Water: The Bain of Books

September 6, 2019 by
[A message for our eagle-eyed, copy-editing colleagues: as soon as we sent this message we caught our mistake. Bane, not bain! And then we learned bain is French for bath. So we’ll just “pretend” our misspelling was intentional. Wordplay… 🙂 ]

A thunder & lightning storm is blowing through Centennial as we send this message. How fitting…

Recently CLiC received two bins containing a variety of heavily water-damaged books. It’s still a mystery how these arrived at our offices, and where these bins have been held. See below for a list of owning libraries; we WILL be reaching out directly to these libraries to share specific details involving their materials.

  • Auraria (C105)
  • Colorado Territorial Correctional Facility (C367)
  • CSU Pueblo (C422)
  • Denver Public Library (C132)
  • Sterling Correctional Facility (C808)
  • Western State College (c532)
  • Woodruff Memorial Library (C410)

But the key reason we’re writing today is to share a best-practice approach to handling reporting material damage involving water and MOLD. Yes, this could even be black mold. Ewww. Nasty. Dangerous.

Preservation experts shudder when they see paper material with damage like this. At CLiC, we mask-up, glove-up and do a bit of forensics work. And then we take the material straight to the dumpster.

Here’s why: most often with damage like this there’s little anyone can do to salvage the item. Again, CLiC strongly recommends that libraries NEVER send rare, irreplaceable material through the courier system. With nearly 3 million items transported every year, the system is not flawless, and unlike UPS, Fedex or the USPS — our carrier cannot provide item-level tracking nor insurance protection.

If YOUR library were to ever receive items in this condition, we strongly recommend taking precautionary action. Gloves and masks at minimum. Disinfecting material for cleaning non-porous hard surfaces.

Our process:

  1. Note details like the item title, author last name, and owning library 2. Take photos to sufficiently document the extent of damage.
  2. Submit a report using our Contact Library Courier page (https://www.clicweb.org/library-courier/contact/). If it’s an entire bin, rather than submitting item-by-item the online form, consider simply sending us a single email to courierhelp@clicweb.org AND attach your photos and a spreadsheet/file with those items’ details.

CLiC’s commitment is to review your report thoroughly and respond in a timely fashion.

Now, for the main event… some graphic images… Please see enclosed (click to see closer). Viewer be warned.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: , , ,

FOLIO Meet-up Colorado 2019

April 23, 2019 by

Imagine a community working together to develop technologies that meet the unique functional needs of each library today, while positioning libraries to grow and evolve into the future. In this one-day symposium, discuss the FOLIO project, a community collaboration to develop an open source platform that will support traditional library management functionality and is built for innovation. Join fellow librarians from Colorado as we explore the future of library technology.

Register at: FOLIO Meet-up Colorado 2019 Event

Agenda:

10:00 – 10:45
Welcome and FOLIO 101 – Christopher Holly, EBSCO

10: 45 – 11:30
Kevin Kidd, Director, Wentworth Institute of Technology Library, to present on Fenway Libraries Online’s (FLO) decision to choose FOLIO and look at a single v. multi-tenant implementation

11:30 – 12:30
Vendor panel, looking at various options for FOLIO service providers, with:

  • Brendan Gallagher, ByWater Solutions
  • Christopher Holly, EBSCO
  • Mike Gorrell, Index Data

12:30 – 1:15
Lunch will be provided

1:15 – 2:30
Deep dive with U Colorado Boulder – Hear how CU is participating in the community; see what 3 FOLIO Special Interest Groups (SIGs) are working on; and watch live demos with:

  • Leslie Reynolds, OLE Board Member
  • Laura Wright, Metadata Management SIG
  • Nicole Trujillo, Resource Management SIG
  • Deborah Hamrick, Accessibility SIG

2:30 – 3:00
A look at project tech issues and challenges (including AWS hosting, inreach integration/API integration) – Mike Gorrell, FOLIO Technical Council member

3:00 – 3:15
Timeline and Q&A with all presenters

Register at: FOLIO Meet-up Colorado 2019 Event

Filed Under: Featured Continuing Education, News Tagged With: , , ,

Census 2020

April 4, 2019 by

CLiC: Helping you make sense of Census 2020

The Census is coming so start prepping now!  We’re not talking canned goods and barrels of bottled water. We’re talking library expertise – using every resource at hand to build strong communities.

CLiC is gearing up to connect libraries to an array of resources designed to help you go beyond survival mode and be a key player in getting a complete count in your community.

Census folks at both the State and Federal level recognize that libraries will be a powerful partner in getting a complete count for Census 2020.  As a result, libraries across the state have a seat at the planning table on both local and state level Census committees.  Sara Wright, CLiC Deputy Director, is a member of the state Complete Count Campaign (CCC), a governor’s commission established to increase awareness about Census 2020.

Here at CLiC we are prepping our website to be Census Central for Colorado libraries. In the coming months we’ll start curating a collection of resources.  These will fall into two broad categories, informing your community AND training your staff.

The go to authority in Colorado for Census 2020 is the State Demography Office where you will find the official Colorado Census 2020 web page.

Take a look at the fact sheets prepared by the Demography office. Want to get involved in your community?   Need some basic Census 101 info?  What about guidance on the proposed citizenship question?  There’s a fact sheet for that!  Best of all, there is a fact sheet just for public libraries!

Here are a few more Census 2020 resources to get your started.

CLiC kicked off our census support efforts at the 2019 Spring Workshops with a session by Adam Bickford of the State Demography Office,  “Demography, Libraries and the 2020 Census.” The presentation is available on our website.  Adam reminds us that “the census is a cornerstone of our democracy” and shares facts on why the census is important, easy, and safe.

 

Filed Under: News

Change in service to mountain (and other rural) communities

March 19, 2019 by

MARCH 20, 2019 —

Yesterday afternoon CLiC was informed by American Courier that its material transportation services, which reach many mountain communities across the state, will see some changes. This morning, we were informed that several libraries in the NE part of the state ALSO will experience this change in providers.

American Courier has shifted its primary subcontracted carrier (for certain routes) to a new company. Libraries listed below WILL be affected by this change in contracted carriers. New drivers can be expected, along with a period of rocky transition.

Here’s an analogy: think of it like mail service at your house. One day you might have one mail carrier delivering letters and bills — then the individual retires — and the next day you see a different mail carrier. Bottom line: you’ll still get mail.

Communication is key. Please let us know how things are shaping up in terms of material delivery to your library, where you’re seeing problems, and when you’re receiving good service from a driver, too.

In addition, there is significant potential for new routing to be established. CLiC is actively communicating with American Courier to learn more about ALL of these potential changes. Please submit a report about any issue your library encounters, using our forms. Thank you for your vigilance and communication as we monitor this evolving situation.

Libraries affected:

Here is the spot where CLiC previously published a listing of libraries impacted.

 

 

Filed Under: News Tagged With: ,

CLiC Dropped from Lawsuit

February 27, 2019 by

Centennial, CO— 2/27/2019 — Last week a small group of parents calling themselves Pornography is Not Education (PINE) dropped their lawsuit against the Colorado Library Consortium (CLiC), a nonprofit organization that serves several hundred libraries, schools and academic institutions across the state. The complaint, filed with Arapahoe County District Court in October 2018, was the result of a two-year campaign by the parents to censor and remove a variety of educational research products from schools and libraries across Colorado.

The lawsuit claimed that CLiC knowingly brokers various forms of pornography, including sexually explicit materials in the form of graphic images, obscene text, advertising for sex toys, and active links to escort service web sites. The suit further claimed that CLiC markets such content to schools and libraries.

“Librarians occupy a crucial role as professional selectors and managers of content, from books to e-resources… not pornography,” said Jim Duncan, Executive Director for CLiC. “In today’s Information Age, we celebrate the services provided by these qualified and knowledgeable individuals working throughout Colorado’s libraries and schools. CLiC supports and helps libraries achieve greatness in our communities daily.”

Prior to the lawsuit, the parents threatened legal action against Cherry Creek School District, and they claimed victory for that district’s decision to remove vast amounts of educational material from its schools, including several thousand magazines, newspapers and other forms of electronic research resources. Local news coverage by Denver’s Channel 9News, highlighting the parents’ censorship success in pressuring the school district’s decision, rippled through other schools and districts served by CLiC.

EBSCO Information Services, also named in the lawsuit, is a leading provider of research databases, e-journals, magazine subscriptions, and e-books to libraries of all types across the country and internationally. PINE has dropped the lawsuit against EBSCO as well. Although not named in the lawsuit, other vendors of products licensed by libraries, such as Gale/Cengage, ProQuest, and OverDrive also have been cited by the parent group as delivering pornographic content to schools and libraries.

“Money and time spent on CLiC’s legal defense in this frivolous lawsuit could have been better used to support schools, libraries, and our communities,” Duncan said. “CLiC unifies libraries so that they deliver a valuable return on taxpayer investments… throughout our state’s many diverse regions, from rural to suburban to urban to mountain communities.”

“Parents, grandparents, community leaders and students — across Colorado — continue to trust librarians. They are right to value the services and rich resources offered by libraries and schools,” he said.

# # #

Media contact:

Jim Duncan, Executive Director
720-739-3679
jduncan@clicweb.org

Filed Under: News Tagged With: , , , , , ,