Please join NH youth librarians at the CHILIS Spring Conference on Thursday, March 27, 2008 at Webster Hall at Southern NH University in Manchester. The conference will feature the Kids, Books and the Arts 2008 showcase. NH Summer Reading Program Artist Stephanie Piro will also be on hand to sign your "G'Day for Reading" poster. The conference will include morning refreshments, lunch, the showcase, time with the presenters and the SRP artist, and opportunities to spend money. The cost of the all-day conference is $30 for CHILIS members (please check your membership status before registering) and $35 for non-CHILIS members.
Conference information and online registration are available at the following page: http://www.nh.gov/nhsl/services/librarians/chilis.htm. When you click on the online registration link, you will get a security box. Just hit "yes" as this is a secure site.Please note: Your registration is not confirmed until after Ann Hoey receives your check payable to CHILIS. We have limited seating this year, so please register early. Registration deadline is Thursday, March 20, 2008.
This time of year is a time of transition as the existing NHLA year comes to an end and a new one begins following the November annual meeting. The outgoing NHLA Executive Board will be meeting with the incoming board in December to hand over responsibilities and any wisdom they have to offer. That meeting takes place on December 18th, and we will post draft minutes from that meeting soon thereafter.
In the meantime, the planning of a new "Information Technology" section within NHLA is well underway as incoming NHLA Vice President Steve Butzel is networking with all sorts of interested and exciting librarians and developing a plan. If you are interested in participating in this process, please email Steve.
And finally, arrangements for the NHLA Spring Conference INNOVATE IN '08: Library Basics and Beyond which takes place on May 21 and 22 in Concord at the Grappone Conference Center are being finalized as we speak. Be sure to register early for this stellar event!
Thanks to everyone who attended the Fall Business Meeting this past Thursday, and thanks to Amy Thurber who put the entire event together! Now we all need to download the evaluation form, fill it out, and send it to Amy via email, (her email address is on the form.)
Here are some links to websites for projects mentioned in different presentations. If anyone else has additional links to suggest, please send them to steven.butzel at nashualibrary.org.
Wild and Wacky Programming
Casey Bisson
Be sure to buy your raffle tickets at the Common Man in Plymouth, Thursday, November 1st. You can buy tickets all morning, and the raffle will be held during the lunch break. Thanks to all of the groups that are contributing baskets or other items for the raffle. All of the proceeds go to NHLA. See you in Plymouth!
Join us on Thursday, November 1 at the Common Man Inn in Plymouth, NH for the annual fall business meeting -- The Modern Library: Service in the 21st Century. Programs include: Entice, Educate and Excel with Comics, presented by the Center for Cartoon Studies, a panel discussion titled Weird, Wacky and Wise ideas for those who've offered it all, a break out session for small libraries titled 12 ideas to get people in the door, and Scriblio and open source software for libraries, presented by Casey Bission of Plymouth State University.
You can find the registration form on the NHLA website www.nhlibrarians.org under the Conferences tab, or click here to go straight there. Deadline for registration is October 22, 2007.
Save the date: Thursday, October 18, 2007. CHILIS will hold its fall conference that day from 9:00 to 3:30 at the Portsmouth Public Library. Come and learn about dealing with special needs children during storytime, marketing your library collection, and drawing teens in with technology. Fred Reidy will be there with his puppets for sale, Ladybug stickers will be sold, and the new Flume Award poster will be available for purchase. The registration form will be on the CHILIS website and this blog soon.
See you in Portsmouth!
As you all hopefully know, the READS Annual Fall Program and Business Meeting is taking place on October 26, 2007 at the New Hampshire Local Government Center, and the theme is "People, Places and Things: Security in Today's Library". And now, you can download the schedule of events and the registration form here. How convenient! So why not download the form, print it out, fill it in, and send it back to the Local Government Center right away! You are sure to get your money's worth.
Want another reason to attend? You will get to see the presentation of the 3rd annual READS Award of Excellence.
When discussing how great the recent conference in Bretton Woods was at the Seacoast Co-op meeting this morning, I remembered that I had promised to post the collective wisdom gathered at the program on libraries and community relations. Hope that you find these ideas as worthwhile as I do!
How to create and sustain positive Library and Community Relations
- newsletter for town department
- making pertinent statistics available on a regular basis
- showing a cost/benefit ratio for services
What to do if there are less-than-perfect relationships with town departments
- Show appreciation
- Ask advice
- Invite them to your library or to co-sponsor events
- Ask them to judge a contest
Respectfully submitted,
Judy Haskell
If you missed the READS-To-Go sessions at NHLA's conference, then all I can say is you missed out on a lot of fun. Even though this new READS program alone would get any librarian excited, RTG's creators outdid themselves donning costumes and performing numerous outlandish skits based on such famous gameshows as Family Feud and Lets Make a Deal to outline the rational behind READS-To-Go and its many well thought out features and processes.
But perhaps you still aren't familiar with RTG. Never fear, READS-To-Go has its own new website that is rapidly adding more information. Right now, you can browse a list of the more than twenty popular book titles that will be available in book bags along with kits including discussion questions and much, much more. So please visit the new website regularly and get your book groups ready to participate in this enthusiastic, innovative program.
READS-To-GO website address: http://www.nhlibrarians.org/reads/rtg.
Plan to join your counterparts from around New England on Friday, July 20th from 9 to 4 at Assumption College in Worcester, MA to hear Dee Kelsey of Great Meetings! Inc. and get a free copy of her book Great Meetings! Great Results! After lunch, enjoy time networking with your newly improved communication skills before heading home...more details and registration information will be available soon.
Sign up now! An extension has been arranged for registration at the spring NHLA Conference! Not only can you still register for the conference but you can register to stay at the Mt. Washington Hotel at a discounted rate through the weekend.
For more information about conference and hotel registration, visit http://nhlibconf.org
If you have questions, please email me at hshumway@hooksett.lib.nh.us
I hope to see you all there!
Heather
Today is the cut off date to reserve a room at the unbelievable rate of $119 a night! If you are coming to the New Hampshire Libraries Conference, you may not know that the hotel extends its $119 rate for the remainder of the weekend to conference attendees. Previously we thought the Taste of New Hampshire was following our conference which is a plus for some and a minus for others. It turns out that the Taste of NH is the weekend before, so we have most of the hotel to ourselves. There is a lap pool, a heated outdoor pool and a 6 person jucazzi at the hotel. There is also shuttle access to the Bretton Woods sports complex, all a part of your accommodations. The main dining room will be open all weekend that includes an ala carte menu and Stickney's on Friday night. The hotel also provides free shuttle service to Fabyan's restaurant (train station). It is also possible for you to get room service anywhere on the main floor, so you can eat by the fireplace if you want. Laura Knoy is our dinner speaker on Thursday night.
For more information on the conference go to http://nhlibconf.org/
Also, the CHILIS Spring Conference takes place next Thursday, April 5th at Sawyer’s Banquet Facility in Plaistow, NH. For more info, visit the CHILIS Spring Conference webpage, http://www.chilisnh.org/springcon.html.
As I'm sure many of you know, NHLA is holding a two-day conference on May 17th and 18th at the Mount Washington Hotel, and the theme is "Connecting NH Libraries". As has been the custom for some time, the conference is a joint endeavor with the New Hampshire Educational Media Association, and from what I've learned so far, the conference program is going to be outstanding. Session topics range from graphic novels to disaster planning to "nuts and bolts" of audiobooks to social software to serving GLBTQ teens. So if you haven't registered already and/or made your hotel reservations, head over to http://nhlibconf.org and get connected.
