SIGNAL online
December 20, 2006
Published by the Southern Ontario Library Service
The introductory page for the Southern Ontario Library Service is
www.sols.org. From that page, you can
move to any other pages created by staff at the Southern Ontario Library
Service, as well as to links to resources and professional information.
All issues of
SIGNAL
can be viewed online.
However, if anyone would like to receive the e-mail version of this
newsletter, please send a message to
. You can reach the editor of SIGNAL at
or by
telephone at 1-866-380-9767.
In this issue:
1. SOLS SERVICE – Service during the December holiday period
2. SOLS RECEPTION AT OLA CONFERENCE -
to be held on Thursday, February
1, 2007
3. CONNECTIVITY SURVEY
4. KNOWLEDGE ONTARIO - Please register your library for authentication
purposes
5. COOL – CONSORTIUM OF ONTARIO LIBRARIES
6. INTERLIBRARY LOAN POSTAGE AND POSTAGE REIMBURSEMENT
a) Canada Post’s Library Book Shipping Tool –
Deadline to register is
Monday, January 15, 2007
b) Postage reimbursement for 2006 –
Deadline for submission is Monday,
January 15, 2007
7. VDX DURING THE DECEMBER HOLIDAY PERIOD
a) VDX Request Freeze over the December holiday period
b) VDX Housecleaning tasks written especially for Lending libraries
8. DOMAIN NAME INFORMATION –
Library.on.ca
9. LISTSERV INFORMATION
10. FUNDING OPPORTUNITY - Ontario Trillium Foundation- Next deadline is
Thursday, March 1, 2007
11. LIBRARY TRUSTEE INFORMATION
a) Library Board Orientation Kit
b) Trustee training opportunity
12. SOLS TRAINING WORKSHOPS
- Registration for web-based Knowledge Ontario training begins
Monday, January 8, 2007
13. EXCEL –
Winter semester registration deadline Friday, January 5,
2007
14. TD SUMMER READING PROGRAM 2007 -
Registration deadline is Friday,
January 26, 2007.
15. TELLING OUR STORIES
16. ACCESSIBILITY STANDARDS
17. SOLS CEO LISTSERV
Service during the December holiday period
The SOLS offices will be closed from 5 pm on Friday, December 22,
2006 until the morning of Tuesday, January 2, 2007. The SOLS delivery
service will also be closed during that same period of time.
During the week of December 18th, the SOLS delivery routes will
operate on the regular schedule with the exception of Route J. For Route
J only, there will be NO delivery service on Friday, December 22, 2006.
Those libraries on Route J have been notified of the route changes for
Thursday, December 21, 2006.
to be held on Thursday,
February 1, 2007
You are cordially invited to a reception hosted by Southern Ontario
Library Service during the Ontario Library Association (OLA) Conference.
Please mark Thursday, February 1, 2007 from 12:00 noon to 2:00 p.m. in
your calendars and watch for the invitation in the mail. We will be
providing a light luncheon in the Caledon Room at the Intercontinental
Hotel.
The Ministry of Culture has asked Southern Ontario Library Service
(SOLS) to collect information from Ontario’s public and First Nations
libraries about connectivity, particularly, bandwidth. We will need the
information on a branch-by-branch basis. The results will provide the
Ministry, SOLS and partners with important and up-to-date information
about public library connectivity capacity and needs. This is essential
information for developing a longer term strategy for supporting
connectivity needs.
The Connectivity survey will be conducted by telephone over the next
few weeks. Copies of the survey questions were distributed in
advance of the telephone calls, having been sent out on December 20th
using the SOLSCEO listserv, the OLSLIB-L listserv and the specific
listserv for connectivity. In this way, you will be able to collect the
necessary information in advance and/or direct us to the appropriate
staff member with whom we might speak.
Please register your library for
authentication purposes
Knowledge Ontario (formerly the Ontario Digital Library) is a
province-wide collaboration of libraries (public, school, college and
university), archives, museums, heritage organizations, educational
institutions, and community groups to create an integrated, and
interactive digital environment about, and for, Ontarians. While six
initial projects were identified as the main components of Knowledge
Ontario, work on the
Ask Ontario (24/7 virtual reference help),
OurOntario.ca (digital cultural content) and
Resources Ontario (Online
and digital databases) are all in various stages of active development.
As part of Resource Ontario, all publicly funded libraries in Ontario
will be given access to a core suite of digital products. The resources
and materials in these databases go beyond what is available on the
Internet by offering full text of newspapers, magazines and books.
Access to these databases will then be available to Ontarians at home,
work, or school. More information is posted on the
Knowledge Ontario
website.
There is a preview version of the databases available from
Thomson
Gale (through Knowledge Ontario). In
addition to all the databases listed at this site, Knowledge Ontario has
also licensed Canadian Reference Centre from Ebsco.
Public access to the Resources Ontario databases will begin on
January 1, 2007. Users authenticated on a library system through the web
by IP address will have access to the information in the databases. To
start the authentication process, all public libraries need to register.
At the present time, libraries can register for the
Thomson-Gale
databases by going to their website and following the
link to “Register your institution”. At that page, there are several
choices, including one for “Public Libraries”. It is at that point that
you will be at the registration page. The second link, “Access Information”,
provides a list of the public libraries which have already registered
with Knowledge Ontario.
While “all sector” training sessions have been held in Toronto,
Windsor and Ottawa, there will be specific sessions for public libraries
in the new year in both web-based
and lab-based training, in public library
locations across southern Ontario. More details on the Knowledge
Ontario training is included in the SOLS Training Workshops (#12)
section of this issue of Signal.
COOL continues to offer products – COOL, a buying group for
electronic web-based journals, magazines, ebooks and other products, was
first established in 1998 when the group negotiated deals on different
electronic products. Since that time, many, many products and services
have been offered to libraries through COOL. While libraries will have
free access to a series of databases and products from Thomson Gale and Ebsco through the Knowledge Ontario project, COOL will continue to offer
consortium purchasing for other electronic products and services.
Subscriptions for a number of products and services were announced in
the November issue of Signal, including offers for EBSCO products,
Facts
on File, Globe and Mail "Canada's Heritage from 1844" and
Electric
Library Canada and Electric Library Elementary. While the general
deadline for these offers has now passed, a library could order a
product at any point in the year, and have the subscription pro-rated.
For further details on any of the offers, or for trial access, please
contact Brenda Lewis, Information Services Representative, at the SOLS
Toronto office by telephone at 416-961-1669, ext. 5130, or 1-
800-387-5765, ext. 5130 or by e-mail at
:
As part of the interlibrary loan system, items are shared between
libraries and transported either by SOLS courier or through Library Book
Rate. The Library Book Rate is used to ship interlibrary loan books to
SOLS and OLS-North libraries that are not on the SOLS courier routes
(about 50 of the 191 libraries in southern Ontario). For items being
shipped to these libraries, the postage is paid by the lending library
at the time of mailing and covers both the outgoing and the return
postage.
Please Note: As of January 15, 2007, only eligible libraries
registered with the Canadian Library Association (CLA), who are using one
of Canada Post’s electronic shipping systems, will continue to have
access to Library Book rates. Canada Post considers this registration to
be essential in providing them with the necessary information to sustain
Library Book rates in the future. Effective Monday, January 15, 2007,
all libraries not registered with the Canadian Library Association (CLA)
and not using one of Canada Post’s electronic shipping systems (with
proper barcoded labels) will be charged Regular Parcel rate at the time
of mailing for Library Book shipments. This means that for a 1 kg item,
it would cost over $10 compared to the Library Book rate starting at
$0.81.
Further information on using Canada Post’s Library Book Shipping Tool
to create book rate mailing labels and registration forms are posted on
the CLA website and linked to their main page.
This message also went out on the SOLSINFOADMIN listserv and the
various delivery service listservs on December 8th. SOLS compensates
its member libraries for library book rate postage charges incurred to
send interlibrary loan items to:
- public libraries in SOLS that are not on the SOLS courier
- public libraries in OLS-North
SOLS does not reimburse library mail rate for mailing interlibrary
loan items to:
- non public libraries in Ontario (i.e. universities)
- libraries outside Ontario
- libraries on the SOLS courier
- branch libraries, if the main branch is served by SOLS courier
You will need to have 2006 claims entered by January 15, 2007.
There is a link for the online claim form on the “INFO Interlibrary Loan
- Procedures” section of the SOLS website. You need a username and
password to use the form. If you do not have these, please contact the
SOLS Helpdesk at
or by telephone at 1-800-387-5765,
ext. 4. You can reach these pages from the main
SOLS page or use the direct link to the online
Postage Reimbursement
Form for 2006.
PLEASE NOTE: There is a link on the current postage reimbursement
page to a new page to enter your 2007 claims. This will be renamed back
to the current page when the January 14th deadline for entering your
2006 claims has passed.
Many Interloan departments will be closed over the Christmas/New Year
holiday period. Consequently, INFO VDX has been configured to freeze
requests from moving on to the next location in a rota for the period
from Friday, December 22, 2006 to Tuesday, January 2, 2007. If your
library is shutting down during that period, you need not notify the
SOLS Helpdesk, as this blanket rota freeze will cover it. If your library
will shut down much earlier than that, do let Helpdesk know, so we can
suspend your location. Interloan requests can still be issued during
this time and will go to the first location but will not move on unless
that first location deals with it.
Have you been naughty or nice? Have you been unwavering in performing
the CHECK IN step in VDX for returned interloan items? Did you know that
the borrowing library’s request is dependent on the lending library’s
CHECK IN status update to give it closure? There are borrowing libraries
all across the province with vast numbers of Returned items clogging up
their Borrower Work Queue that are months and yes…even years old. Just
waiting for the CHECKED IN indication to update it so, at last … sigh….
Closure. No more wondering if the item got “home” safely or is it lost
in the mails.
Give a borrowing library (and yourself) the gift of a clean slate to
start out the new year.
View Have you forgotten the Check-In function? to see how to check
for items that need the CHECKED IN update along with quick n’ easy clean
up steps.
Library.on.ca
We would like to remind libraries that SOLS holds the domain for
library.on.ca on behalf of public libraries in Ontario. Ontario
libraries may find it desirable to advertise their website with
'library' and their municipality name in it. For example:
http://www.jonesville.library.on.ca rather than
http://www.zippytech.ca/~joneslib . SOLS does not actually host your web
site, but we can redirect any traffic sent to a library.on.ca to the
actual server where your web site is hosted.
If you are not already using a library.on.ca address and would like
to request one, please contact Gale Thompson at
.
There is no charge for this service.
In June 2006, the library organization known as the Association of
Small Public Libraries of Ontario (ASPLO) was dissolved, with members
voting in favour of joining the Federation of Ontario Public Libraries
(FOPL). For a number of years, SOLS has hosted both a website and a
listserv for ASPLO, with the understanding that both would be dissolved
in 2007. The ASPLO listserv will be disbanded in January 2007.
If you are presently a member of the ASPLO listserv, we would
encourage you to join our other listservs. There is a general listserv,
called OLSLIB-L, that operates from the SOLS server. There are also a
few topical listservs, for example, one for those serving teens, and
another for those involved in the TD Summer Reading program. As well,
some of the area Library Committees (Peterborough, Saugeen area, and
Simcoe-Muskoka) have discussion lists, and if you are not subscribed to
one already, please contact the appropriate Library Development
consultant and ask them to include you.
A list of committees and consultants can be found at :
http://www.sols.org/librarydev/networking/librarycommittee/index.htm
A complete list of all the SOLS listservs can be found at:
http://www.sols.org/librarydev/networking/discussion/index.htm
Ontario Trillium Foundation- Next deadline is
Thursday, March 1, 2007
Under the OTF community program, applications for grants for
municipal libraries serving small communities (populations of 20,000 or
less) must be submitted through the municipality. Applications for
grants for county libraries serving small municipalities (populations of
20,000 or less) must be submitted through the County Library Board.
Applications for grants for First Nation libraries must be submitted
through the First Nation's Band Council. A copy of the application
process is posted on the Foundation’s website at
http://www.trilliumfoundation.org/OTF-English/new/index.htm . There is
also a link to the Trillium website from the main SOLS page at
www.sols.org . The grant will continue in 2007 with the first deadline being March 1, 2007 – at 5:00
pm.
The following
Trillium grants were announced on November 29, 2006. For a complete
list of the grants, please refer to the Trillium Foundation website.
Club Amick, c/o Southern Ontario Library Service- $325,000 over five years to operate Club Amick, which will provide books,
newsletters and related literacy program materials four times annually
to more than 3,000 First Nation children in remote Northern Ontario
communities.
Cornwall Public Library Environment Science Speaker Series, c/o St. Lawrence River Institute of Environmental
Sciences - $17,200 over
one year to promote environmental awareness and scientific literacy in
Cornwall and the surrounding areas by organizing an environmental
science lecture series at the Cornwall Public Library.
Corporation du Canton d'Alfred et Plantagenet - $35,000 over
one year to purchase books and shelving in order to encourage and
increase library use. Building modifications will also be made that will
allow patrons to have better access to a section of books.
Township of Bonnechere Valley - $50,000 over
one year to renovate the library, which will provide members of the
community with greater accessibility to activities and programs.
Corporation of the Municipality of Tweed - $29,500 over
one year to improve access to library services for over 2,200 patrons in
the rural Tweed area through the installation of a new web-based
catalogue system and facility improvements at the library.
Municipality of Marmora & Lake - $50,000 over one year for renovations and accessibility improvements to
the public library in Marmora, creating a new local history research
area, an improved children's section and a community meeting room.
Municipality of Rideau Lakes - $25,000 over one year to increase accessibility to services by improving
signage and display units at the five rural branches of the library.
Tay Valley Township (around Perth) - $8,800 to
upgrade resources for literacy programs, workshops and information
sessions and increase public accessibility to library services.
City of Port Colborne - $37,900 over
six months to purchase new equipment and conduct facility upgrades to
the library, which will improve access to circulation and computer
services for community members.
Municipality of North Middlesex - $14,000 over
one year to install automatic door openers at all public facilities,
improving accessibility and reducing barriers so that all community
members can participate in activities.
Township of Springwater - $24,000 over
one year to renovate the circulation desk at the Midhurst Public
Library. Improvements to the library will enhance accessibility at the
branch, as well as enhance customer service.
Corporation of the Township of Cramahe - $11,200 over
one year to improve public access to information and Internet services
for educational, employment, social and general communication purposes
by purchasing new computers for the Colborne and Castleton libraries.
Township of Galway Cavendish and Harvey - $42,100 over
eight months to increase the library’s operational efficiency and expand
its patron services by upgrading the circulation system to an automated,
web-based circulation control system.
a) Library Board Orientation Kit
- The fifth edition of
Library Board
Orientation Kit was published in 2004. Originally called the
Trustee
Orientation Kit, this publication began in 1991 as a component of the
Library Trustee Development program that was led by the Southern Ontario
Library Service (SOLS) and supported by Ontario Library Service-North
(OLS-N), with the assistance of the Ministry responsible for public
libraries. For the first five editions, a print copy was distributed to
each trustee and CEO in Ontario public libraries. However, please be
aware that for the 2006 round of municipal elections, there will not be
a new edition of the Library Board Orientation Kit, nor will additional
copies of the print version be available for distribution this year.
Through the changes made over five editions, we feel that the text
remains just as relevant today as it did in 2004. Rather than
re-distribute a new edition, or more print copies of this edition, we
suggest that you continue to use the same copies where there are
returning trustees. You might also be able to pass along copies of the
Library Board Orientation Kit
used by retiring trustees, or if you wish, you can make copies of the
publication using a print copy that you might have or by using the
downloadable copies available in the publications section of the SOLS
website.
At that site, you will find several options. You can just add the one
page addendum to the front of each existing 2004 kit. To complete the
kit revisions, you would also add the pages showing the updated list of
"Acronyms and Selected Terms", in Module 1. If you wish to
replace the actual pages in each existing kit, where a change has been
made, versions of these six individual pages are provided. Again, to
complete the kit revisions, you would also add the pages showing the
updated list of "Acronyms and Selected Terms", in Module 1. And finally,
if you wish to print off new copies of the complete 2004 version of the
Library Board Orientation Kit, including the six corrected pages, files
are provided to you.
If you have any questions about this publication or the update,
please contact
b) Trustee Training opportunity - In November, a message was sent to
all SOLS CEOs regarding OLBA's Conference within a conference, called
“Leadership By Design”, which is set for Friday, February 2, 2007 from
9:00 am to 5:00 pm. This message was also distributed via the various
SOLS Trustee Council listservs. "Library Leadership by Design" is a
six-part all-encompassing board development program that is accessible,
affordable and absolutely relevant to the needs of library boards and CEOs. OLBA is focusing on library boards and CEOs who understand the
importance of community leadership, espouse the value of public
libraries and have the will to embark on this vital leadership
opportunity. “Leadership by Design” will include a presentation by Glen
Murray (see page 9 of the OLA Super Conference 2007 program - "Solutions
in a Changing Landscape" for more information). There is FREE
registration to the entire OLA SuperConference for first-time library
board members and, for all returning library board members, the Early
Bird Registration Rate applies right up until the time of the
conference. Please note that to register using the FREE offer, you
cannot use the on-line form, but must fax your registration form to the
OLA office. More information on the OLA Superconference and the
“Leadership by Design” conference is posted on the
OLA website.
This fall, SOLS provided a variety of workshop topics. For those of
you who took advantage of the opportunity to attend a workshop, we hope
that you enjoyed your time. SOLS staff are in the midst of organizing
the spring workshop schedule. We expect to have two reader's
advisory workshops, one on horror and the other on non-fiction
materials, specifically on memoirs and biographies. For managers
and CEOs, a workshop on libraries and the law will cover two main topics
- privacy issues and children's issues. In addition, we are
planning a workshop on service to "tweens" and teens, and a
workshop for libraries developing and maintaining French collections.
As mentioned earlier in this issue under "Knowledge Ontario"
heading, SOLS is organizing training for library staff concerning
Knowledge Ontario products. We are planning to hold both web-based
training (in January and February) and lab-based training (in April and
May) as an introduction to the Thomson-Gale products. The web-based
training, called Webinars, is free of charge and each session will last
approximately one hour. Webinars are “live” training sessions in which
participants view the presentation through their Web-browser and listen
to the audio through their telephone. There will be six different times
for the one hour Webinars – Tuesday, January 23rd at 10:30
am; Thursday, January 25th at 1:30 pm; Tuesday, January 30th
at 10:30 am; Thursday, February 1st at 1:30 pm; Wednesday,
February 7th at 10:30 am and Wednesday, February 14th
at 1:30 pm.
Registration for the webinars will be available in the training
section of the SOLS website on Monday, January 8, 2007. The lab-based
training is being planned for 10 different public library locations
across southern Ontario in April and May. Registration for those
workshops will be handled separately from the webinars, and will occur
with the registration for the other regular SOLS workshops.
The workshop program will be distributed to libraries in January,
both in print and through our electronic communications of the website
and listservs. Watch for further announcements on the
workshops
in the new year both in Signal and on our website.
Registration
deadline – Friday, January 5, 2007
SOLS has been offering its distance education program, EXCEL, since
1988. Over 500 individuals have completed the requirements for the
certificate program, and many more have taken specific courses of
interest to them. The
information about the 2007 Winter semester of the
EXCEL program, as well as a registration form, has been posted on
the SOLS website. The registration deadline is Friday, January 5, 2007.
In English, we are offering the following courses for the Winter
semester:
#1 – Introduction to Public Libraries
#5 – Library Marketing
#7 – Collection Development for Children - revised for this semester
#8 – Collection Development for Young Adults
#9 – Collection Development for Adults
#11 – Communication Skills
#12 – Collection Organization - revised for this semester
#16 – Professional Development (web-based)
#17 – Electronic Information Sources (web-based) –
revised for this
semester
In French, we are offering the following courses for the Winter
semester:
1. Introduction aux bibliothèques publiques
6. Principes de base du développement des collections
12. Organisation des collections – révisé
16. Formation Professionnelle
Registration deadline is Friday,
January 26, 2007.
The theme for the summer 2007 is “Lost Worlds / Civilisations disparues”. The concept includes:
- Archaeology (digs, hieroglyphs, etc.)
- Adventures and expeditions (Indiana Jones, Carmen Sandiego, etc.)
- Time travel
- Hidden treasures & Pirates
- Lost civilizations on Earth, buried cities and lost tribes/empires -
Easter Island, Alexandria, Aztec, Vikings, Pharaohs/the Great Pyramids,
Toltec warriors, etc.
- Tales & Mythology - Atlantis, Gods and Goddesses
- Mysterious civilizations, enigmas, monoliths -
http://www.crystalinks.com/ancient.html
The illustrator for the 2007 program is
Joe Weissman, from Millbrook,
Ontario.
The registration form for 2007 program is now posted on the SOLS
website. There is a link from the main SOLS page to the
registration form. The deadline for registration will be Friday, January
26, 2007.
Judging to be completed January 10, 2007
During Public Library Week, the Federation of Ontario Public
Libraries (FOPL) launched Telling Our Stories, a province-wide contest
that will highlight and celebrate the positive impact of public
libraries on the lives of residents of Ontario. The deadline for
entering stories was Thursday, November 30, 2006, while the deadline for
on-line public voting, as well as voting by public library staff and
board members, was December 15, 2006.
The final count was that there were 752 stories submitted, with over
15,000 assessments by members of the public and a further 2440 ratings
by library staff and board members. The panel of judges has now begun
the task of reading and finding the finalists from the 50 top-rated
stories. The judges are Brenda Chapman, Denyse Racine, Dianne Papineau,
Sylvia Sutherland, and Edo Van Belkom. They will determine the top 3 winners
in English and French and the 10 honourable mentions. The judging will
be completed by January 10, 2007, at which time, the winners will be
notified. The winners will be honoured at the 2007 SuperConference.
Deadline for on-line public feedback December 31st
In the July and August issues of Signal, we provided an overview of
the new provincial legislation, Accessibility for Ontarians with
Disabilities Act, 2005 or AODA. AODA became law on June 13, 2005, with the purpose
of achieving accessibility for Ontarians with disabilities by developing, implementing and enforcing accessibility standards
respecting goods, services, facilities, accommodation, employment, buildings, structures and premises on or before January 1,
2025.Information on the legislation, as well as definitions, is posted at
http://www.mcss.gov.on.ca/mcss/english/pillars/accessibilityOntario/
.
Under the AODA, standards set
out the rules that will apply to the private and public sectors
across the province, and the standards will be developed by a series of
Standards Development Committees (SDCs).
The SDCs are not agencies of the government,
but are made up of members of the community, business, the broader
public sector, such as school boards, Ontario government ministries,
people with disabilities, and representatives of people with
disabilities.
Under AODA, four areas of common standards will be
developed. These are customer service; the ‘built’ environment,
including access to, from and within buildings and outdoor spaces;
employment, including employment practices, policies and processes, such
as job advertisements and interviewing; and information &
communications, such as publications, software applications and
websites. In addition, sector-specific standards will be
developed to address accessibility requirements that may be unique to a
particular sector and not covered by the common standards in areas such
as transportation. To date, there are SDCs
working in Transportation, Customer Service, Built environment,
Employment for people with disabilities, and Accessible
information and communications.
On October 23, 2006, the Ministry of Community and Social Services posted
the proposed standard on accessible customer service for public review
and feedback. There is a feedback form on the “Accessibility for
Ontarians with Disabilities” section of the Ministry of Community and
Social Services website at
http://209.167.40.13/review_public/reviewform_eng/
SOLS maintains a list of all the e-mail addresses for SOLS CEOs. It
is this list that is used to distribute Signal. Several times throughout
the month, you may also receive other messages from SOLS. This month,
the following messages were distributed:
If you did not receive these messages, and would like further
information, please contact the SOLS HelpDesk at 1-800-387-5765, ext. 4,
or by e-mail to
