

Christina Johnson, NSLS and Janet McIntyre, Glenview Public Library

If you’d like to see more photos from this event, view our photos on Flickr.

And please, if you’d like to learn more about how NSLS services can help you, don’t wait for another open house; drop us a line!

posted by Christina at 3:04 pm | Comments (0)

October 22, 2008

Usability and the NSLS membership awards site.

Staff here have been working hard on the NSLS annual memberships awards section of our site. I’ve been doing some usability testing on the nomination process from start to finish. I looked at the process as if I’d never seen it before and paid close attention to the confirmation messages–both on the site and in e-mail–that I received when submitting an award. I couldn’t believe it when I received the latest newsletter from Jakob Nielsen, which covered transactional e-mail and confirmation messages!

Great timing!

It helped me decide when the person submitting a nomination should receive a confirmation message. I decided on a confirmation message once the form is submitted an another one to let the user know the submission was posted on the site. There will be a small delay between the two actions. On a commerce site, this would be similar to a confirmation when you place the order and another when it ships.

The article also suggested to keep the wording to a minimum. Now that’s music to my web writer’s ears!

posted by Christina at 8:50 am | Comments (0)

October 21, 2008

IOUG Board

I’m on the IOUG (Illinois OCLC Users Group) Board and we just had our Fall retreat last week in Springfield.  It is a great group of people and it’s wonderful to hear about all of the OCLC trainings/services that are taken advantage of in this state.  We started preliminary planning for the spring meeting.  I can’t really give any details yet but it will probably take place in the Chicago area the first week of June.  As soon as I know some details, I’ll be sure to share.  One of the things I learned about was an online training that the state library is doing to get small libraries more up to speed on OCLC.  It looks like a great class and I highly recommend checking it out.  It covers Firstsearch, catExpress, and basic ILL.  Awesome for school librarians.

posted by Debbie at 3:56 pm | Comments (0)

October 17, 2008

NSLS Open House

Even though I work here at NSLS, I found reading Sharon’s post about the Peggy Sharp program very interesting.  I know I like to know what happens behind the scenes for different organizations.  Recently, I took the Wrigley Field tour and was able to visit the locker rooms and the press boxes.  How interesting!  Probably a bit more interesting than what goes on here behind the scenes.  Anyway, I’m in the process of finishing up plans for next Friday’s NSLS Open House.  We have this every year but usually switch it up a bit.  This year is similar to last year’s open house in that we will have tables set up around the auditorium for members to visit and learn about different NSLS services.  Last year we did not have formal tours of the building but we’ve added that back in this year.  Behind the scenes, a lot goes on, such as:

Arranging for staff to work the tables, preparing handouts for the tables, ordering food, room set-up, etc.

We hope to have a good turnout again this year.  What’s nice about the open house is the fact that it’s not just for new members of NSLS.  Even if you’ve been a member for awhile, you should stop by.  I think more experienced members still think of this as the NSLS orientation, as it was called a couple of years ago.  So, come on by, but register because we want to make sure we have enough food.

posted by Debbie at 9:18 am | Comments (0)

October 14, 2008

Let the Games Begin–Peggy Sharp is coming!

I thought I’d share with all of you how NSLS staff pulls off this terrific program year after year.  Believe me we love having Peggy, but it takes a coordinated staff effort behind the scenes.

NSLS tries to book Peggy a year out.  She is still touring nationally so we work around her schedule, that’s why we usually schedule her programs in the winter months and perform the “no snow” dance a week before her arrival.

Donna Tieberg and Ruth Downing work very hard in coordinating Peggy’s visit from her travel arrangements to her handouts.  And speaking of handouts…  this is quite the production.  Peggy is wonderful about sending her originals ahead of time.  Once we receive a copy, NSLS staff (usually Ruth and Donna Veldt) spend hours copying, punching, and spiral-binding the booklets.  (Ah-h-h, I’m reminded of my teaching days and my struggles with the spiral-binding machines. That was one machine I never conquered.)

We’ve learned over the years to reserve all space at NSLS for set-up the day before Peggy arrives.  Extra tables and chairs are set up to accommodate our attendees during lunch, making sure to have extra garbage cans in every room.

On the day of the programs, NSLS staff arrive early.  Judy Scarnato and her wonderful A-Team members scurry around setting up the coffee and breakfast treats.  By 8:00 a.m. the registration desks are ready and we’re prepared to welcome 300 guests over the next three days.

In spite of all the hard work, NSLS enjoys hosting these programs for our members.

Trivia Fact:  Peggy has been our guest for the past 13 years at NSLS
Trivia Fact:  We’ve only had to cancel her program three times over the years
Worst Experience:  One year the bathrooms were not working at NSLS so attendees had use rented port-a-potties for the day.  (I am so glad that was before my time here at NSLS!) 

We are now preparing for Peggy’s 2009 visit. We hope to see you there!

posted by sharon at 12:08 pm | Comments (0)

October 7, 2008

Congratulations!

Congratulations go out to NSLS delivery driver Saul Pina.  On Monday, October 6th, Saul completed courses and graduated from the Environmental Technical Institute where he has been studying to be a licensed heating and air conditioning technician. 

Saul had originally come to NSLS as a temporary employee late in 2006, and was offered a part-time position in January of 2007.  Just recently he was moved into his current full-time role as primary driver on Route 4.

posted by Don at 2:52 pm | Comments (0)

October 6, 2008

It’s a Family Affair

Isn’t one of the best parts of a conference meeting new people? I had a great time doing just that at the NSLS/LPT booth at ILA. Got into a discussion of the wonders of Digital Past with a whole family of librarians. Have you met the three sister librarians from central Illinois? Their mother was a librarian too! We had lots of fun, and I didn’t have to twist any arms to get them to pose with one of our favorite giveaways (the purple notebooks, not NSLS staffer, Donna Tieberg). Joan (on the left) was the winner of Henry the Talking Library Advocate Gnome.

(L-R) Joan Herron, Eureka High School; Nancy Scott, Eureka Public Library District; Donna; Ruth Shasteen (Joan’s twin), Central A&M, Moweaqua.

posted by Judy H. at 5:44 pm | Comments (0)

October 2, 2008

ILA: The Conference

It was mad! It was exhausting! It was ILA! (I love using exclamation marks.) First, let me thank the fabulous Illinois Library Association staff and all those members who helped make this conference so worthwhile and enjoyable. Great job everyone.

Like you, NSLS staff were happy to support and participate in this event. Debbie Baaske, Judy Hoffman and I participated in various presentations. A team of NSLS designers brought forth “Sex In the System” as our entry for the Style from the Stacks event. Sarah Long received the prestigious Hugh Atkinson Award (my favorite quote from that event was from John Ison when he said “The only surprise is that Sarah didn’t get the award sooner.”)  But, where you probably encountered most of the NSLS staff was on the vendor floor.

We were exhibitors. This is the best way for us to tell librarians from across the state about the wonderful deals offered by the Library Partnership Trust (LPT) and the advantages of both using and being a member of Digital Past.  These services are the new face of resource sharing and it was great meeting so many future partners. If you stopped by when I wasn’t there, I hope your enjoyment of the notebooks and screen-wipes you snagged at the booth outweighs the envy of your co-workers who didn’t visit us.

Tell me what you did at the conference and what programs you want us to bring back to the system.

posted by Admin at 2:54 pm | Comments (0)

Sarah Receives Hugh Atkinson Award at ILA

One of the exciting moments at ILA last week was when Sarah Long, our NSLS Executive Director, received the Hugh C. Atkinson Memorial/DEMCO Award. This award recognizes sustained activity and contributions having a lasting impact on librarianship, and for efforts supporting statewide interlibrary cooperation.

John Ison, Demco and Sarah Long, NSLS
Photo courtesy of Jan Ison

Congratulations, Sarah!

posted by Christina at 2:38 pm | Comments (0)