I am sitting in a beautiful, modern auditorium on the Maine coast among approximately 55 librarians, many with laptops, who have just finished MARVEL training with Elaine Stanley and WebJunction training with Janet McKenny and Ellen Wood. The spirit of camaraderie and collaborative learning has been outstanding. The mutual support, the eagerness to learn, and the good humor are palatable. Valerie Osborne’s concept for this training and the physical arrangements have been outstanding. Thanks to all who attended for making this a very special professional development experience!
Online training is coming soon with our WebJunction partnership starting June 11 but I want to share other online training that’s available. I received this wonderful positive note about Britannica online training from Georgianna Babin, the Library Media Specialist at Madawaska Elementary School.
In Georgianna Babin’s own words with her permission:
“I participated in the Britannica online training for the Elementary Edition of Britannica Online last week. I thought it was great. In my opinion, the training was very well done, it was easy to access, and the material presented was very useful. There were separate webcasts for the elementary and the middle school editions which was great because then the entire hour is spent on just one encyclopedia, although some features are common to both.
The Maine Library Association annual meeting on Friday, May 4 hosted a terrific speaker, Michael Sullivan. He offered some unorthodox perspectives on library services and some foolproof methods of boosting your overall circulation and attendance at children’s programs.
For those who could not attend, please read Sullivan’s article about library closures throughout the country and the negative funding trends that may spell the closing of more libraries: The Fragile Future of Public Libraries.pdf [PDF, 1.22 MB] This file requires the free Adobe Reader.
(you’ll need to scroll about half way down the issue for Sullivan’s article from this Sept/Oct 2003 issue of Public Libraries).
Another article which centers around Sullivan’s ideas on how to achieve huge gains in circulation and program attendance is entitled “Giving them what they want in small public libraries” in the May/June 2000 Public Libraries. This article is not available online but can be ordered from the State Library via our ILL form:
Michael Sullivan will certainly give you a lot to think about!