Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Squirmy LibWorm

It is always nice to have everything library in once place. I do like the various types of categories and subjects available to choose from because it helps narrow down the search. When it comes to the tagging page, it is interesting to see how many different ways someone can name a term. I can relate because there was a time that we found five different spellings of Little Elm in library records (Little Elm, Littleelm, Litle Elm, etc.) I did a phrase search of Little Elm Public Library and found two articles. As much as I have been publishing items over the last five years I was surprised not to find more information about the library but I noticed a lot of the information that comes up is from more well known sources or blogs. So, I signed up my library blog page and I checked with our Town IT department to see what it would take to turn my library page of the town website that has my weekly library newsletter into an RSS feed. Overall observation of LibWorm...it does have potential but it reminds me of a Wikipedia of information that can not be edited.

Monday, June 29, 2009

Digg it!

Since I got behind, I thought I would work backwords to get caught up.
Digg was a good assignment. It was interesting that you can use your facebook account to login to Digg but I was not quite comfortable enough to do that yet. I did like the hammer story about women being able to hammer better than men, at least in the daylight. I don't care what the article said the reason was, I think women can hammer better because they don't want to break a nail. I did create an account so if you search Page by Page or Little Elm Library, the weekly library newsletter comes up so I hope a lot of people will Digg it :-)

What's happening @ the Little Elm Library

Area teens and tweens have the chance to win a trip to WWE’s SummerSlam in Los Angeles this summer by taking part in the SummerSlam Reading Jam. Little Elm Library is part of a pilot project sponsored by World Wrestling Entertainment® and the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA). Starting June 24th, the library will give out posters featuring WWE Superstars Rey Mysterio®, Evan Bourne™, Beth Phoenix™ and EVE™ to the first 25 patrons between ages 10 and 18 who check out two books. Posters, each of which are numbered, are available until July 16th or as long as supplies last.

A free Will Seminar will be presented by the O’Connell Law firm on Saturday, June 27th at 10am. Some topics that will be discussed include trusts, making a will online, and who will take care of your children if something happens to you. Fourteen people have registered already, so join us by calling the library at 214-975-0430.

The monthly business fair is on Saturday, June 27th at 11am. Businesses and organizations in attendance include LaFreda Williams with Mary Kay; Jennifer Stafford with Homemade Gourmet; Lilly’s Landscape; Tieperman Health and Wellness; Sandra Smith with Century 21 Judge Fite Company; Heather Zacny with TheParentHive.com & NorthTexasCoupons.com; Jewelry by Ana and Lorena; Foundational Wellness will be providing free MyoVision exams (MyoVision or sEMG stands for Surface Electromyography. It is a device which measures the amount of electrical activity your muscles release when they are contracting, more commonly known as muscle tension); local artist Pali; Little Elm Craft Guild; and AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) will be taking registrations for their Driver Safety Program.

Drama Kids International workshop will be held every Monday during the summer from 3:30pm-4:30pm at the Little Elm library. The workshop is for ages 5-10 and costs $10 a class. Enrollment is ongoing. For more information you can visit their website at www.dramakids.com/tx5 or register by calling the library at 214-975-0430. A portion of the proceeds will go towards the purchase of a drama book for the children’s area of the library.

The public is invited to the Even Start Family Literacy graduation on Monday, June 29th at 6:30pm. The event is sponsored by the Little Elm Library and will be held in Little Elm Town Hall at 100 W. Eldorado Parkway. According to Ginger Williford, Program Coordinator of the Little Elm Even Start Family Literacy Program, the grant served 126 families and 306 children during the four year grant cycle 2005-2009. The grant provided $800,000 of federal funds to provide the most intensive, researched based program available to break the cycle of poverty for our ESL families. It included adult education, parent education, early childhood education, home visits monthly, and a time for children to learn with their parent (ILA: Interactive Literacy Activities). The program was housed at Brent Intermediate School and served families that had at least one child under the age of 8. The Even Start Team is proud of Ana Garcia, who came to Even Start with limited English and went on to receive her GED and was the only parent in the nation to speak at the National Even Start Conference in 2008.

For more information about anything, contact the library at 214-975-0430; email library@littleelm.org or visit the website at http://ci.little-elm.tx.us/library.

Saturday, June 13, 2009

What's Happening @ the Little Elm Public Library

Little Elm Public Library Newsletter
06/08/2009
Texas weather is nothing to sneeze at, even though the weather stirs up all kinds of allergies. One of the more serious weather events in Texas are hurricanes and the season for them will be here before you know it. This was brought to my attention the other day when the news listed the upcoming names that are being planned for the hurricanes. Can anyone guess what names were given for the letter A and letter W? Answers will follow in next week’s library news but feel free to let me know your ideas.

New bestsellers added to the collection this week include Seducing an Angel by Mary Balogh; The Sign by Raymond Khoury; Gone Tomorrow by Lee Child; Last Child by John Hart; and Reinvention: How to Make the Rest of Your Life the Best of Your Life by Brian Tracy.

What do shoes, pizza, and libraries have in common? Peter Piper Pizza, the Shoe Bank, and Little Elm Library are partnering together to collect shoes and help raise awareness of the Shoe Bank. There is currently a Shoe Bank collection box in the Little Elm library. On Friday, June 12th from 11am-9pm, all six Dallas/FT. Worth Peter Piper Pizza locations will be donating 15% of all food and beverage sales to the Shoe Bank. So put on your shoes and bring your unwanted extra shoes to the library or drop them off at a Peter Piper Pizza location at a DFW location nearest you on June 12th while enjoying a bite to eat knowing that you are making a difference.

Another partnership that the library has become involved in is with Drama Kids International run by Toni Rogers, instructor and owner. Drama Kids is designed to develop each student’s speaking, presentation, confidence and acting skills. This summer, the Drama Kids workshop will be held every Monday during the summer from 3:30pm-4:30pm at the library located at 100 W. Eldorado Parkway. The workshop is for ages 5-10 and costs $10 a class. Enrollment is ongoing and there is a different lesson plan every week. Props and costumes are included. Children are allowed one free trial class. For more information you can visit their website at www.dramakids.com/tx5 or you can register by calling Toni at 214-592-4066. A portion of the proceeds will be used to purchase a drama book for the children’s area of the library.

The Friends of the library meeting for Thursday, June 11th has been cancelled. The next meeting will be Thursday, July 9th at 7pm. We hope to see you then.

The dog days of summer are fast approaching and we have just the program for the occasion. On Saturday, June 13th, Maggie the dog will be at the library with her owner Megan for family story time. Come relax and hear stories with Maggie. Petting is allowed.

Are you musically inclined or at least think you are? Then sign up for the Guitar Hero tournament hosted by Reilly at the library on Saturday, June 13th at 1pm. Sign up by calling the library at 214-975-0430. For more information about anything call the library at 214-975-0430 or email library@littleelm.org.

The Ning Thing

The first thing I thought of was that Ning is a lot like Facebook only less known. Once again, since I am trying to promote the library everywhere that I can, I did open a Ning network account, invited Friends, and created a blog with the library newsletter. I think the hardest thing about all these accounts, networks, pages, and groups is keeping them all straight and updated. I already have three pages of usernames and passwords and am trying to figure out the best way to add information about the library, how to get others connected to all these sites with the library, and getting it done in a timely manner. Just trying to keep up with library marketing by computer is a full time job. What I did not realize is that I had signed up for a social network a couple of years ago and I do not think I realized it was a "social network at the time". I have not kept up with it and this assignment has brought it to the forefront and now I saw that people have been responding over my question about whether they would be interested in seeing our library newsletter about what we are doing. Now I will add it to the list of places to post my newsletter. The two networks that I have currently joined are Little Elm Public Library (of course) and Roseville Public Library. ReadKiddoRead is a network that I joined a couple of years ago and another place I need to start posting information. I also noticed that Roseville Public is teaching web 2.0 so it will be another place to learn how to continue getting better at this :-)

Face Book and more Face Book

One of my Friends of the Library had already set up one account for the Friends of the Library and one account for the Public library. I had not done anything with it up until now because I was not sure what to do. This assignment motivated me to find out what I needed to do in order to work with the Facebook that was already in place. I did have to set up my own personal Facebook profile, which I did. This enabled me to obtain the admin rights from the Friends for my Facebook public library page. Since everything I am learning is being applied to promoting the library, I refer to the library a lot in my individual Facebook area. I personally think that people need to be careful how much information gets put on these profiles. I think too many people think that only thier friends and family see what is posted and do not consider the big picture that anyone who gets on the web could possibly see their information. These web 2.0 tools are beneficial in many ways, when used correctly and cautiously. Don't be afraid, just be aware.

Even more Facebook
I did add some friends to my individual facebook profile, making sure that information about the public library is evident. I am still trying to figure out how to invite friends and fans to the library facebook page itself. It is pretty amazing the number of people that you know who are on facebook. I wrote something about the library on my wall. I became a fan of a few organizations. I can honestly say I now understand how my patrons can spend all day in the library on the computer in these social networking sites. It is very addictive and time consuming. The groups I joined include ALA, TLA, Town of Little Elm, and Toastmasters International. Since the library has numerous clubs and support groups, I am thinking about making pages or groups for them but I need to understand the difference better. I can see why the two can be confusing :-) Now on to the Ning thing!