OLA Employee of the Year 2015

A big congratulations to our own Margaret Harmon-Myers for being named OLA's Library Employee of the Year for 2015!

According to the article, Margaret was recognized for her many contributions at Eugene Public Library, especially her computer/technology classes and her skills in genealogy research (and we all know well these are both major benefits for a public library!)The award was presented at the OLA conference in Eugene.

The full list of previous award winners for this award and the others OLA gives out is available here.

OLA SSD 2015 Conference is now open for registration!

It’s time to make the announcement you’ve all been waiting for- registration for OLA SSD 2015, is now open! Use the online form to select your sessions and register for the conference. If you hurry*, you can make the early bird registration and save $10!

Some important details- the conference, titled “Many Roles, One Goal: Meeting the Needs of Our Communities” will take place at the Best Western Agate Beach Inn in Newport, OR. The conference is Friday July 17 and runs from 8am-4pm. Your registration fee includes breakfast, lunch, AND delicious snacks. We have fantastic speakers and sessions all day with content designed to be relevant and useful to all different library types.

If you’d like to stay at the Best Western please give them a call at (541) 265-9411 and mention the conference- you’ll get a nice discount! Discounted rates are $119 (hillside view) or $135 (ocean view) (plus taxes and fees). Registration is open until Sunday July 12.

If you have any questions regarding registration, please contact Rea Andrew, OLA-SSD Treasurer, at rea.andrew@ci.newberg.or.us

If you need special accommodations, please notify Shanel Parette, SSD Conference Committee Chair, by July 1, 2015 at sparette@willamette.edu or 503.370.6673.   

*Okay, you have until June 12 for early bird. But we’re trying to get some excitement here!

Chicks hatching in a library!

Peep peep!

One of the more interesting additions to a library collection, which were due to hatch April 19th, is the Chick-It-Out Hatch Program at the Homer Library in Illinois. 

You can go to their site and watch a live stream of the incubator, which according to their facebook page has one chick, but looks like it still has eggs in it as of this date.

The chicks will be kept at the library for a couple weeks after they hatch then go back to the farm.

I can't imagine resisting the cuteness while trying to shelve holds or working the circulation desk and would probably find excuses to be out on the floor a lot more.

How much work would you get done if there were adorable, fluffy, baby chicks in your workplace?

National Library Week 2015

Hello everybody!

It's once again National Library Week.  David Baldacci has been named the Honorary Chair of National Library Week 2015.

ALA (American Library Association) is encouraging everyone to "share what they've created with the help of their library ... Share what you've made with the help of your local library on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram using the hashtag #librarymade for the chance to win a $100 gift certificate to Maker Shed or Amazon."  More details are over on ilovelibraries.org. 

Tomorrow is National Library Workers Day.  Started in 2003, it celebrates "the hard work, dedication, and expertise of library support staff and librarians."

We get special snacks at the library where I work to celebrate NLWD. Or should I say "more", since we tend to really like our snacks on every day of the calendar year, whether we're celebrating or not.

What do you most look forward to during National Library Week?  Does your library do anything special for its workers? 

Also, consider nominating one of your coworkers for a star!

OLA SSD 2015 Conference update and keynote speaker

 

OLA SSD 2015 conference planning is in full swing, and we have two exciting announcements!

Registration for the conference will be opening soon. This is a little earlier than normal but we know all of you are excited to start planning your trip to fabulous Newport, OR for this year's conference! Keep your eyes posted here and on Libs-OR because we'll be announcing the dates for registration soon. Remember, the conference happens Friday July 17 so make sure that date is on your calendar.

We're delighted to announce that Janet Webster will be the keynote speaker for the OLA SSD conference. Janet was the Head Librarian of Oregon State University's Guin Library at the Hatfield Marine Science Center until her retirement and in 2013 OLA awarded her the OLA Distinguished Service Award. Janet's background and experience will fit well with this year's theme of "Many Roles, One Goal: Meeting the Needs of our Communities". We’re looking forward to announcing more of our fantastic speakers soon!

Want to make sure you're the first to know all the OLA SSD updates? Be sure to bookmark this blog and like us on Facebook!

Five book mending tutorials

It's not updated anymore, but explore the blog of One Book at a Time to find some tutorials, mostly of techniques you can use at home, to repair and restore books.

Andria Bobo has a really nice pinterest collection of book repair tutorials. Fair warning, though, pinterest will put all sorts of blocks over the page which reduces the area you can see - unless you have an account.

A school for conservation called West Dean is a beautiful blog even if you have no interest in conservation or book repair, and there are some very good in depth tutorials with detailed photos. There's a tutorial on Japanese stab binding illustrated with a sandwich!

There are some good tutorials over at Temper Products, who are a company that make book binding furniture.


The NorthEast Document Conservation Center has a lot of free preservation resources online, made possible in part by support from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

2015 OLA SSD Conference announcement

Save the date!

Mark Friday July 17th 2015 on your calendars because that’s when the 2015 OLA SSD Conference is happening! We’re looking forward to seeing all of you at the Best Western Agate Beach Inn in Newport, Oregon for this year’s conference.

Keep watching this space because we’ll soon have some very exciting announcements and more information about the conference posted here. Although, what more incentive do you need to attend besides the words “Newport” and “July”?

The OLA SSD conference committee is in full-speed ahead planning mode. Do you have any thoughts or comments to share with us? We’d love to hear them- please contact Shanel Parette at sparette@willamette.edu, or comment below.