NEILSA - Friday Notes Archive

2) First Lady’s “In the Middle” Book Club: First Lady Christie Vilsack is again conducting a summertime online book discussion club for middle school students. The June book titles for middle school readers are:

From the First Lady’s website: “…Nearly 250 students from all over Iowa, from Sioux City to Davenport, Greenfield to Mason City, joined the club at my website, reading a wide selection of youth-oriented books and then posting an amazing number of insightful, thoughtful and sometimes humorous comments. I was delighted to respond to those I could, and wish I could have participated more…I also invite classroom teachers, teacher-librarians, and community libraries to use my IN THE MIDDLE BOOK CLUB in any ways appropriate to encourage your students and young library patrons to keep reading…”

You’ll see there are programming ideas here and logical tie-ins for summer reading activities for the pre-teen crowd. You’ll find the book club titles used in previous months and all the titles used last year—a nice way to do some collection development for the middle grades. Check your own collection for these titles and then help spread the word to kids and parents alike about this cool summer activity. To read more about Mrs. Vilsack’s book discussion club for kids, visit http://www.christievilsack.org/summer_book_club/

The Internet application Funding Commitment Decision Letter for FY2006 has arrived!
For more data see Consortia Blog.

Banned Books Week this year is September 23–30. The 2006 Banned Books Week Kit is an opportunity to conduct or sponsor positive educational programs, including exhibits, lectures, discussions, plays, and films, demonstrating the harms of censorship.

There have been lots of questions recently about carry over funds.
Amending the Budget
The library may spend only the amount budgeted within one fiscal year. However, sometimes during a budget year there is unexpected revenue that the library wants to spend, for example, a gift. If the library receives additional income from any source, it can only be spent if the budget is amended to include this additional income. No municipal agency, including the library, can spend more than has been budgeted unless the budget is formally amended by the city council.

Most cities routinely amend their budgets and library budget amendments should be included in these amendments. Amendments must be approved and published by city officials before May 31 of the current fiscal year, the statutory deadline for city budget amendments. The city manager should be consulted to determine the date when the library's amendment must be submitted for inclusion in the city's amendment hearing. A legal form for requesting an amendment will be provided by the city.

Trust Accounts
Iowa Code 384.3 states that all money received for city governmental purposes from taxes and other sources "must be credited to the general fund of the city, except those monies received for the purpose of...trust and agency funds...."Funds unused by governmental agencies at the end of the fiscal year (June 30) may revert to the general fund of the city. Funds remaining in the library account at the end of the year will revert unless the city has given authority to the library board to carry over the funds in the library account or unless the funds are designated to a trust account.

The library director should work with the library board to formulate long- and short-term plans for unused fund balances: Is there a need for an addition or new building for the library? Is new shelving needed? Are more computers needed? One of the biggest mistakes a library board can make is to not have plans for available funds. It is not unheard of for Iowa libraries to have funds reverted at the end of the fiscal year because there were no articulated plans for the funds or trust accounts established.

If the library has plans for year end funds, the board should request that the city council pass a resolution to authorize carry over of fund balance or establishing a separate trust account. The resolution should indicate, among other things, the title of the trust, the purpose of the trust, and whether the interest on the fund is to be spent or added to the trust. The city council then passes a resolution establishing the library trust with the purpose of accumulating funds for a planned purpose or project.

The money in a trust account: a) can be carried over from year to year until the purpose for which it was set up is accomplished; b) should not be used for day-to-day operation of the library unless the trust provides, such as an endowment trust; c) can still revert to the city General Fund, although this would be unusual.
Cities Reporting in Accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP)

For cities reporting on a GAAP basis, an alternative to establishing a separate trust fund or account would be to use the Balance Sheet to identify or earmark the carry over balance as a "designated fund balance". The City Council should still pass a resolution to authorize carry over of fund balance. However, this "designated" amount would be reflected as a separate line item on the Balance Sheet of the General Fund. Designation of fund balance or establishing a separate trust account is optional and either method would be acceptable for GAAP reporting. This affects only those cities reporting on a GAAP basis. Check with city officials if this affects your city.
REMINDER: The LSA can help you with this whole topic we are only a call away.

You are invited to a free public lecture and discussion on Ruth Suckow's first novel "Country People" (1924), Saturday, June 10 at 1 p.m. at the Cedar Falls Public Library. Suckow lived in Cedar Falls during the 1920s and 1930s when she and her husband, Cedar Falls writer Ferner Nuhn, gave guest lectures at UNI (then Iowa State Teachers College). H. L. Mencken called Suckow one of the leading fiction writers in the U.S. Her works include "Iowa Interiors" (1926), "The Bonney Family" (1928), "Children and Older People" (1931), "The Folks" (1934), "The John Wood Case" (1959) and other short stories, novels, articles, and a memoir. "Country People" has chapters titled "The Farm and Children," "Grandma and Grandpa," "The War," "Town," and "Retired Farmers." Barbara Lounsberry, President of the Ruth Suckow Memorial Society, will lead the Saturday exploration of Suckow's work. The lecture will be held in the Conference Room on the second floor of the Cedar Falls Public Library.

Iowa Grants Symposium: “Iowans’ Partnering for Progress”

Many public library staff and local city government staff attended this symposium last year and rated it highly. This year the symposium is being extended to include non-profits, academics and others. It promises to be bigger and better that last year so make sure you plan to attend. REGISTER EARLY. Attendance will be capped. To make sure your are included, register today online to hold your spot. The hote is offering state rates for this symposium, so be sure you give the symposium name when you register. Details and registration: www.iagems.gov

Iowa’s Office of Grants Enterprise Management presents the 2nd Annual Iowa Grant Symposium, “Iowans’ Partnering for Progress” Wednesday, August 16, 2006 at the Sheraton West Des Moines Hotel. Be sure to join your grant seeking peers from throughout the state at this premier training event on August 16 at the Sheraton West Des Moines Hotel in West Des Moines, Iowa.

The agenda is filled with information relative to all grant seekers.

Some highlights of the agenda include:

$65 registration fee which includes a deluxe continental breakfast, lunch and afternoon break

Kathy Mabie

Iowa Grants Management Director

Iowa Department of Management

515-281-8834

FAX 515-242-5897

www.iagems.gov

FROM:

Judy Jones, State Library of Iowa

Consultant

Throughout June of this summer the Larned A. Waterman Iowa Nonprofit Resource Center is offering an important day-long training for nonprofits all around the State of Iowa. The Governor's Nonprofit Task Force created the Iowa Principles and Practices for Charitable Nonprofit Excellence. They provide great guidelines on how to operate a nonprofit in an efficient and positive way. The brochure (link below) gives the dates and places of the Principles and Practices training as well as the method to enroll.http://inrc.continuetolearn.uiowa.edu/iowatraining.asp

Dog gone reading partners
Children who participate in “Reading Fur Fun” sessions offered through schools and libraries are referred by reading specialists or classroom teachers. The program runs in five-week sessions with each session lasting about an hour. Participating children receive a book to take with them at the end of five weeks.

1900 to 1920 photos
The Library of Congress has announced that all the negatives in the George Grantham Bain news photograph collection (about 40,000 glass negatives) have been digitized and are available in the LOC's Prints and Photographs Online Catalog.FROM: <http://www.researchbuzz.org/2006/05/loc_announces_complete_digitiz.shtml>

The best memorial yet is a book.
"In New York they are trying to figure out how to honor the men and women who went down in the twin towers. Well, the best memorial yet is a lovely book, ''102 Minutes.'' You can visit it anywhere, and it means more than a wall of names, or a reflecting pool. Those people live on in the book, which is about large and small acts of heroism and kindness in the face of death, and you can't say that with stones or reflecting pools. You need words."
Garrison Keillor

The user is not broken: A meme manifesting as a manifesto
In the wake of “a discussion with a passionate young librarian who cares,” Karen Schneider has composed a list of Marcus Aurelius–like meditations on libraries and technology, such as: “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than to find a library website that is usable and friendly and provides services rather than talking about them in weird library jargon.”...
Free Range Librarian, June 3

Lighten up, please: Why the uninformed librarian should be informed on library humor
Norman D. Stevens, director of university libraries emeritus at the University of Connecticut, examines the current status of library humor, our response to it, and why—now more than ever—informed librarians should not only be appreciating library humor but creating it....
Informed Librarian, June

CIP survey for libraries
While the Cataloging in Publication program has grown significantly over the years, the resources that support it have not. Given limited resources and dramatic changes in information technology, the Library of Congress is asking libraries (and publishers) to fill out a survey to determine its future. The survey has 56 questions. LC tried to keep it brief, but CIP serves many constituents, and cataloging is not a simple business....
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Division

Times-Picayune page from Internet Archive

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita web archive
Internet Archive and many individual contributors created a comprehensive list of websites documenting the historic devastation and massive relief effort due to Hurricane Katrina. The sites were crawled between the dates of September 4 and October 17. This collection, containing more than 25 million searchable documents, will be preserved by Internet Archive with access to historians, researchers, scholars, and the general public....
Internet Archive

New Chinese-Canadian roots website
Vancouver (B.C.) Public Library’s new Chinese-Canadian Genealogy website, sponsored in part by Library and Archives Canada, offers a variety of practical tools and resources to support all stages of genealogical research, from basic techniques commonly used by genealogists, to more advanced guidance....
Library and Archives Canada, May 31

Home broadband adoption, 2006 (PDF file)
At the end of March 2006, 42% of Americans had high-speed at home, up from 30% in March 2005, or a 40% increase. And 48 million Americans—mostly those with high-speed at home—have posted content to the internet....
Pew Internet & American Life Project, May 28

Study shows how kids’ media use helps parents cope
Electronic media is a central focus of many very young children’s lives, used by parents to help manage busy schedules, keep the peace, and facilitate family routines, according to a new national study (PDF file). In a typical day, 83% of children under the age of 6 use screen media, with those children averaging about two hours a day (1:57). Media use increases with age, from 61% of babies one year or younger who watch screen media in a typical day (for an average of 1:20) to 90% of 4 to 6 year-olds (for an average of 2:03)....
Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, May 24

Presidential speech audio and text archive
The University of Virginia’s Scripps Library and Multimedia Archive has an archive of some of the most important presidential speeches of the past 60 years available. Recently they expanded the collection to include the full text of some of the more important presidential speeches from the 18th and 19th centuries....

Four Connecticut librarians shed John Doe gag
“I am relieved that a federal court has at long last lifted a Patriot Act gag order and allowed me to acknowledge that I am the recipient of a National Security Letter [NSL] on behalf of my organization, Library Connection,” asserted Executive Director George Christian at a May 30 press conference at the New York City headquarters of the American Civil Liberties Union. The statement ended months of speculation that the Library Connection—a nonprofit consortium of 27 public and academic libraries in central Connecticut—is the John Doe plaintiff in Doe v. Gonzales....

Supreme Court sends mixed signals on public employees’ speech
In a 5–4 ruling on the Garcetti v. Ceballos case, the Supreme Court asserted May 30 that the Constitution does not necessarily protect government employees from retaliation by their supervisors for anything they might say in the course of their employment....

Justice Department urges internet firms to retain user data

In a private May 26 meeting with leading internet companies, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and FBI Director Robert Mueller said internet service providers should retain subscriber information and network data for two years in order to aid investigations into child pornography and terrorism activities....

Come highly recomended:

** ResearchBuzz Roundup 052006

<http://www.researchbuzz.org/2006/05/researchbuzz_roundup_052006.shtml>

** Google Blog Search Adds Date Searching

<http://www.researchbuzz.org/2006/05/google_blog_search_adds_date_s.shtml>

** First Look: Google Notebook

<http://www.researchbuzz.org/2006/05/first_look_google_notebook.shtml>

** Meta-Search By Tag or Site URL

<http://www.researchbuzz.org/2006/05/metasearch_by_tag_or_site_url.shtml>

** Yahoo's Got a New Home Page

<http://www.researchbuzz.org/2006/05/yahoos_got_a_new_home_page.shtml>

** Yahoo Announces LiveSearch on AlltheWeb

<http://www.researchbuzz.org/2006/05/yahoo_announces_livesearch_on.shtml>

** Tech Talk: Unlikely and Unexpected Bloggers -- From Pink Panther to LAPD

<http://html.wral.com/sh/blogger/2006/05/unlikely-and-unexpected-bloggers-from.html>

** Tech Talk: Napster Song Service is Now Legal AND Free

<http://html.wral.com/sh/blogger/2006/05/napster-song-service-is-now-legal-and.html>

Links:

The fine print stuff
blog - Friday Notes 2 AT - http://radio.weblogs.com/0108327/
EDITORS NOTES:
"x" & "xx" are catalogers shorthand for: x = See & xx = See also
Edited by:
Ken Davenport - NEILSA Consultant davenport@neilsa.org

COPYLEFT NOTICE 2002:
THE INFORMATION IN THIS PUBLICATION IS FREE.
It may be copied, distributed and/or modified under the conditions set down in the Design Science License published by Michael A at http://dsl.org/copyleft/dsl.txt

COPYRIGHT
Please note: material found on the web should be assumed to be under copyright and is presented here for purposes of education and research only.
NOTE: If credited [via ???] or [from so & so] it is their material and not covered by my "Copyleft" notice. Ken