Gateways Conference is sweet 16!

It's hard to believe that the Support Staff conference has been happening since 1994. Get ready to come celebrate with your peers from around the state on Friday, July 23rd at the Salem Conference Center. Attend great sessions including "Treasures from the Vault - Special Collections"; "On the Front Lines: Support Staff and Intellectual Freedom"; "Author Author: Support Staff Writers", and more. Or sign up for the all day Book Mending Workshop.
Great food, Gift Basket raffles, Keynote speaker Maureen Cole - Director of Oregon City Library, a display of the history of OLA's Support Staff Division all await you.
See you there!
Margaret Harmon-Myers, Conference Committee Chair

Seeing through a visitor's eyes

Sometimes first time visitors to my library comment on how beautiful it is and I smile, say thank you or some such and immediately think of all the ways the architecture is unsuitable to a library setting. There's the dim lighting over reference desks and much of the stacks. The open, circular staircase in the center of the building which allows sound to travel from first floor to the floors above, sound that can be cacophonous with crying kids and loud cell phone users. The shortened open third floor allows sound to spill over into sections of the second floor disturbing those patrons who are studying or reading; and of course second floor noise carries up to the quiet areas on the third floor.

Well, the other day my perspective changed when before the library opened a coworker beckoned me out to the public area on the second floor and pointed to the windows at one end of the building. There I saw what I hardly pay attention to, something visitors notice, and it filled me with joy. Spring green trees framed in the morning light by the stained glass windows that reach straight up from second floor to third. It was breathtaking.

Over the next few days I looked around at the rest of the library differently. I stood in the circular tiled rotunda looking at the smooth polished wood framing the curves of the central stairs, up, up to the far domed skylight on the 4th floor. From the magazine area on the second floor I saw the rich red wood of the third floor ceiling, curved in a wave pattern. The two oversized carved chairs - usable art pieces. I'm with the patrons - I think it's all beautiful.

Enthusiasm: it's not just for kids

I work at the Oregon State Library. Because of both our mission and the architecture of our 70+-year-old building, we're a little different from most other libraries in the state.

One of my occasional duties is giving library tours. They're generally for state employees, or for visitors from other libraries. However, this week, I gave an hour-long tour to a group of 20 5th graders. The kids, from Chenowith Elementary School in The Dalles, were very well-behaved and interested. But what struck me most about them was their enthusiasm.


Not that the adults who tour the State Library aren't enthusiastic. They like learning about the history of the building, and enjoy the behind-the-scenes trip into our warehouse-like closed stacks.



The elementary school visitors liked those things, too, and asked good questions. But they liked pretty much everything else, too. They were impressed that our federal documents collection includes a game to educate kids about the danger of underage alcohol use. They were interested in the genealogy research folks can do in our Reference Room. They were impressed with the Talking Book and Braille Program. They paid attention and asked good questions. They liked our heavy bronze doors, and even thought getting to ride in the freight elevator was cool.


After they left, I started thinking about enthusiasm, how important it is for positive attitude, but how elusive it sometimes is. I probably sometimes sound like Marvin in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: "Don't try to engage my enthusiasm, because I haven't got one."


However, the kids were right. Our building is beautiful, the collection is full of treasures, and even the freight elevator can be kind of fun. I see it all every day, so I start taking it all for granted.


So, to engage my enthusiasm, I'll start paying more attention to things I see every day.


If you'd like to highlight cool stuff that you see every day at your library, post an comment!

Bright Ideas

In our library, we collect almost 40 different newspapers, from all over Oregon, in addition to the New York Times, the Seattle Times, and the Wall Street Journal. The retention varies for some, but we generally keep a year’s worth of papers in our stacks. These papers are stacked in piles on the outer wall of one of our tiers of stacks. Every month, it is necessary to weed the oldest issues. It is a rather exhausting task, especially when you have to lift up piles of heavy newspapers again and again to check the dates. Finding where the oldest month ends can be rather difficult, especially when each newspaper puts the issue date in a different area of the cover. It is almost as if newspaper businesses made a pact to keep things interesting for people in libraries! Personally, when I am completing a task that requires a lot of exertion, my mind constantly thinks of ways to make it easier. I thought, “What is the most difficult part of this?” Shifting the piles takes physical effort, but there is not a lot of struggling involved. Lifting stacks of issues over and over, however, can be very frustrating.

Then it hit me! Why not turn the newspapers sideways, alternating direction for each month? This would work with daily papers and those published less frequently. I would simply turn every four issues a different way for a weekly, every 30 or so for a monthly, etc. This made it much easier to grab the entire pile. Of course, I double check the issue date on the top and bottom, but I don’t have to “guess and check” to find where one month ends and the other one starts. Genius! Of course, I didn’t personally come up with this pile alternating procedure, as you see it with stacks of paperwork all the time. But the idea of applying it to the newspaper stacks did come to me (eventually…). So I am not trying to “toot my own horn” but simply to say, even if it takes a while to think of it, a good idea is still a good idea. And now, I often have someone else to do the big monthly weeding, so it is even easier for me (because I don’t have to do it very often!) Regardless, when I do perform this task, it will be much easier than it was before. Does anyone else have a bright idea that you or your organization have put into practice?

Jessica Rondema

Oregon State Library

Support for Professional Activities

In a recent post on this blog, SSD Past Chair Cathy Zgraggen solicits nominations for SSD officers for the coming membership year. In Library Journal's Paraprofessional of the Year award article , award winner Allison Sloan credits a former boss with encouraging her to become involved in the Massachusetts Library Association.

Unfortunately, the current economy may have created conditions in which may be difficult for support staff to participate in professional activities. Recently, some SSD members with an impressive history of involvement in the organization have been unable to continue that involvement. This makes me both sad and worried.

I certainly understand libraries are trying to do way more with considerably less these days, and that giving staff time off for professional activities can make it difficult to provide the service patrons expect and deserve.

I don't know if MLS librarians are having the same experience of no longer being supported in their professional activities. I'd like to think that it's spread over all levels of staff, but suspect that support staff are more likely to be effected.

I've been lucky to to have significant support from my library for my involvement in OLA. I know it has, at times, taken me away from my usual job duties for significant amounts of time. Yet I also know that I'm a better employee because of the opportunities for growth I've had by being involved in OLA and SSD.

There's no easy answer to this problem. But here are a few suggestions:

For managers: Make sure you're treating staff at all levels fairly regarding support for professional activities. Be flexible. Realize that your staff will have opportunities to learn and network, which will make them better employees.

For support staff: Make sure your boss and co-workers know how much time you may be spending on professional activities, and what you'll be doing. Be flexible. Be willing to do some professional activities on your own time.

Professional organizations like OLA depend on the participation of their members. Let's hope that we'll continue to receive the support we need to make that participation possible.

Nominate yourself for an SSD position on the Board

Please consider nominating yourself or someone else (with their express permission) for a position on the Oregon Library Association / Support Staff Division Board. The election is in July at the SSD annual conference. You may be asking, “Why am I sending out a call for nominations so early?” This will provide you time to get approval from your supervisor or manager. The positions are:

· Chair-Elect – 1 year term, acts as Chair the following 1 year term, acts as Past Chair for a 1 year term
· Recorder – 1 year term
· Treasurer – 2 year term
· Archivist – 1 year term

You may be wondering just what the Support Staff Division is. Our bylaws state:

PURPOSE
The purpose of the Support Staff Division shall be to provide a framework for information sharing, continuing education and moral support for all library support staff. Specifically, the aims are to provide a forum to encourage new ideas, discuss concerns and solve problems; promote awareness of library issues; inspire and promote professional growth through networking, conferences, workshops and mentoring; exchange ideas on processes, systems, and policies; provide a medium for the exploration of new ideas and technologies; foster cooperation among all Oregon libraries in all the various public and technical areas throughout the library; and to increase awareness in the library community of the evolving roles played by support staff.

Position descriptions per our bylaws are as follows:

Duties of the Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect
Assumes the office of Chair after one year as Vice Chair.
Assists the Chair; becomes familiar with the By-laws and procedures of the Association and Division. Attends meetings and chairs meetings in the absence of the Chair.
Duties of the Treasurer
Has approval authority for all expenditures below $250.00. Obtains signature of Division Chair for all expenditures above $250.00 (two signatures are necessary for expenditures above $250.00). Submits bills and receipts to OLA Treasurer.
Maintains records of all expenditures and profits for the Division.
Duties of the Recorder
Records minutes of the Division's Executive Committee Meetings.
Assures each Executive Committee member receives copies of the meeting minutes before the next meeting.
Duties of the Archivist
Maintains all historical data, scrapbook and photo album of SSD conference and other events, including keeping conference programs and accompanying material.

Thank you!

Cathy Zgraggen
Supervisor, La Pine Public Library
Deschutes Public Library
cathyz@deschuteslibrary.org
541-312-1094
http://www.deschuteslibrary.org

Know More.

In Praise of Ambiguity

In the library world, and particularly in Technical Services, we've got a reputation for being very literal, even unimaginative. Of course, we all know that we're really outside-the-box people with big imaginations and hearty senses of humor.

Fortunately, our work life provides us with the occasional giggle.

This morning, I made a note on the back of an old catalog card from a stash that we use for scratch paper. As I sometimes to, I turned the card over to see the title. It was the wonderfully ambiguous Fighting with Food. You can come up with all sorts of things that it could be about! Knowing that it was published by the U.S. government in 1918, I can infer that it was something about the war effort in World War I, but it still gives me a chuckle.

My previous favorite ambiguous title was 1958 Fish Stockings by Watersheds. I know it's about stocking fish in different areas of Oregon, but it conjures up an image of fish trying to pull stockings over their fins.