Current Projects

Here are some projects I'm currently working on.

1. I've entered a contest at Overdrive. They are looking for the best promotional campaign for digital collections. They were accepting photos, reports, presentations, flyers...pretty much any item that shows how your institution promotes your digital collection. I made a Power Point presentation that shows all the different ways we promote our collection at SSLDL. You can see my Power Point entry by clicking here (or see my Slideshare links on the right side of this page).

2. I'm writing the annual report for the Adult Services department at SSLDL. Just plugging in some end-of-year statistics, like:
-How many items are in each collection housed in and managed by our department, how the items in those collections have circulated this year, inventory status (and more...)
-How many programs we have offered monthly and quarterly, which programs are the most popular, which are presented by outside sources and which are presented by staff
-How many reference questions we have answered monthly and quarterly, at which reference desks those questions have been asked, and at what times of day
-Analysis and evaluation of the technology services we use, troubleshoot, and teach.
(There are a few more bits to the report, but that's the gist of it.)

3. I'm getting ready for my ALA presentations. The Power Points are done and uploaded (check those out at Slideshare too!). A conference call is scheduled with my co-presenters next week. Handouts have been emailed to our ALA liason for photocopying. The topics of our presentations for ALA are: "Thingamabobs and Doodads: Why Tech Support IS Reference" and "Not Just for the Kids: Adult Summer Reading Programs."

4. My co-worker, Mary Kelly, and I are writing a book. That's right...a book. We were approached by Chandos Publishing and asked to fill out a book proposal. That proposal was emailed this week. The book will be about collection quality. Very exciting!

5. Summer Reading Program starts Monday 6/15! Our Book Bingo sheets have been printed and the sign-up database is ready to go. Our Network Administrator and his employees created an awesome online registration product last year, and it has been updated and tweaked for this year's program. Patrons can sign up for the reading program and/or events and print a reading log/game sheet from any computer in the library or from home. Check out this year's Book Bingo game sheet by clicking here!

6. On a related note, Demco is soon going to production with a CD-ROM product inspired by our Book Bingo game sheet. They read our article in Public Libraries about our Adult Summer Reading Program and contacted us several months ago. They plan to credit us with something like "Inspired by the Adult Services Librarians at the Salem-South Lyon District Library" in their catalog and online marketing campaign. Nice!

7. Mary Kelly and I are presenting a "What's New at the Library" program to Colonial Acres Women's Club. Colonial Acres is a retirement community in South Lyon. I'm sure we'll see many regular library users there, and hopefully entice new users too! They don't have a projector or screen (or a place for us to hook up our own), so we'll just talk through this program. We'll talk about the recent expansion, new services, new floor plan, and maybe include some book talks of new items in the collection.

8. I'm Chairing the MLA iTrends committee. The workshop is on June 26, and as of yesterday (6/12), there were eleven people signed up. That's pretty scary! MLA handles marketing for us, but we've decided to act on our own to increase publicity. Several committee members have posted to different listservs around the state and we have created a Facebook group and a Twitter account for the program too.

9. We've decided to offer a new resume workshop. We've done it before, but we'd like to update the class with discussions about the Michigan Works web site, the unemployment web site, and include some word processing tips for resume writers. We created a class called "Office Technology" last year that I'm thinking we should combine with our resume workshop. The Office Tech class is more of a computer class with discussions of the kinds of technology that many offices use (scanning, faxing, various email platforms, file extensions like PDF, voice mail, networks, and more).

10. Both of the librarians in my department are almost due for annual evaluations. I should really get started on their paperwork!

11. I order the non-fiction, DVDs, CDs, magazines, and reference books for our library. Since our fiscal year ends on June 30, I need to make sure that all outstanding PO's are cleared. I'm putting together my first orders for the new fiscal year, too: reading reviews, price checking in various vendor databases, assigning call numbers, and creating the new budget spreadsheet for the new year. We've taken a bit of a hit on our materials budget this year, so I need to approach ordering a little differently this year: fewer copies, find the source for the best possible price for every title, and a way to manage hold lists with those fewer copies.

There's more, but this is enough!