Posts filed under 'Director'
The last couple of weeks have brought two resignations from the MLC board. Both are veteran board members and have a long history with MLC. Bill Baldridge, with nearly 30 years of service, is leaving Grand Rapids Public Library this fall, and after 37 years, George Bishop is retiring from Ovid-Elsie Area Schools in June.
Bill joined the board in July 2000 and served two terms as treasurer. In that post he worked with staff on MLC’s finances and oversaw the audit process. After the MLC board moved to Policy Governance in 2002, Bill became chair of the Audit committee, the successor to the treasurer position, and continued his excellent work by advocating for several new strong financial controls. He led the effort to identify and hire a new auditing firm and put into place policies that would insure ongoing high quality from our auditors. In addition, Bill was extremely faithful about attending board and committee meetings. I always appreciated the commitment he had to his job as board member and his candid and insightful comments.
George’s tenure on the board extends back to the mid-90s. In fact, he was a member of the selection committee that interviewed me way back in the spring of 1995. He’s been a tireless advocate for school libraries to develop collaborative relationships with other types of libraries in the wider library community. George has not only talked the talk, but he has walked the walk. Anyone who has visited the Ovid-Elsie High School Information Center instantly sees the results of George’s passion for libraries and the impact they can have on student learning. Not only is the library filled with video monitors, computers, and books and access to ebooks, databases, and MeLCat, it is a bustling center of student activity. George brought that same passion to his work with MLC. He has served with distinction as School Library Representative, At-large Representative, and as Chair.
MLC will miss both Bill and George. Their advocacy of the power of libraries to affect lives has been good for this organization and has helped keep us on course as we develop services to meet our mission.
But with these retirements comes an opportunity to pass the torch to the next set of leaders.
This year I am very pleased to welcome two brand new board members. Ishwar Laxminarayan is director of Jackson District Library, where he started less than a year ago. Already he has jumped into the Michigan library community with both feet and is doing great things in his community. Cathy Wolford is also a first-time board member. Cathy is manager of technical services at Benson Ford Research Center at The Henry Ford and brings to the board more than six years experience experience in a library that focuses on historical documents, archival papers, and manuscripts. I am very pleased to welcome Cathy and Ishwar aboard.
May 11th, 2006
In January, the MLC Board of Directors authorized a survey of the membership about the future and their use of various kinds of library services. The survey was designed to assess their thoughts, beliefs, and predictions about their levels of use of things such as blogs, wikis, integrated library systems, OCLC, virtual reference, and consultants.
Out of the approximately 1300 librarians who received an invitation to participate, 360 responded to the survey for a 28 percent response rate. Almost all respondents were from MLC member libraries. Forty-four percent of the respondents were from academic libraries. Twenty-nine percent were from public libraries and 11 percent were from schools. The remainder were from special libraries, consortia, and other types.
Some of the key findings from the survey are highlighted below:
When asked about their services to end users, the majority of respondents said each of the following would increase in the next 3 – 5 years:
- Quality assessment of customer service: 71 percent said it would increase
- E-document delivery: 67 percent said it would increase
- Patron-initiated ILL: 65 percent said it would increase
- Embedding of services beyond library confines: 56 percent said it would increase
- Information literacy learning outcome assessment: 52 percent said it would increase
- Personalization & self-help services: 51 percent said it would increase
Somewhat surprisingly, virtual reference ranked below the 50 percent level:
- Local virtual reference: Only 44 percent said it would increase
- Shared virtual reference: Only 37 percent said it would increase
In the area of technical systems, there was less unanimity about what is likely to increase:
- Electronic resource management: 53 percent said it will increase
- Simplification of library system interface: 52 percent said it will increase
- Cross-linking of e-resources, e.g. OpenURL & federated searching: 51 percent said it will increase
Two other technologies that have received significant coverage in the press and at conferences ranked quite a bit lower:
- Instant Messaging: 41 percent said it will increase
- RFID: 21 percent said it will increase
The section on library management showed clear opinions on a few items that will increase
- Marketing: 73 percent said it will increase
- Public relations: 66 percent said it will increase
- Strategic planning: 63 percent said it will increase
- Fund raising & grant writing: 58 percent said it will increase
- Staff development: 56 percent said it will increase
The section on top challenges asked respondents to up to three choices from the list. The result was a diverse mixture, with three items topping the 40 percent mark.
- Keep abreast of technologies, e.g. single point of access on the web: 49 percent said it will increase
- Funding & management of electronic & print library resources: 45 percent said it will increase
- Marketing: 40 percent said it will increase
- Update library facilities: 32 percent said it will increase
- Information literacy: 29 percent said it will increase
- Library visibility: 26 percent said it will increase
There are many other findings and interesting responses in the survey. To review a summary of all the questions and responses, go to the MLC web site.
April 10th, 2006
A couple years ago, we started the Member Forums as a way to create a dialog with our members. It was an experiment on our part. We didn’t know if anyone would be interested in serving or whether they’d really show up for the meetings. Two years later, we find that the participants really like the forums. Most of those who were members of the forums have asked to continue serving. Seems like we were successful.
The forum participants serve two-year terms with an opportunity for re-appointment. It’s time to open the application process again. If you think you’d like to serve on a forum, take some time to check them out and send an application. We’d love to have you join us.
February 16th, 2006
In September, we had David Weinberger give the keynote address at our annual meeting. Now, we’re happy to make his talk available. David is a great speaker, which you’d expect from someone who used to write jokes for Woody Allen. He’s very passionate about his ideas, and he has a lot to say that will interest librarians. The speech runs about 75 minutes.
December 28th, 2005
Take a look at this cartoon by Signe Wilkinson. It ran in Slate yesterday. Kind of makes you proud to be a librarian doesn’t it?
December 16th, 2005
This week OCLC released a new research report called Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources. You can download it or order a printed copy. I got a preview at the October OCLC Members Council meeting and like the 2003 scan there will be lots of discussion about the findings and conclusions.
December 8th, 2005
Fascinating discussion about the Google Book Search project on the PRI show Open Source. Guests included Siva Vaidhyanathan, Karen Schneider, Matthew Kirschenbaum, and Alex McGilvray, an attorney at Google. Good postmortems here and here.
Biggest question for Google that was left unanswered: Why doesn’t Google include OpenWorldCat on the results page? The only options for obtaining the book are from bookstores. Shouldn’t libraries be represented and shown as one of the fulfillment choices?
December 6th, 2005
It seems like everyone is writing about Google these days. Last week, Business Week had a cover story about the company. This month, Information Today has a long article examining the copyright implications of Google Book Search. (For an alternative view, check out this and this.) The December issue of Wired has a short graphic article about Google-fear. (It’s much more colorful and inventive in the magazine than it is online. Don’t be giving up that subscription just yet.)
Of all this gabbing about Google, perhaps the most substantial came in the December 2 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education. Siva Vaidhyanathan, an NYU professor, wrote a lengthy piece that has inspired a good deal of discussion in the biblioblogosphere, here, here, and here.
One of the key arguments he makes is that libraries will survive. In 100 years, it is highly likely that the University of Michigan and Harvard will continue to have libraries that preserve and protect the accumulated knowledge of humanity. Will Google still be around? How many companies that thrived in 1905 survived and thrived in 2005? Consequently, what happens to all that information we entrusted to Google? Vaidyhanathan wants libraries and public agencies to be in charge of the digitization. How can we trust Google to be around to safeguard these texts that they’re digitizing?
Nowhere does Vaidyhanathan acknoweldge that Google is giving the library one copy of every text that it digitizes. In the press release announcing the project in 2004, the University of Michigan muses about the potential for the library to make available print on demand services and downloadable full-text after it gets copies of the books. Such projects seem to mitigate Vaidyhanathan’s concern about Google’s privitizing the libraries’ texts.
Read the essay and the responses. It’s a good conversation to have.
December 5th, 2005
We had a bit of a problem with our email server over the weekend. Things seem to be fixed but if you got bounced mail from any MLC address or don’t get a reply to that message you sent, try resending.
Sorry about that.
December 5th, 2005
Congratulations to Mark Szidik, MLC tech wizard extraordinaire, and his wife Michelle on the birth of their baby daughter Meghan Grace. Meghan arrived early Saturday morning and weighed in at 4 lbs. 10 oz. Mother, daughter, and father are all doing fine.
November 30th, 2005
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