The OPLA is pleased to announce that Miranda Huska has been awarded the PLA Travel Grant. The grant of up to $3,000 is available to cover the costs for one OPLA member to attend the PLA National Conference in Portland, Oregon, March 23-27, 2010. The winner was selected in a draw of nominations received from across the province.

Miranda Huska is currently the head of the Parkdale branch of Toronto Public Library. She has worked for TPL since 1994 and loves serving customers from diverse backgrounds. When asked about the conference, Miranda informed us that she is looking forward to the opportunity to immerse herself in this wonderful opportunity for professional stimulation by sharing and learning from others.

We are currently involved in writing procedures to accompany our Children's and Youth Services policy. Would anyone be willing to share their procedures for a baby programme, preschool, and after school programme? Also if you have a generalized procedure that pertains to all children's programme would be helpful as well.
Thanks so much.

The Ontario Public Library Association is introducing a grant of up to $3,000 to cover the costs for one of our members to attend the PLA National Conference in Portland, Oregon, March 23-27, 2010. This conference provides an excellent opportunity for those who work in public libraries to learn by attending education sessions and to share experiences by networking with peers.

Public libraries are encouraged to nominate a qualifying member of their staff to take advantage of this very exciting opportunity. Nomination criteria and procedures are listed on the attachment. OPLA Councillors will accept nominations from library systems in their region until December 21st, 2009. This information will be posted to the OPLA web site shortly. I encourage you to share this announcement with any public library workers who may not already be members of OPLA.

While a number of readers disagreed with my total opposition to plastic bags on campus and specifically to having them available in the library, the University of Ottawa is finally officially phasing out plastic bags. It's only a matter of time before your library will have to do the same!

http://www.sustainable.uottawa.ca/index.php?module=CMS&func=view&id=55

The Kingston Frontenac Public Library has been lending Wii, XBOX360 and Playstation 2 and 3 games for a year now. We have had numerous requests to start lending Nintendo DS games as well.

I'm looking for input from any other libraries that may be circulating DS games on how you do it? Do you put the game cartridge in the case on the shelf? Do you keep the games behind the desk? How do you store them? We use RFID for our security system, and the cartridges would be too small for an RFID tag.

The Collingwood Public Library will be moving to a new facility in the fall and we are looking for information about having a Coffee / Tea Bar at the Library. If your Library has one we would appreciate any input you can provide about the operation of this business. Is it an independent business, or a name brand chain? How does the business operate, how is it financed...etc.

Thank you in advance for your help!

College students would ponder many times how to write a good essay. Is it the writing style? The title? The way facts and arguments are presented? It's all of that. There's much more to it as well.

Finding a perfect sample essay isn't like searching for the Lost City of Gold. Most of us try too hard in searching for something that is already in front of us. It's the same with writing. Why exert effort when a great written piece can be a product of little things? Library is a great source for example of essays or anything that you want to know.

Here at the Thunder Bay Public Library we are embarking on a study of our in-library OPAC Terminals (aka kiosks). 

As I'm sure has happened in other Libraries, when we first automated the grand old card catalogue was replaced with a "pod" of computer catalogue terminals -- on which you could *just* search the catalogue (because it wasn't online).   When the OPAC became online we got rid of the "pod" and reloacted individual kiosks to the ends of the stacks throughout the collection.

The library industry is so interesting to me. It seems that there is always a tug and war between doing something new and innovative and keeping things the same. And I can see why people say that if it ain't broke, don't try to fix it. Adult Storytime. An oxymoron to me. Reading books to adults...really?? Maybe I'm biased being a children's librarian because I find it REALLY hard to picture reading with such enthusiasm and spunk as I do to a bunch of 4 year olds, with a bunch of 40 year olds.

Two recent NY Times articles on how the economic downturn has had a direct impact on library use.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/26/nyregion/26libraries.html
It Has Computers, Gives Advice and Is Free
By JOSHUA BRUSTEIN
Published: March 26, 2009
Out-of-work professionals are crowding the computers at New York’s public libraries, and books on résumé writing are hard to keep on the shelves.