Just got your New York public librarian professional certificate? Are you looking for professional development hours?

According to state legislation, “Public librarian professional certificates issued as of January 1, 2010, and thereafter shall only remain valid when 60 hours of professional development are completed every five year period. Such periods will be defined as every five years from the initial certificate date.” Nylink provides training to help you maintain your Public Librarian Certification. See our education calendar for a complete and current list of Nylink training and conference events.

A wide range of options for professional development is available.

Joyce Rambo, Nylink’s Reference and Digital Collections Librarian, has been working hard on a unique set of asynchronous training sessions for participants in the South Central Regional Library Council’s collaborative digitization initiative, Tools of History. Joyce became involved in the project at the suggestion of Matthew Hogan, SCRLC’s Manager of Digital Services & Resource Sharing.
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Part of my job at Nylink involves working on our website, making sure content is current and links work. We recently did a full upgrade of our whole site using Cold Fusion and SQL Server to serve up static pages with some dynamic database-driven content. When I saw the Open Source for Websites series we were offering, it was an irresistable opportunity to learn about other content management systems.

The first session was on WordPress. This blog is served up on a locally-hosted instance of WordPress, and some of us here at Nylink have been working on learning a little PHP, so I had some background. In just over an hour though, Karen Coombs gave me a completely new perspective on WordPress as a content management system. We could have done our whole site in WP, and saved ourselves a few reinvent-the-wheel moments.

If your library is contemplating a website change, you might want to invest $70 (for Nylink members) and 90 minutes of your time, and check out the other two classes in Karen’s series, on Drupal (4/20) and Silverstripe (5/18). Get more info, or register for these classes here. Especially if you already were considering investigating one of these CMS – an expert guided tour might just level out your learning curve and save you several hours of newbie frustration.

Venue: ICPSR, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA, October 11-16, 2009
The Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) will host the October 2009 Digital Preservation Management workshop, originally developed at Cornell University Library by Anne R Kenney and Nancy Y McGovern.

This workshop series, developed with funding from NEH, is aimed at managers at organizations who are or will be responsible for digital preservation. The workshop begins on Sunday evening with an opening session, continues Mon-Thursday 9am – 5pm, and concludes Friday at noon. Additional information about the workshop content and logistics is available at: http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/dpm/workshops/fiveday.html.
Questions? Contact digital-preservation@icpsr.umich.edu

As of June 30, 2009, the Network Education Exchange, which made it possible for members of regional networks such as Nylink, SOLINET, NELINET, and AMIGOS to take distance ed classes at other networks at member rates, will no longer be available. Thanks to all the networks who have participated in this large-scale cooperative effort!

Save the date!  The Library Assistants’ Day is on Tuesday, November 3, in Syracuse.  This is the third year of the popular conference.  Registration information is coming soon.
Here are some of the sessions:

Customer Service: FISH

How to Develop and Market Library Exhibits and Displays

Genealogy

Effective Communication and Time Management

Microsoft Applications Update

And more…

The NYS Archives is sponsoring a student research contest.  This is a great way to work with teachers and students in incorporating historical records in research projects.  Maybe you are working with students or know of a teacher who might have interested students.  Help spread the word!

NYS Archives Sponsors 19th Annual Student Research Contest
To encourage students to use historical records, the New York State Archives is sponsoring the 19th annual Student Research Awards. The deadline for entry is July 1, 2009 and the contest is open to all New York students in grades 4-12 who use historical records in their research projects. Three awards are presented each year: grades 4-5, grades 6-8, and grades 9-12. The awards consist of a framed certificate, a check for $100, an invitation to an award ceremony, lunch with the Board of Regents in Albany, and a behind-the-scenes tour of the State Archives. Eligible projects are computer-based entries, such as websites or PowerPoint presentations; exhibits; documentaries; performances; research for a historical marker, property or district; and traditional research papers. For information about this year’s program, visit http://www.archives.nysed.gov/education/ed_awards.shtml or email archedu@mail.nysed.gov.