The Museum Association of New York and The Upstate History Alliance just announced their annual meeting:  Museums in Conversation: What Inspires You?.   Taking place in Albany, NY, April 11-13, this conference draws folks from all types of museums, historical societies, special collections and archives from across the state.  This year’s conversation will focus on building better missions and visions for our institutions and thereby generating inspiration to reach and serve our communities.   Make sure you register soon – don’t miss this great opportunity to meet and talk with your colleagues from across New York State!

NELLCO is hosting a grant writing workshop in Albany at Albany Law School.  The workshop is open to anyone who works in governmental agencies, colleges, universities and non-profits.  You don’t have to be a law librarian to attend.

The workshop takes place March 18-19, 2010.  Check it out and learn to write a kicking proposal that will nail the funds you need.

ALCTS has recently announced their schedule of web courses, which will include Fundamentals of Acquisitions, Fundamentals of Collection Development and Management, and Fundamentals of Electronic Resources Acquisitions.  Click through for descriptions and info.
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The increasing use of handhelds and other mobile technologies has created a challenge for libraries.   Mainly, we have to find ways to effectively assess and use the many mobile devices and applications that are available so that we can create services needed by our users.

There are a couple of events coming up that may be of interest to anyone intrigued by mobile technologies and libraries.  On February 19, Nylink is offering a webinar that looks at Libraries and the Mobile Web.  This webinar is being conducted by Ellyssa  Kroski.  The webinar will look at the diverse array of mobile Web applications available, how libraries are using the mobile web and how they can get started with the mobile Web.

The Alliance Library System and LearningTimes is offering the second annual Handheld Librarian conference on February 17-18, 2010.  This is an online conference that will include keynote and other speakers, resources, discussion boards and access to recordings of all the live events.  Over 2000 people participated in last year’s conference.

Upstate History Alliance has announced a series of classes focused on collections care and preservation.  All the classes take place online and are facilitated by subject experts.  Each class includes readings, assignments and interaction with instructors.  While they are generally geared towards staff and volunteers at small to mid-sized museums, these classes will provide valuable learning opportunities for anyone who works with special collections and preservation.  If you work with archival, local history, paper based and/or photographs, you might want to check out these classes.

The courses starting in February include:

Introduction to reformatting

Climate Control for Small Institutions

Basic Preservation and Care of Paper Based Materials

Conservation and Preservation of Photographs and Albums

Collections Management 101

Courses start at $45 for UHA members and $60 for non-members

The annual ILLiad International conference is taking place March 25 & 26, 2010 in Virginia Beach.  A number of pre-conference programs are available on March 24.  These include Nylink’s own Jon Penn, presenting with Collette Mak of the University of Notre Dame and Stephanie Spires of Atlas Systems.  This workshop will include both a morning and afternoon session (hands on lab in the afternoon!) on March 24.  If you are going down to the conference make plans to participate in this workshop.

ILLiad and OCLC Data Reporting Made Simple

Wednesday, March 24, 2010 9:00 am – 12:00 noon

Collette Mak, University of Notre Dame; Jon Penn, Nylink; Stephanie Spires, Atlas Systems

Join instructors Collette Mak of the University of Notre Dame, Jon Penn of Nylink, and Stephanie Spires of Atlas Systems to learn about the ILLiad database, OCLC Usage Stats, and how to create custom reports. We will explore:

• Basic ILLiad database tables and relationships
• ILLiad web reports vs OCLC stats
• Exporting data from OCLC Usage Stats for Use in Microsoft Excel
• Exporting data from the ILLiad client and web reports for use in Microsoft Excel
• How to access the ILLData database using Microsoft Excel
• Extracting data for annual report topics
• Using mapping software to display data for visual impact

This session is BYOL (Bring Your Own Laptop).

ILLiad and OCLC Data Reporting Made Simple – Hands-on Lab

Wednesday, March 24, 2010 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm.

NOTE: ILLiad and OCLC Data Reporting Made Simple class is a prerequisite in order to attend this class

Collette Mak, University of Notre Dame; Jon Penn, Nylink; Stephanie Spires, Atlas Systems

This session requires the use of a personal laptop with Microsoft Office programs. Lab exercises will include extracting sample ILLiad and OCLC Usage Stats data to create:

• Spreadsheets
• Pivot tables and charts

This session is BYOL (Bring Your Own Laptop).

There is more information about this workshop on the 2010 International ILLiad Conference web site:

https://www.atlas-sys.com/conference/login.aspx

ILLiad 8: Borrowing from Submitted by Customer to Request Finished

Join Atlas Systems and Nylink as we explore ILLiad Borrowing with OCLC from top to bottom. This is an in-depth borrowing processing class offered over four one-hour online sessions. Topics for discussion:

• OCLC settings that impact your ILLiad efficiency
• How patron registration data impacts processing and options for streamlining
• Basic borrowing workflow
• Overdues, unfilleds and conditionals, renewals, ALA requests and more
• Odyssey trusted sender
• Basics of customizing borrowing email templates and word documents
• Purchase on Demand workflows and other available acquisitions and collection development customizations in ILLiad
• Dealing with connection manager errors and special messages

Dates and Cost

February 22, 2010 1-3 PM ET

February 23, 2010 1-3 PM ET

February 24, 2010 1-3 PM ET

February 25, 2010 1-3 PM ET

Cost: $400.00

For more information about this workshop, and other classes offered by Atlas Systems, please go to the Atlas Systems training web site.

Details:

• April 12-14, 2010
• Hyatt Regency Crystal City, Arlington, VA

Attend this year’s Computers in Libraries conference in Arlington, VA, for more than 50% off of the regular full conference price by registering through Nylink! By registering through us, your cost for Computers in Libraries will be $244 (regular cost is $489).

Important: You must use the Nylink registration form (PDF) and return it to Nylink with your payment by Friday, March 5 See form for more details!

Changes are afoot for librarians seeking New York State Public Librarian Certification.  Any librarian initially certified on or after January 1, 2010 will have to meet professional development requirements in order to maintain their certificate.  Basically, certified public librarians must complete 60 contact hours of professional development every five years.  Those certified before January 1, 2010 will not have to meet these requirements.  A list of FAQs is available that provides more detailed information about the requirements.  

Nylink, as well as a number of organizations across the state have been approved by the State to provide professional development opportunities that fulfill the new requirements.  More information about NYS Public Librarian Certification can be found at the NYS Education Department.

ALA has issued a sixth draft of its “Librarianship and Traditional Cultural Expressions: Nurturing Understanding and Respect”.  Comments are being accepted.  I came across this working document through the ArchivesNext blog.  It seems that ALA’s Rare Book and Manuscript Section has commented on the document and The Society of American Archivists has been approached for comment as well.  If you have items that fall under the umbrella of traditional cultural expressions take a look at what is going on.