Delaware's Governor Jack Markell praised the work of public libraries and the state's Division of Libraries in serving as a linchpin to bring together agencies that normally do not work together in the Division of Libraries' innovative Community Resources Exchange program, in which social service agencies, non-profit organizations and libraries work together to maximize their resources and reach those in need.

"The brilliance of this program may be its simplicity", said Governor Markell to the representatives from organizations across the state who met together on February 23rd to hear about each others programs, network, and share resources- often using public libraries as a central point for public programming, services, and information distribution.

You can view the full press release about the event either at http://state.lib.de.us/news-links/CRERelease.doc (.doc format) or http://embedit.in/DkXOMH2HxK online.

BCR, LYRASIS and OCLC are proud to present a new workshop, Digital Preservation for Digital Collaboratives, designed to help digital collaboratives with existing digital collections develop and implement a long-term preservation option. 

The workshop, designed for multiple representatives from a collaborative, will provide the information and tools the collaborative needs to develop a long-term preservation plan that will work for its unique collections and organizations.

Register now for the April workshop: http://www.bcr.org/training/workshops/register.html

April 13, 14 and 16 from 1-3pm ET:  Three webinars will address the following topics:

• Introduction to the Digital Preservation Landscape 
• Digital Preservation Standards
• Sustaining the Digital Investment: Developing a Digital Preservation Program
• Developing Preservation Policies for Collaboratives

April 28-29 at LYRASIS—Philadelphia:  Two full-day sessions will address the following topics:

• Elements of TRAC
• Using TRAC in Planning and Assessment
• Technology and Technical Infrastructure

Faculty and program staff will host monthly follow-up activities, including webinars, to assist collaboratives in completing their preservation plans.

The workshop will be taught by a faculty of digital preservation experts:

Liz Bishoff, Director of Digital & Preservation Services, BCR
Priscilla Caplan, Assistant Director for Digital Library Services, Florida Center for Library Automation
Tom Clareson, Senior Consultant for New Initiatives, LYRASIS
Robin Dale, Director of Digital Services, LYRASIS
Katherine Skinner, Executive Director, Educopia Institute and Program Manager, MetaArchive Cooperative

Cost is $150 per individual registration and $125 per member of a registered collaborative team.

For more information, please visit: http://www.bcr.org/dps/training/neh-dpdc.html

Questions? Contact Holly South: hsouth@bcr.org

Partial funding for this workshop is provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

For immediate release
For more info contact Heidi Estrin
pr@jewishlibraries.org

ASSOCIATION OF JEWISH LIBRARIES ANNOUNCES AFFILIATION WITH AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION

The Association of Jewish Libraries has become an affiliate of the American Library Association as of January, 2010. Among ALA's twenty-eight affiliate organizations, there are a number that, like AJL, represent religious or ethnic library services, including the American Indian Library Association, the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association, the Catholic Library Association, the Black Caucus of ALA, and the Chinese American Librarians Association.

AJL was welcomed into the fold with a warm “Congratulations!” by ALA’s Alicia Bastl, liaison for affiliates. "AJL's mission is to support Judaic libraries and promote Jewish literacy. ALA wants to do the same for American libraries. Our goals overlap and reinforce each other. We hope that this new affiliation will help AJL grow and strengthen even as it helps ALA diversify,” said Susan Dubin, AJL President. “This is a great opportunity for us to educate the library world about AJL and its many activities."

Affiliates enjoy representation at ALA conferences and in ALA print and online publications. Benefits of membership began immediately for AJL, when the winners of its 2010 Sydney Taylor Book Award were announced on the ALA website alongside their other children's literary prizes such as the Newbery and Caldecott medals.

The Association of Jewish Libraries, established in 1966, has over 1,000 members worldwide. AJL promotes Jewish literacy through enhancement of libraries and library resources and through leadership for the profession and practitioners of Judaica librarianship. Visit the AJL website at www.jewishlibraries.org, and visit http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/affiliates/affiliates/AJL.cfm to see AJL’s presence on ALA’s website.

###

The Pacific Northwest Library Association, covering two provinces and four states in the Northwest, is one of the few cross-border library associations. We just celebrated our centennial in August 2009 in Missoula, Montana, with 200 attendees from our membership and affiliated associations in British Columbia, Alberta, Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon and Alaska.

In October 2009 we learned that the Oregon Library Association voted to dissolve its ties with our group. This was quite a shock to us as we are a strong organization, with a well regarded leadership institute, children's book award, and annual conference. Our financials are in excellent shape and we are on track to last at least another hundred years.

We had spent the spring and summer of 2009 engaged in strategic planning to best chart the course for our future and apparently information got miscommunicated to OLA, as their departure letter to us said they were worried about our financial status and continued existence, and in any case they could no longer continue to afford to affiliate with us. They stated their costs to affiliate as approximately $5000 annually, which came as a surprise to us.

I have asked the other member states and provinces to estimate their annual costs to affiliate over the past five to ten years, and the amounts are in the vicinity of $2500 at the very most. This includes support for at least one professional from their state or province to attend our leadership institute, and support for a representative from their state or province to attend our biannual board meetings and yearly conference. We pick up the costs for representatives at one board meeting and subsidize the leadership institute for attendees and also mentors selected from each state and province. Costs for the children's book award are also covered by us.

We are happy to work with states or provinces who have difficulties with this financial commitment. Recently British Columbia decided they could no longer afford to send their representative to our board meetings, so we have successfully used Skype to connect her with us. We have, over the past two years, also given back to our provincial and state associations' conferences with a $500 sponsorship for a session or event for each conference.

Recently we learned that OLA will have to hold a membership vote in March to officially cut their ties with us. It is our concern that their membership is not well informed about OLA's decision to leave PNLA--both in the sense that the reasons given were not accurate and that the membership in general was not fully informed about OLA's departure. We in PNLA have decided to reach out to the library media to share the information we have regarding OLA's decision to cut ties, and to assure the Oregon library community that we want to continue our relationship, dating back to the inception of PNLA 100 years ago. We would like to urge the library workers of Oregon and the members of OLA to vote no on the decision to end ties with PNLA but instead explore ways of working through OLA's tough financial times.

For more information please see:

http://www.olaweb.org/mc/page.do?sitePageId=99073&orgId=ola. OLA's letter to PNLA
http://www.pnla.org/officers/OLAresponse09.doc PNLA's response