 Good morning and welcome to this week's edition of Encompass Live. I am Christa Burns at the Nebraska Library Commission and this week we're going to do a special edition, I'd call it, of Encompass Live. We're going to do the year in review, taking a look at what we've done over the past year for this web program, yeah, I don't know what we call it, and just going over all the presentations we've done, just reminding you of the things that have been done out there, give you some ideas, some updates on some of them, just looking over how far we've come in the past year. With me today, as you can see, I have Michael Sowers who's going to be giving some updates to some of the sessions that he was involved with presenting throughout the year. Any sort of color commentary as needed. Okay, so Encompass Live premiered very first time January 7th, 2009, so we have been doing this for about a little over a year now. This is actually, this particular one today is the 48th Encompass Live that has been done. Yes, that doesn't, that means that if you do your math and can count that we did not do one every single week of 2009. We had, one week that we took off for the Nebraska Library Association NLA NEMA conference, we decided not many people would probably be showing it for that one, and during the summertime we took about a month and a half off, I mean five weeks or six weeks, when we were switching between two different webinar products, online products that I'll talk about in a second here. We have had 678 people show up live to our sessions, and actually counting today you can add five more to that if we want to count today's statistics. We do have five people watching right now live. We have done recordings of all of the sessions that are available out there for people to watch, and they have been watched over 1,250 times, so it's even more than that. We have some statistics that are a little iffy, so we know minimum it's about 1,250 something, but we know there's more people watching all the time, so we're just going to go with that for now. So it's getting, it's very popular, we've been very successful with it, got a lot of good comments from people, so we're very happy that people are interested in our new program that we're doing. Does that count the fact that I watched each one three times? No. Oh, okay. Well, when I did the statistics, I just looked to see if it was watched, and if for like more than like a two minutes. I can find out, I can see how long someone watched a session when they logged in. Oh, there's a lot of, you know, logging in and logging right back out, not watching it, so I didn't pay attention to who. Oh, okay. Well, we probably don't really know that anyway. Yeah. We did start out using a product, as I said, in the summertime of last year. We switched from one product to another. Centra was a online meeting software product that we used, and then that, our account with that ended, and we decided to go to something new, and took about a month and a half or so to figure out what we were going to go with, and get it set up and ready to go with a new product, and that was our go-to webinar service that we are currently using now. So, that's where we lost a few weeks of Uncomba's live sessions. And we're still working out the details. We are. It works great, I think. I think it's been very successful. Go-to webinar is a great product. Simple interface online, it can be used by both PCs and Macs, which is a big issue here for our school libraries, and the recordings that come out of it are strictly Windows media files, Windows media player files, which anybody who wants to can watch on any kind of computer. No problem there. So, we've had some pretty good success with it. And then there's the URL that is for our main page for Encompass. If you want to go and see what our current, what our current upcoming sessions are, and there's a link there to all of our archive sessions, a link for archived Encompass live sessions, where you can see all 47 previous Encompass lives and watch the recordings of the sessions. We also include when we do the recordings, if there was a PowerPoint presentation, as there is today, that's available. If there are any websites that people went to, we put links to that on there, so you have all that information for you. Sometimes we've had Word documents or PDF documents that have been included as part of a presentation, or for more information, and we include links to that as well. So, once you go to a recording, you have everything you'd need to get all the information that was given during that session. I'll add to many of the sessions have also been put into our Encompass podcast, which is audio only, but you can subscribe to that also. You can find that on our website. Yes, so if you are a big podcast person, you can just listen. Okay, so the very first two Encompass lives that we did were Meet the NLC, which is basically trying to just do a basic introduction of the Nebraska Library Commission, what we do here, the different departments that we have available. So, we had on January 7th, I'm not going to read that entire list, Rod Wagner, the head of the director of the Library Commission, and then the department heads on the 7th, and then the 14th, we finished up with everyone else from all the other major departments here, just giving introductions to what they do, what their departments are, what they're all about, what kind of services they offer, what kind of products and things. So, if you're wondering what is the NLC, what is the Nebraska Library Commission, what do we do here? These would be some good sessions to take a look at, to get a good general introduction overview to the Library Commission and what we do. Our Talking Book and Braille service has done three different sessions. They've been very active in Encompass Live, which is great trying to get the word out about what they do. They did a session on the Talking Books, that they do Library Congress Talking Books, where you can now download books. Rather than being sent a little cartridge or cassette, they are now downloadable books. This session about that. And they also had another session about the Assistive Technologies for the Blind and Visually Impaired. A husband and wife team who are on staff here at the TBBS, Shane and Amy Burisch came in and demonstrated how they used technology to access information for themselves. That was a very interesting session on seeing that. And then, most recently, they did behind the studio glass. That was just a couple of weeks ago, actually, where you got to meet some of the staff and volunteers who actually do the recordings of the books and magazines. Scott Schultz brought in Bill Ainslie and Bonnie Feynman, who are two of the volunteers that worked down and doing the recordings. And they have some really interesting anecdotes and talking about the history of the service and everything. A little video that Scott had put together with Michael's help. I was going to say, I heard that video was quite good. They put together a video that's now available on the commission website. I'm not sure if they put it on the TBBS page. Somewhere. I know it got blogged and it is on our YouTube account. Right. So it's basically about a five minute video introducing you just in general to Talking Book and Braille Service here at the commission and what's that all about and how they do that. So that was a really interesting one. I liked hearing the volunteers talk about it because there's a long history to the Talking Book and Braille Service, how they used to do it and how they're doing it now. And both Bill and Bonnie have been involved for years and years. So they had a lot of interesting things to say. So if you are interested in this service or if you know someone, a friend, a neighbor, a loved one who could benefit from Talking Books, take a look at some of these sessions and they can help you get them connected. Health information is another service that we have offered some sessions on in February, on February 14th, that happened to be a Oh, that's what I forgot about that. I believe. Now it's on February 4th. It was in February. Feel the love. Free resources from the National Library of Medicine. Marty McGee who's the Nebraska and education liaison for the National Network Libraries of Medicine came and talked about some of the free resources online available from the NLM, which is great for people who need that kind of information. And then a little later in the year, just a few weeks after it actually, we had local resources. There are local health information resources put out in Nebraska and Teresa Hartman is in charge of those and came and talked about those kind of resources. So if you have people involved, interested in needing health information, both national and local information, we have two sessions available on that that gave links and tips and information about how to access that information. Orbs, trustees, friends, groups, all something that all libraries, public libraries need to be involved in. Our library development team, Richard Miller and Laura Johnson did a session on library accreditation, certification, library board certification, basically how to get started, what you need to do, what you and your board members have to do to go through getting all that for your library. And then Richard did a specific session on trustee tips, how to get your trustees involved with it. And I think, Michael, you were, did you go to us, something that he did when he went out somewhere else on trustee tips? Yeah, we did. There was, yeah, I attended a live version of that session once and then I gave an afternoon session on a completely different topic. But it was fun. I, for some weird reason, enjoyed the parts where he went over like library law in the state and all these weird things that, you know, state law says what the library is responsible for doing versus what the city might be responsible for doing. And I remember the one comment was is, our city does that for us, but state law says we're responsible for it. And I think the response was, if the city's going to volunteer to do it for you, let them. It's getting done, you know, so, but, you know, that's kind of, I have a little bit of a law background. So I think that's why I found it a little interesting. So definitely those be two sessions that you want to take a look at if those are things that you need to be worrying about or dealing with in charge of at your library. And then just this past November, we were very lucky to get Sally Reid, who is, and I'm going to read this exactly because I don't know those acronym off the top of my head there. She is the executive director of the American Library Association's American Library Association's newly redesigned Association of Library Trustees, Advocates, Friends and Foundations. That's the ALTFF, which is a merger of the Friends of Libraries USA, the FALUSA, and the former Association of Library Trustees and Advocates. That was part of ALA. So that was a very interesting session to finding out more about what they're both doing, the basically emerging trustees, friends, all these kind of things that kind of had stuff to do with each other anyways, but we're separate organizations, now being one big organization, one big area of ALA. And she had a lot of good resources there of free things, things you can get through there. Are they a section? I don't know how ALA works. Whatever there. She has links to different free resources and help you can get through them for doing friends, things and trustees and foundations. So also very good information from her. She has a bunch of slides and PowerPoint presentations. I think I have to go back and watch that recording. I've been both a trustee and a friends board member, in fact, at the same time. So that sounds like there was some great resources. Yeah, and especially since it's this new group, the ALTFF, I don't know if it's announced ALTFF, so it's doing a lot of new things because of that. And Sally Reed is in charge of that. And I believe it was Rod Mayer-Joe, Rod Mayer here, did an interview, basically. Oh, great. She called in and did a nice talk course. I'll say ALTFF because if I said ALTFF, I'd be looking for the AF key at the board. Okay. Computers and technology. We, of course, have Michael Sowers as our Technology Innovation Librarian here at the Library Commission. So we always tap him for these kind of things. And he always brings in some other people. I think for both of these, you had Diane, who I'll just do it with. Yes, yes, both of those had Diane. You needed two sessions, if you want to go ahead and talk about what you did. Well, the first one there was computers, what's known before you buy. Diane's one of our folks in our COMP team here. And we do have a webpage up on the commission site about kind of talking about, okay, you're going to go buy computers. What version of Windows do you get? What sort of processor speed do you need? How much RAM? You know, how big of a hard drive should you have that sort of thing? So we kind of did a kind of walk-through with that. And I think that was even before Windows 7 came out. So now it is. So the answer is get a new computer with Windows 7. And that was in March. That was in March. So yeah, that was before. Yeah, because Windows 7 came out in the fall. Then setting up the computers was in April. Okay. Next month and setting up your public access computers. A lot of that was kind of some security related issues. Have a lock the machine down and I have an update for that, which we'll get to in just a second. And so, you know, if you're just going to put these computers out to the public, what do you want to do that? Make sure that they're going to work long term, things like that. The one update I have to that, and let's see if we want to switch maybe to our, I wrote a blog post about this. We'll show this up on the screen here. And I think I'll bring us back up on the camera too while we're at it. In that session, both Diane and I recommended something called Windows Study State, which for those of you familiar with either the Centurion product or Deep Freeze basically was a free product from Windows from Microsoft for Windows that would lock your machine down so the patrons could do whatever the heck they wanted. And you reboot the machine and everything was back to normal. About two weeks ago, I got a phone call from a Nebraska librarian saying, we're about to buy some Windows 7 machines, which you should do. And she said, when I was going to use Study State, but all the research I've done says Study State doesn't work in Windows 7. What can I do instead? And I got this voice mail and went, what? I really didn't understand. This was complete news to me. Somehow I just totally missed this. And Study State basically will work in XP, will work in Vista. It will not work in Windows 7. It won't even install. Yeah, exactly. So I did some research and it turned out in early beta versions of Windows 7, there was what Microsoft called guest mode, not the guest account. That's different. It's called guest mode. And basically what they had done was they had integrated Study State into Windows 7. They built it right in. And I thought, wonderful, this is great news. And then I found out that when they finally released Windows 7, they took it out. Thanks, Microsoft. So Study State is no longer an option if you get a new machine with Windows 7 on it. And it was the only free solution I know of and could find. So my response at this point and at the bottom of this article is on your screen there, the URLs at the top. You have three options, or actually two options. One is purchase deep freeze or Centurion. We're back to paying for something. I've used deep freeze and if I liked it, I've never heard anything significantly bad about Centurion, but I've never actually had my hands on it. There's no discounts through us that I'm aware of. Centurion doesn't seem to want to list their pricing on the website, but deep freeze does. And there is a library rate for deep freeze. You can get a 10 copy license, 10 machine license of deep freeze with a one-year service plan for under $300. So it shows me for the peace of mind, it's worth it. Centurion, basically I would say go with whatever's cheaper, to be completely honest. I think they both do a perfectly good job. Your other option, which is a free option, but not perfect, which is have your patrons login as guest. Not guest mode, but the guest account in Windows. But the downside is you cannot customize that account at all. It has all the security, they can't do anything, they can't change things, they can't kill things, whatever, but you can't control what icons are on the desktop. You can't change the wallpaper, you can whatever, whereas these pay-for products will let you completely customize the environment and then lock it down. So guest account is your free option, but limited possibilities with it, or you're going to have to spend some money at this point. But I gotta tell you, do not let this be the reason why you don't go to Windows 7. I mean please go to Windows 7 and when you can, especially if you're buying a new computer. Upgrading is a separate issue, which could be a whole other episode. But yeah, we can't, we can schedule one. I know who schedules it. But yeah, so that's kind of the update there, and I think I'll be going into this probably in my tech talk next week also for those of you who aren't here right now. Go back to our PowerPoint. Okay, and speaking of Tech Talk, as related to computers and technology, this is a new Encompass Live regular session that we started two, three weeks ago. December. December was the first time. December and January. Which is going to be a monthly session that Michael will be doing on anything that has come up last month, technology related that he wants to keep you up to date on. New things, new technology, things change so quickly, it's really needed to do this on a regular basis rather than like once a year. And including sometimes interviews with people. We're going to be three for three on the interviews. Yes. This is next week is our next tech talk. Yes, yeah, typically we're scheduling those for the last Wednesday of the month, but due to some scheduling conflicts, we've got me on the second to last Tuesday of the month. And second to last Wednesday, sorry, yes I said 10. Okay, Tuesday, but Wednesday. And for 40 other episodes you all should know that by now anyway. I've interviewed a librarian from St. New York, one from Nebraska, and another Nebraska librarian. We'll get a little geeky and actually touching upon the filtering topic and where we are not going to go into the should you filter should you not filter that is not the topic, but we have at least one library here in Nebraska that has figured out a way to have very good filtering as good as filtering gets for free on the whole network with central administration. So we're going to talk about that. They're the only library I know of that has ever done this. So we'll see how it goes. Yeah, cool. Okay, next. Okay, another topic that has been big in Nebraska, jeez I don't know for how many years. When they start five or six at least. I've seen the one page I'm trying to cover. I think this is year six or year seven. I've lost count. Yeah, one book one to one Nebraska program where ideas that people across the state will all read the same book and then libraries or bookstores will have discussions groups and things all about it. The activities events and whatnot. And last year we did session on that I'll mention in her hand was last year's one book one Nebraska. But they also had one book one Nebraska for kids and teens. They picked books for them as well. So you can specify if you have a teen group or children's reading group. They can also read the same book. So we had sessions in both those for last year. They just announced what the one book one Nebraska for this year is. I've been working on the website. It is the home place by Robert Wright Morris. I think I got his name right. So hopefully we will be doing a session on that one coming up once they have things more organized as far as they just renounced it like last week. So for previous ones so you can see what was going on last year for the one book one Nebraska for adults kids and teens and look forward to more of those coming up this year for this year's titles. And the one book one Nebraska teens one is that book that's out there. Unwound. Unwound. Very interesting book. I want to read it. I read the blurb on the back. It is a very interesting futuristic. It's kind of science fiction-y, bioethics. Yeah, it sounds. Definitely will generate a lot of discussion among teens or anyone who reads this book. Unwound. Don't know the offer up my head but that also has been announced as well on the commission website as that as the teen book. I almost feel like we're Bob and Doug McKenzie with the weather outside. Another general bunch of sessions we've done here. A bunch of things on the web. We're obviously here the commission doing a lot of things online on the internet doing our own services providing them using what's out there and so we've done sessions and different things that you can use as well. Putting Facebook to work for your library actually brought in an outside speaker for that one. Susan Franklin from the Hastings College came and talked about how they were putting to their Facebook page for the college. Very interesting session on that so if you are interested about doing Facebook and using it to promote your libraries resources and things you're doing she did a session on that. It actually mentioned other libraries are doing as well. If you go on to Facebook you can search for Nebraska libraries and there are tons of other libraries are getting involved in as well. Libraries change and that is a session we've done various locations and times around the state last year. Basically going over the different web-based services. Most of all web-based. The commission has been using to show you how you can use it. YouTube, RSS feeds, Twitter, anything and everything you can think of. We have a website that lists all the things we do that you can see what we're doing. That's just a nice overview. Very quick like maybe five minute bits about each one if that. Just a very quick, here's all the kind of things that we're using and you might be able to use them to try it out. On Google Maps, Lynn and Avatni did that session on how to use Google Maps and mashups and things for that for your library. Michael did two sessions about Twitter. All about Twitter and then a follow-up more about Twitter tips and tricks. Do you want to do your thing or say that for next week? Yeah I'll just mention real I'll tease. I have been playing with a new service called TweetMyPC and basically what that does is allows me via Twitter to send commands to my computer at home or any other computer to like start print jobs, kill things, send me a screenshot of what my computer looks like, make sure my computer is turned on, download something for me, and I'll kind of try to demo that in my session next week. It's pretty cool. So if you're interested in using Twitter for promoting your library announcements, getting connected to your users and patrons and things, both those sessions would be very good to take a look at too. Web Junction is a website that libraries can use to connect and and learn with each other and they have a specific section of Web Junction, the Association for Rural and Small Libraries. And I did a session on that specifically highlighting all the sections in there. We have a lot of libraries obviously here in Nebraska that are small, rural, one person libraries, and there's a lot of good resources on the web. They're free and free information, there's articles and discussions and things you can use there. So definitely if you want to find some more connection to other libraries out there across the country who are in the same situation as you are as far as being small and rural, take a look at that section session. And then Google Secrets that was you. That was me again. And Michael did a thing on a bunch of cool things that Google has available. Yes. And Google has a new thing available. Groove. Have you seen this? Or Buzz. Sorry. Buzz. This was announced yesterday or maybe two days ago. I don't know if I'll be talking about it next week because it's so new. But it's basically Google trying to integrate a Twitter, friend feed, sharing like thing right into Gmail. Yeah. I haven't figured it out myself. I've already read Backlash and it's like 48 hours old. So it's new. Yeah. But this session was about things, established things that Google is doing. Some things to experiment with, just some services or features you might not know about that you could use. So good thing if you want to explore Google a little bit and see what it's all up to. That Google secret session that Michael did. Nebraska Access is where the Library Commission offers access to purchases databases on behalf of libraries and citizens in the state and offers free access to them to libraries which is registered with us. And we redesigned the website earlier this year, earlier last year, and did a here introduction to the new Nebraska Access because it did change where things are located, where everything is. So if you want, if you haven't seen it yet, which hopefully by now you have, you can see what the changes were and how we did it, why it happened. It was a long time. February of last year, so a year ago. But the recording is up there so you can see what happened. And then we did some specific ones about some of these databases within it that had made changes to themselves. Of course, databases and services, they always do their own updating. So for eLibrary and the Wilson databases, we did two separate sessions on those because they also did upgrades and changes to how their systems work. So Susan and Alana did those. Wasn't me. No, not your job. Now we have a whole, you know, understandably, of course, we are library commission. Lots of sessions on reading and books in general that I just kind of gathered up together here. Some reading programs. Sally Snyder here at the library commission is in charge of our children's, is our children's librarian, children's books librarian, and she gets information out to libraries about the summer reading programs and she did an interesting session on how the theme is chosen in the history of the summer reading program. So if you're interested in that kind of thing, wondering what it's all about, where it came from, that is a really interesting session. I learned a lot that, you know, I know every summer there's a new title, a new theme, and you do different activities and things to do with that theme. But it was interesting to know why this all came about and where it started and which states did it to begin with and how they got more involved, more states involved in it. That was a very nice little history of the program. I bet there's committee meetings involved. Yeah, I'm sure. And I think at the time we did it, Sally was like the president or head of the association with the group that did it, so that's why she was really good at doing that. Book groups for adults or kids. Lisa Kelly had a reference here at the library commission. She did a session on that doing book groups, so if you are wanting to get one started or just want some more information and tips and tricks on how to do it, that's a really good session, a lot of good resources about book groups and how to run them. We also did a general session on just, we had some more staff get together and just talk about what they do as far as reading, the what to read session, kind of just like a book discussion. If here's some new titles we're interested in, here's what I liked, here's what worked for me, that kind of thing. That was a very interactive type of session. The list I won. Yeah, I did do something else. Oh, okay. We weren't helped. Sometimes I have to have people fill in for me. I'm not here every Wednesday and that's okay. Teens of the library, the teen read week is available, is happens every year and I actually brought in Sarah Dale Pearsall who is from Lincoln City Libraries Gear Branch and she shared what little history and information about teen read week and then I explained how they were doing their teen programming. So it's a good kind of introduction if there's something you're interested in doing or thinking about doing at your library. You can get a lot of good tips from her about how they did it. So you can get more involved with what your teens are doing and get them more into reading. And of course the Nebraska Book Festival happens every year. Mary Jo Ryan came and did a nice session on that and intro to it was coming up and what will be who is going to be there, the authors they're going to have the activities and sessions going on. I assume she'll do another one for 2010 when that comes up later in the year. I think the book festival was more, it was in November so it's in the fall. So that will be coming up and then we also started another regular session called Great Reads with Sally Snyder. A few years ago Sally used to do regular video conference type sessions or video recordings of herself talking about books, new children and teen books that are out there that she was liked or if she wanted to highlight and get people knowing about. And she kind of had to stop doing that. It just wasn't technically something she was able to do anymore. But now with Encompass Live we convinced her to use us to do a regular session on Great Reads for teens and kids. And she did her first one in November also, right before Thanksgiving. And we're going to have her do that as a regular one, not monthly like Michael's of course because I'm sure good books come out every month. A couple of times a year we'll see how that, how many times, when she has a good pile of books ready that she wants to promote out to people. So that will also be another regular session. So if you're looking for some new teen and kids books to promote or that your kids and teens are asking for new titles, take a look at the one session she did last fall and look forward to other ones. I'm going to try and tag her for it again this spring sometime. Yeah and I believe she's now doing a weekly blog post called What's Sally Reads? That's right, yes she is. So even if you don't, you know, if you would hope that her thing was monthly, you know we've only got so many Wednesdays. But I do believe once a week she's planning on talking about some new books on the blog. And I'm sure she'll do like one book each time. I have not noticed to that level of detail. So take a look at our blog too then and look for what Sally's reading and you'll see in between her great read sessions on here what she's come across. Money, of course. Everybody needs more money for everything they are doing. And we of course put together a bunch of different sessions on that getting grants. Catherine Brockmire here at the Library Commission has done, did a great session on seeking grant funds and writing the proposals. That one is a big part that some libraries have a stumbling block over. How do I write this? How do I convince them to give me the money? She did a great intro to all the basics and what you need to know to write a winning proposal. Lots of good tips and tricks on that. And then we did a session, follow-up session, specifically talking about the different grants that we offer here at the Library Commission, our continuing education grants, training grants, and library improvement grants. So if you wanted to know the kind of things you're available through us, that will give you good information about that. I also, just in December, did a session on e-rate, which is another way to get funding from basically it's discount program, discounted funding through the federal government for your telephone and internet access. You can get a discount on that. So I did a session on getting started on that. For this upcoming year, the process has already started. When I did it back in December, you could get started for the new year. But this will give you a good idea if you're not involved in it yet about what the steps are to go through if you're thinking about doing it for the next fiscal year. And even if you are involved in it right now, what you should be doing next. And just as a reminder, they're right now for those libraries who are doing, who are in the e-rate process this year, there is a form that is due. It's the 471 form for requesting your services yet they're all, it's government forms, they're all numbered. The deadline to submit that form was tomorrow, February 11th, but due to these huge storms that we have had, these snow storms, snowpocalypse, whatever you want to call it, I see that on the news, they got that on like CNN.com, yeah. As you know, the East Coast is being devastated and buried under feet and feet of snow. They actually extended the deadline for this form. So if you are in the midst of doing that second form right now, you actually now have till next Friday, February 19th, to submit it. They realized that because of the snow, some libraries maybe just could not get it done. They've had too much to deal with. And I'm sure themselves being in Washington's FCC base there, they're digging out as well. So that deadline has been extended a week. I saw an article this morning and said, you know, if DC is going to, if the capital is going to shut down whenever there's snow, they should move the capital in the Midwest where we know how to deal with it. Sure. Or maybe they should just go south or somewhere where there's no snow. Yeah. Well, then they get hurricanes. Hurricanes, right? Yeah, good point. And then just recently, last week, our most recent one, USDA has, they've always had funding opportunities for libraries, grants and loans that you can get through them. And we actually had Troy Gagner from the Nebraska USDA Rural Development Office come in and tell us about things that are available through them. As part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which some people have heard of as the stimulus program, they have been told to give more money to libraries specifically and get things built up and developed. So they have a lot of funding now, specifically targeted to libraries. Rural libraries specifically is what they're working with. So there is money available. There's funding, grants and loans available through the USDA. There is a deadline for applying for these. So if you want to get in on this, definitely go and watch his presentation. It was just last week. The recording is up there. His slides are available. A link to the USDA Rural Development Nebraska website is up there. Take a look at it because they've done lots of different things. They can do buildings. They give, there's some libraries you'll see in his presentation. A bunch of libraries in Nebraska that they did gave money to either build new libraries, put additions on, get energy improvement, do equipment purchases, lots of things, renovations. There's all sorts of options out there for it. But there is a deadline to getting your application in to them. And that deadline is measuring like weeks, right? I mean, it's soon, isn't it? Well, no, that's something different. Oh, oh, okay. This is a whole separate program. I think the deadline for his is sometime in the fall. But don't quote me on that. Watch his recording and look at his slides. But it is this year. I mean, this is that American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. It's a quick thing. You may be hearing about it in the news that form applications need to be submitted and they need to be submitted now. You need to get on top of these things. Now, one thing you did mention, which is something to think about is, yes, you need to get in touch with him if you do want to get something done now. However, it's okay that you aren't like building the library this year. You just need to get your application in to then get the money. And then you can start doing your building and your planning. It doesn't have to be shovel ready. Exactly. Well, you know, to use another government. It does. You do have to have or have a plan, like an official, here's what we're doing. Here's what we need to add. You can't just say we want a million dollars handed over. Not really. But lots of good money out there available that just lots of times you don't know about it. So take a look at that. Contact Troy, his info is all in there from that session that he just did for us last week. No. And speaking of government resources. Of course. Back on camera. Hi. We're doing a couple of different sessions. Our government document staff here has done government information that you can use, free resources online. It's a general session on that. There's a lot of good resources out there that you may know about, but they highlighted a lot of those. And then they did a specific session on American FactFinder looking at U.S. census information for your community. And this can be very useful when you are applying for those grants and applications and things to get money. They want to know what is your community like? Who are the people in your community? Do you have any vulnerable populations? Minorities. The elderly, whatever. Or and sometimes so they might want to know that information so you can dig it up out of this using the American FactFinder. Or there might be certain requirements that you have to meet certain census information. Like you have to have a certain amount of poverty in your area before you can even apply for a certain grant. So this will get you good information about that kind of thing to get the numbers and stats that you might need for all these applications. And I remember I hosted that. Beth did it. And I like to think I know how to search databases and stuff but if you're going to use the service watch this presentation. It is not always exactly obvious where you need to go to pull out the data that you want. It's better than it used to be. I remember that's like 10 years ago where you had to know the tape number practically to get the data off of. It is a little better and they have a lot of pre-prepared data and charts. So you like literally putting your zip code or your school district and it'll do things for you. So definitely if you want census numbers watch this session. Yeah, I'll get you where you need to be. Okay, these two sessions I put together basically about the job of being a librarian. A couple of things we've done on that. The library and information services program was revamped this summer. It was actually in June when we did the session. Marty McGee, one of the instructors for the program came in and talked about some of the changes. And this was previously had been the library technical assistant program has now been renamed the library information services associate degree program. She came and talked about so there are some of the changes they've done introducing you to some of the instructors that had some little videos of some of them I remember that was very cool. But just basically talking about this, they have the online dis-education format that you can use as well. So if you can't come to the classes you can do them online. It's hosted by Central Community College in Grand Island now. But as I said, it's on lots of different campuses and all the distance education program part of it. So if you're interested in getting your associate's degree in library and information services, that would be the session to take a look at, especially since they've changed the program from what it used to be. And then we had Emily Nimsakant our cataloging librarian, cataloger, yeah, just cataloging librarian. I didn't know what the title is. And all around wonderful person. Web person, whatever, yeah. Emily Nimsakant, she's our newest staff member. She did a session on cataloging on a shoestring. Very important, useful information. How can you get a hold of free mark records for your online catalog? There are lots of company services you can pay for. You can get mark records through OCLC. You can get them directly from some of the book vendors that you purchased your books from at a cost as well. But there are also free resources out there. You can save a lot of money by searching out these ones and getting your mark records from them rather than paying for them if it's something that your budget doesn't, just can't allow for at all or just currently can't allow for as a new thing because everyone's budgets are getting cut, frozen, etc. Do you want to know anything about that? So definitely if you're looking for some information on that Emily did a really great session on how to get a hold of these sources and lots of places where you can get them at no cost. Then we also have here just a kind of round up of some of the services and things that the library commission specifically offers and we did sessions on that, of course. VBLO stat collect is where we collect our statistics for our public library stats through way back in the beginning of the year right before they were due last January was when John Felton did a session our stats person on how the app interface there's like a lot of things we've talked about today have changed. They updated and changed how it works and he just get into that and then also explain why we collect these statistics what they can be used for. So if you're at a public library and this is the kind of thing we're asking you for definitely take a look at that. I think we need new statistics every year and I shouldn't be coming up again soon since you did in January last year. Nebraska learns 2.0 that was something that Michael and I are both involved in. We did was it four months that are original? Yeah the original program by it's like 23 weeks. Yeah we did our 23 things type program where we gave people different activities and exercises to do on different things that you can use live similar to the things in the libraries there are changing how to use YouTube and Facebook and Twitter and all sorts of different things. The pages are still up there for people to look at if you want to go back the program that program itself is different because it had to be getting in and however we are now continuing it with an ongoing Nebraska learners 2.0 program where if you go and look at that session announced it. Well I think we announced that it was going to be going monthly. I don't think it had started yet. Yeah so that program was where we did a new one every week or every two weeks. Yeah that was 23 things in like 18 weeks something like that. And now we've decided we get a lot of people who finish it up loved it and said I don't want to stop learning I want to learn about more things like this. Too bad it's ending. So we came up with borrowing some idea from other states that have done this doing a monthly Nebraska learners 2.0 topic. So every month we have a new thing that you can learn. Can't remember what this month is something about video casting. Screen casting. I think it's screen casting. Yeah is this month that Susan and every month you have one that you can learn to get the whole month to read up on it see what the web blog post is do the activities and earn CE credit for it if you want to or just to learn. What's up. So if you go to that session you can see what it's about and if you go on our website you can look for Nebraska learners 2.0 and you'll find the blog website that we are using for our monthly ones. So keep an eye on that and check in on every beginning of each month and see what the new thing is and see if you want to try it out. Nebraska memories is our service that we have had for a long time too when we have digitized images that we have from libraries and historical societies about Nebraska history is available in there. So we did a session on that introducing you to it just updating you on it. If you know of any library or historical society that has more pictures type things that they would want digitized and added to the collection that can give you some information on how to do that. So if you have those kind of things available very historical type things is mainly what it is. Meet the librarians behind the ready at nlc.state.ne.us that's the email for whenever you're looking for help and invite from our reference staff here at the library commission that session was about what they do for you. They answer reference questions for both librarians and citizens they do interlibrary loan down there. So they gave a nice overview Lisa Kelly the head of the department down there gave a nice overview of what they do downstairs. I say downstairs because they're downstairs from us you guys don't hear about that but they are who you've contacted for help and advice and that you can go to them as kind of a backup reference and backup interlibrary loan for your libraries. Moodle is a online courseware software program that you can use and that the library commission is using for some of our courses. Laura Johnson our continuing education coordinator is using it for basic skills classes and she did an introduction to that earlier this year in September as she's just getting started with using it for one of the basic skills classes. So at that point she's still testing it but it seems to have worked out very successfully. You can do a lot of things online with it. The next basic skills class organization of materials will be offered using Moodle this spring. There will also still be on-site classes in six locations across the state she said. So if you don't want to do the online version there will still be the on-site in-person courses as well but it will also be offered through Moodle. So if you can't get to some of the on-site locations for in person you could get your basic skills class for organization materials done online from the convenience of your own home or library. So keep an eye out for an announcement that the registrations are available. It's coming in this spring and she's working on getting all that schedule together. And the final thing we have here is discount shopping with the library commission. This is a session that we had Susan Nisley here at the library commission do. As some libraries know we offer the free databases in Nebraska access that libraries can get at our cost but we have lots of other services, products, databases that we get discounts for you via the being library commission meaning if you purchase these things through us because you're going through our account or through us as the purchaser for you you'll get a discount on it. And she just went through an overview of the things that we have. We have as I said databases that you can get discounts on that are not part in Nebraska access so you just subscribe to them yourself and you get a cheaper price because you're going through us. Products, books, book carts those kind of things equipment furniture for your library. Conferences, we give discounts to conferences to attend if you were you know registered through us. So if you're looking to try and save some money in some areas and you isn't of course Yeah, check out that session you'll find out a lot of the things that some libraries don't realize that we actually have these things available that we do have this huge website list of things people that we have vendors and companies that we have contacted and made deals with on your behalf that you can get some save some money on some of these things that you buy regularly. Yeah, I think we have just like a disk a percentage discount off of pretty much broad art. Yeah. You know and so if you order from broad art or Gaylord or any of those check our site. I mean you might get 20% off. I'm not promising anything. I don't know the numbers but you know that's save yourself a couple of bucks. Yeah. And it depends on what you need to do for each one and rather do you just go through us to purchase or when you just purchase yourself you mentioned like a code number or you talked to a specific person at their company that session will tell you all of that so you know on what you're supposed to do and this is all on our website as well too. So she this this session gives you the intro the fact that we do this and then you put our website to see the specific details but everything we offer discounts on. What are thinking you go. You gotta bring that. Okay. Did somebody else raise their hand? So that is a pretty good overview of everything that all the sessions that we have done this past year. Was that all 48 it didn't count? I think so. You think so? Okay. Was anybody counting or if anybody was counting please let us know in the Q and A. So I don't know I think I did it all did you want to mention the new oh yes. Good point. Yes we Oh is that the new Oh okay. Yeah Janet our of our computer people here mentions and the questions and answer session in the GoToWebinar that the session on Ready. This is the replacement for ready. Yeah. I'm mumbling sorry. Meet the people behind ready Yeah. Meet the staff behind the ready at nlc.state. We do have new email addresses here at the library commission. I should update that session. I'll get to it. Anyway. So far the old emails still work but they're going to eventually not. So you would want to update your information and I will update it on the website for that recording as well that the new email address for ready is actually nlc.ask at Nebraska.gov nlc.ask at Nebraska.gov and Michael just popped up there in a note pad for you. So that is the email that you want to start using instead of the ready at nlc. So just to be aware of that. Thank you very much, Jen. I knew there was our emails have changed. I did not know what their specific one had changed too though. We've all changed to Nebraska.gov emails by going with the state email system and I wasn't sure what ready. Yeah. So actually if you get a chance if you know you email people at the commissioner you have any of us in your address books please check and make sure that they are the at Nebraska.gov version. As I think Christa just mentioned the old email addresses are still forwarding to us and most of us are kind of on a case by case basis telling people hey by the way our email I just changed six months ago but one day the state will just flip a switch and we won't be able and we will not get messages sent to those old addresses. So you know just anybody listening to this check your address books it's generally first name dot last name at Nebraska.gov there are a few notable exceptions like Diane here it's Diane Arwells because there was a different Diane Wells working for the state so she had to use her middle initial Emily has her maiden name middle name in there there's a few notable exceptions but you can always double check this on our website exactly on the commission website all of our new emails should already be on there I believe yes like mine right here on the slide and last thing is cut off okay I'll type it into that oh I think it's cut off because of the the tool bar showing up is that there we go okay so any questions about any any of the sessions cameras over there that I've mentioned that was just a nice overview of everything we've done over the past year 2009 sessions we think they've been useful as I said we've gotten actually a lot of good feedback suggestions nobody said they're never gonna attend whenever again not that I've heard okay that's good we do do our encompass live is offered every Wednesday morning at 10 a.m. central time generally for an hour it's recorded as this one is being so and as you can as you saw all these are archive sessions so you can listen to it if you haven't been able to attend the live session I do encourage suggestions give me ideas for things you want to hear about if you want to request something on a topic is there's something that you are interested in and you don't know about it or you've heard about it you want to know more drop me an email call me up whatever and I'll see if I can get someone to speak on it whether it's something from the commission or anything out there in the library in the Nebraska library world basically the idea of encompass live is anything of interest to librarians in Nebraska we'll try we can talk about it and my tech talk sessions I also will take questions in advance I got a couple last time although if you send them to Krista she will you know happily pass them along she knows where I am or you know if you think it's something like it's just a question you think I can answer in a tech talk versus a very large topic that might take a whole session feel free just to email me directly or just funnel it all through Krista that's fine too we'll I'll get it or if there's something you want to share with the rest of the Nebraska library community you want to do a session on something you're doing interesting in your library or some organization you're involved in give me a call or an email and we can maybe get you set up to do a session my camera camera optional so don't don't don't let the camera scare you my that's my email address of course the new Nebraska.gov one and the 800 number here for the library commission you can contact me for any of that information that you want and also be aware that I do keep an eye on what's going on out in the Nebraska library world so if I see you might be doing interest something interesting I may be contacting you to ask you to come and present I've done that before or I might try to get you on the phone for a session yes now see I can't apparently the URL down here is kind of hiding for our webpage but you can if you can't see that it was on the first slide it'll be available on the PowerPoint so I'm going to go up I'll also link to it on the recording and also if you just go to the commission website and search for Encompass Live you'll find the webpage that has all of the upcoming sessions and a link to all of our archive sessions all the ones that I talked about today so there's anything else you're welcome Laura I'm glad you have showed up today hope it was very useful information Janet love the camera we're glad to finally have a camera that we've been able to do a week for this too we've had a lot of questions and requests for why can't we see you on camera anymore but we figured it out so that we can do that I thought we did these things online so they didn't have to look at us no sorry okay all right anyway thank you very much for attending today please give me a call or email if you have any questions about our Encompass Live or as I said a suggestions or ideas for future ones thank you very much and bye