No. 06-40                                                                                                                  October 6, 2006

• Change in Speaker at Annual Meeting – October 11, 2006
  
  Due to being unexpectedly called out of town, Diane Ackerman will not be able to speak at our Annual Meeting.  However, upon notifying me of this, she offered an alternate speaker who was available that day – Dava Sobel.   Below is biographical information about Ms. Sobel – she is internationally known and, as a science writer, the topics she covers are fascinating. 

  Dava Sobel, a former New York Times science reporter, is the author of Longitude (Walker 1995 and 2005, Penguin 1996), Galileo's Daughter (Walker 1999, Penguin 2000) and The Planets (Viking, 2005). In her thirty years as a science journalist she has written for many magazines, including Audubon, Discover, Life and The New Yorker, served as a contributing editor to Harvard Magazine and Omni, and co-authored five books, including Is Anyone Out There? with astronomer Frank Drake. 

  Longitude went through twenty-nine hardcover printings before being re-issued in October 2005 in a special tenth-anniversary edition with a foreword by astronaut Neil Armstrong. It won several literary prizes, including the Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and "Book of the Year" in England.  

  She based her book Galileo's Daughter on 124 surviving letters to Galileo from his eldest child. Ms. Sobel translated the letters from the original Italian and used them to elucidate Galileo's life work. Galileo's Daughter won the 1999 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for science and technology, a 2000 Christopher Award, and was a finalist for the 2000 Pulitzer Prize in biography. The paperback edition enjoyed five consecutive weeks as the #1 New York Times nonfiction bestseller.  

  The PBS science program "NOVA" produced a television documentary called "Lost At Sea -- The Search for Longitude," which was based on Ms. Sobel's book. Granada Films of England created a dramatic version of the story, "Longitude," starring Jeremy Irons and Michael Gambon, which aired on A&E as a four-hour made-for-TV movie. A two-hour "NOVA" documentary based on Galileo's Daughter, called "Galileo's Battle for the Heavens," first aired on public television in October 2002, and won an Emmy in the category of historical programming. A "NOVA" adaptation of The Planets is currently in production. 

   

• JAN AGUIRRE, Specialist & Training Coordinator 

       Polaris “Tip of the Week”

  We have noticed some errors in the way the Patron’s address is added during registration. 

  When you register a patron or edit their address, the TYPE of address Must be selected. 

  In the window below, notice the Type is identified as “Home”. What this does is tell the software where to send all notices.

   

   

  When that identifier is missing, the software has no idea where to send notices so they are not even generated.

  This piece of information can be removed by accidentally hitting the space bar or the backspace key or the delete key.

   

   

  Notice in the registration form below, the type is missing and therefore the fields for “Address for notices and bills” and “Address for monthly statements” is blank. These MUST be filled in so notices can be generated and sent to the patron

   

   

  This is how it should look, with the Type of address identified and matching the corresponding information in the Address for notices and bills.

  

   

• MARISA IACOBUCCI, Adult Services Coordinator

  Conservation Preservation Discretionary Grant 

  The New York State Program for the Conservation and Preservation of Library Research materials provides $500,000 each year for preserving materials in the collections of libraries, archives, historical societies and similar agencies.  There is a strong competition for the $500,000.  The grant awards in 2007/08 will be limited to a minimum of $1,500 and a maximum of $30,000.  

  The Conservation Preservation Discretionary Grant Application for 2007/2008 is now available at www.nysl.nysed.gov/libdev/cp.  If you wish to have a copy of the application and guidelines mailed to you, please contact Julie Chiplock at (518) 474-7890.  Applications must be received in the New York State Library's Division of Library Development office by 5:00 p.m. on Friday, December 1, 2006.  There will be no extension of this deadline. 

  Questions about the program should be addressed to:  Barbara Lilley, Conservation/Preservation Program Officer, New York State Library,

  10-B-41 Cultural Education Center, Albany, NY  12230.  Telephone (518) 486-4864, or email:  blilley@mail.nysed.gov or visit our website at www.nysl.nysed.gov/libdev/cp

 

•   ROBERT McLAUGHLIN, Cataloging Services  

  I will be out of the office from Mon., Oct. 9 through Friday, Oct. 13. If you need sheets of spine labels, barcodes, process slips, or mylar book jackets, please email Margaret Rosen at mrosen@flls.org or call her at extension 33. 

Vendor Reimbursement: The last date to submit your request for this year’s vendor reimbursement is Nov. 1, 2006. It is not necessary to submit monthly or quarterly requests for reimbursement since payment will not be made until after the Nov. 1 deadline. Please note that only those requests for reimbursement based on invoices dated between Nov. 1, 2005 and Oct. 31, 2006 will be accepted. Any requests for reimbursement from invoices dated before Nov. 1, 2005 will not be honored; these invoices should have been included in your 2005 submission for reimbursement. 

 

•   LINDA BEINS, ILL/Reference Coordinator

  ILL: Library Abbreviations 

  Please use AURO for Aurora on In-transit receipts. I mistakenly omitted SPE for Spencer. As for the abbreviation for the Tompkins County Public Library, TCPL is preferred by the FLLS staff handling the delivery bags from the member libraries. 

   

  DATABASE Training You can still register for these training workshops:

  1.  Health             Oct. 13 (FLLS), 18 (TRU), 25 WEED

  2.  Newspapers  Oct. 16 (CAN), 20 (FLLS), 
                                Nov. 1 (MCGR), 8 (TRU) 10 (WEED)

   

  DATABASE Trials

  TCPL is evaluating two databases that provide test preparation, career skills improvement and job preparation resources. Here’s an opportunity to take another look at LearningExpress and compare it to Testing & Education Reference Center with Career Module. Please let me know which you prefer and why and whether this type of database will meet an information need for your patrons. 

          LearningExpress

                      Go to http://www.learningexpresslibrary.com/evaluation

                    User name:    99579 plus the first nine digits of your home phone number   
(ex. 99579123456789)

                    Password: Trial

 

        Testing & Education Reference Center with Career Module

                    Go to http:/infotrac.galegroup.com/itweb/special_tecm

                    Password: computer: computer

 NoveList

The most recent NoveList Notes details the types of Enriched Content that is included in NoveList. When available, the NoveList record will have direct links to First Chapters, Articles and Discussion Guides, Author Read-alikes, Book Talks, Awards, and Author Biographies for Young Adults. Previous issues of NoveList Notes can be retrieved by selecting the Readers’ Advisory tab at the top of the page.

 

Remember that you and your patrons can go directly from a NoveList record to the FLLS catalog by selecting    on the left side of the page.

  

Last Week’s Question of the Week: Oct. 4 marked the 49^th anniversary of Sputnik I, the first satellite to orbit in space. Who was the first human to orbit the earth and what was the name of his spaceship?

The Russian cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin, orbited earth in his spacecraft Vostok I.¹ By the way, the first live space traveler was Laika, a stray husky from Moscow, who traveled in Sputnik II which left earth on Nov. 3,1957; it is believed that she lived for 4-10 days of the 163 day flight.²

Angela Sorenson reminded me that John Glen was the first American to orbit  the earth in the spacecraft Friendship 7 on Feb. 20, 1962. 

¹Space exploration: From competition to cooperation, United Nations Chronicle, Vol. 29, Issue 4, Dec. 1992. [Database TOPICsearch] 

²Perkins, Sid, Dawn of the commercial space age, Science News, Vol. 166, Issue 15, 10/9/2004 [Database MasterFile Select}

This Week’s Question: It was reported this week that at least two cases of whooping cough have been diagnosed on college campuses in this region. What is the recommended schedule of immunizations to prevent whooping cough, aka pertussis?

 

ANNETTE BIRDSALL, Youth Services Coordinator 

Last Chance to Register for the Growing A Reader Workshop  

October 17, Growing A Reader Workshop.  Register now at http://earlyliteracy.sals.edu

Library staff will be able to assist parents in gaining the skills they need to help their children come to school prepared and ready to learn to read, thereby positioning libraries as experts in early literacy.  Work together with early literacy agencies in your community as you grow new readers.  Hope to see your there.  Workshop is all day, lunch will be provided. 9-4:30am in the Borg Warner Room of Tompkins County Public Library.

 

DIRECTORS’ ADVISORY COUNCIL (DAC) MEMBERS:

If you have any questions or concerns regarding FLLS library service, you are welcome to contact a DAC member from the list below. 

Janet Steiner, TCPL, Ithaca
Judy Barkee, Ulysses Philomathic Library, Trumansburg
Lois Maki, Newfield Public Library
Kay Zaharis, Cortland Free Library
Mary Frank, Peck Memorial Library, Marathon
Sally Otis, Hazard Library, Poplar Ridge
Stephen Erskine, Seymour Library, Auburn
Beverly Dann, Waverly Free Library.