For ALL Library Personnel Who Work with Youth

It's awesome when things just happen to mesh well - like this example.

Library personnel who work with youth at any type of library might want to consider this line-up of session choices for TechNet 2012. You'll get to choose your own 4th session, but check this out:

Session I: Internet Safety (Gary Price)

Session II: Arlington Public Library's Tech Centers (Erin Spicer & Jenny Ethington)

Session III: Poster Sessions (The one described below seems to be a perfect follow-up for folks who would like to implement Arlington's concepts.)

Ready, Set, Animate! Let your imagination come to life with the next generation of Web 2.0 products. Learn how to make informative and entertaining instruction sessions using free animation software! This poster session will compare and contrast Go!Animate and Xtranormal functions and features. Become an animator and learn how to create your own animated videos for instruction sessions, marketing, storytime, and event announcements. With a quick set up time and short learning curve, you can select settings, characters, graphics, and text then with a click, drag, and drop your video is complete. Animation is a creative alternative to screencasting to put a fresh spin on your library blog or website. Janet Bickel-Burton (SMU Cox School of Business Library & TWU Health Sciences Library – Dallas) & Lesley Tsuchiya (SMU Cox School of Business Library)

Electra Public Library Digitizes Electra Newspapers 1907-2011

Take a look at Electra's recently posted local newspapers, dated 1907 - 2011, which have been digitzed and are now accessible via Electra Public Library's website. That library started the digitization project in April and finished it this week. "This has been a fun and exciting project, and our community is so happy," says Library Director Terry Holbert, adding " 'specially our genealogy group!"

Terry says that it was an affordable project and that she's willing to talk with anyone who may be interested in digitizing their community's microflim. Of course, those interested will need to call her before July 23rd. After that, she will be retired (and missed!).

Where It All Started for NTLP

As NTRLS, formerly NTLS, rides into our nonprofit's history, it's interesting to note when NTLP, originally NTRLS, Inc., started, and which libraries were involved.


The date is April 1, 1985. The Texas State Library and Archives Commission sends a letter to the North Texas Library System stating that the State agency has "received 35 affirmative resolutions from governing authorities to organize NTLS into a nonprofit corporation. The resolutions authorize the NTLS Advisory Council to incorporate the NTLS."


Those libraries voting yes were the public libraries located in the following cities: Azle, Bedford, Burkburnett, Burleson, Cleburne, Electra, Euless, Fort Worth, Glen Rose, Graham, Granbury, Grapevine, Henrietta, Hurst, Jacksboro, Keller, Lake Worth, Lewisville, Mansfield, Mineral Wells, North Richland Hills, Olney, Paducah, Pilot Point, Richland Hills, River Oaks, Saginaw, Seymour, Springtown, Stephenville, The Colony, Vernon, Watagua, Weatherford and Wichita Falls.


So ... any ideas on how NTLP should celebrate its 30th birthday April 1, 2015?

TechNet 2012: Tracing the Threads of Technology

The simultaneously invasive and pervasive nature of technology seems virtually impossible to evade in today's world. While we all enjoy instant access to facts, figures and other information, we seem to embrace it so quickly that we fail to ask just what the true cost of that access is. Are individuals - or, for that matter, libraries themselves - paying for increased access with the loss of privacy, the diminishing of our principals and codes of ethics, the lowering of our standards and the tarnishing of our image? 

Need time to ponder the question? You have until August 9, 2012. 

Need additional points to consider before you even begin to ponder? You can get them at TechNet 2012.

TechNet 2012, NTLP's 5th Annual Conference on Library Technology, is scheduled for Thursday August 9 at the University of Dallas (which happens to be in Irving). Gary Price, producer of infoDocket for Library Journal, will be the keynote speaker. As a librarian, writer, consultant and frequent conference speaker, he has raised the question often, both for his own contemplation and as a point for his audiences to consider.

The focus of most of the day's sessions won't be on tracing the threads of technology, but don't be surprised if something about Gary's keynote presentation has you tracing those threads in each session you attend.