Report from the OLA Superconference Session on Prison Libraries, January 2009

By Julia Schneider, retired Senior Librarian California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation

Inquisitive librarians at the Ontario Library Association�s Super Conference held in Toronto, Canada in January 2009 flocked to hear correctional librarian Joanne Lefebvre tell them everything they wanted to know about the unfamiliar world of prison libraries.

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By Judy Hoffman, Marketing Communications Specialist, North Suburban Library System

On the wings of a 1998 state-funded Illinois Educate and Automate grant, fifteen libraries in the North Suburban Library System (NSLS) http://www.nsls.info learned the art of local history digitization. Eleven years and 140,000 records later, over 40 Illinois cultural institutions continue to ensure that online history has a future via Digital Past.

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By Tom Clareson, Lyrasis

Originally published on the techMETRO blog

Digital Dilemmas, a symposium hosted by the Metropolitan New York Library Council (METRO) on April 16, 2009 at the Baruch College Manhattan Campus, promised attendees to explore the challenges, opportunities, and solutions available in the digital world. With a stellar cast of speakers assembled by Emerging Technologies Manager Jason Kucsma, the session went much further, exploring the best and newest practices in the digital world.

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By Carolyn Caywood, Cynthia Hart, and Korene Wilbanks

Public libraries expend a lot of time and resources seeking answers to the question �How can we be relevant to the people we serve?� One of the answers is simple and something that librarians do well. We talk to our neighbors! Through the Community Memories project, librarians at the Virginia Beach Public Library are doing just that. They are talking to their neighbors and building community by remembering the past.

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