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Friends of the Alameda Free Library |
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Statement of purpose: To increase public awareness of the library as an essential part of the community’s educational and cultural facilities. And to support and cooperate with the library in developing library services and facilities. |
A Note from the PresidentWith the opening of our new main library just ten months away, the Friends are forming two new committees and we need your help. A Grand Opening Committee will plan the events for the new library's opening day, scheduled for November 2nd. Will we have speeches? Refreshments? Balloons? What ideas do you have? A Cafe Planning Committee will develop a business plan for the Friends cafe in the new library. How will we staff the cafe? What will we name it? What will we sell? If you'd like to serve on either of these committees, call me at 865-7439. Or send me
an email at mmskeen@copper.net.. ~Molly Skeen From the MinutesBook Sale. Gertrude reviewed the Friends’ tradition of awarding a $500 honorarium to the Alameda Park and Recreation Department for the use of the O’ Club and to the Alameda Fire-fighters Association for assisting in moving books from storage to the O’ Club. It was moved and approved that these honoraria be awarded for every sale without separate approvals at the monthly business meetings. Gert will notify John Quick to send the honoraria after each sale. The accumulation of so-called “second rate” books was discussed again. The
volunteers are selling sealed boxes of these books at the donation site on Oak Street.
It was suggested that the availability of these books be advertised, at least to
members. Acting Library Director’s Report. Jane Chisaki reported that construction progress for the new library is approximately 60% complete and still on time and on budget. The “Day in the District” event is scheduled for February 3 and offers a chance to meet and speak with state representatives. Jane also reported on Library Foundation activities. The “Sneak Peek Gala” fund-raiser is being planned and a variety of themes and approaches are being considered. One of the issues discussed concerned the suggestion from the City Manager that the Foundation and the Friends share responsibility and also the proceeds from the Sneak Peek event. After extensive discussion, it was decided that the Sneak Peek fundraiser should be the sole responsibility of the Foundation, while the Grand Opening should be sponsored by the Friends. Marilyn Ng volunteered to continue to represent the Friends at the Foundation meetings. The Grand Opening for the new library is currently scheduled for November 2, 2006 at 11:00am. BALIS Report. Marc reported that the Bay Area Library Information System
February workshop is up in the air because a location hasn’t been final-ized. He
reminded us again that his term ends in June 2006, at which time a new representative
from Alameda will be needed. Old BusinessWebsite. Chris reported on improvements made recently to the proposed new Friends web site and gave information about hosting and domain name services. Tote bags. Marilyn Ng reported on her extensive research into ordering a stock of Friends book bags, which could be sold at book sales and at the library. Marilyn and Molly presented recommendations for the work were approved. Chris volunteered to provide artwork for the bag. Volunteers. It was noted that it is time to begin organizing volunteers to staff the Grand Opening event for the new library and the Café in the Library. ~Chris Christopher Book SaleCome on, SURPRISE ME! I would like to be overwhelmed with volunteers to staff the book sale at the 0' Club on May 5,6 and 7. Please mark your calendars. Let me know 510-865-0347. ~Adair Jorgensen Acting Director's ReportFebruary 3 "Day in the District" Ruth Belikove, Marc Lambert, and Jane
Chisaki visited Assembly-woman Wilma Chan's Chief of Staff to advocate for libraries in
California. February 15 "Sedgewick V. Squirrel's Clean Up Club!", an educational puppet show. The City of Alameda Public Works Department, Environmental Services Division, annually brings Joe Leon from Caterpillar Puppets to town to teach children about environmental awareness and pollution prevention. The libraries host three shows, the first on February 15 at the Interim Main Library at 3:30 p.m. The show is aimed at kindergarten to grade 1 and is about 35 minutes long. The other shows, repeat performances, are on March 21 at the West End Library and April 5 at the Bay Farm Library, all shows at 3:30 p.m. The New Main Library is progressing on schedule and yes, still within budget. If you walk down the Times Way side, you will see the brickwork completed to the roofline. It really gives you an idea of what the building will look like and how it blends into the "civic center" feel with the police department and city hall. The windows will be completely installed in the next few weeks; they will begin testing randomly selected windows for water-tightness. Mark your calendars, the Grand Opening is scheduled for November 2, 2006 at 11:00 a.m. The Main Library will be closed for 2 weeks, from March 6 through March 19, to tag
the collection for our new materials security and inventory system. The two neighborhood
libraries, West End and Bay Farm Island, will be open their regular hours. We will have
our delivery of materials (except periodicals ~ed.) to/from the main on a daily
basis, so items shown in the catalog as on the shelf in the main library can be
requested and picked up at either neighborhood library. We will pull tempo-rary
collections of DVDs from the Main and have them available at the neighborhood libraries
during the closed period since DVDs are primarily at the main library. We are sorry for
the inconvenience but we studied all the ways to convert our 200,000-item collection and
closing the main library was the most efficient way to do the majority of the collection
since the main library is open seven days a week. The collections at West End and Bay
Farm Island will be converted on days they are already closed. ~Jane Chisaki BALIS UpdateFrom Alan B. Smith, president of CALTAC (California Association of Library Trustees and Commissioners) and Contra Costa County representative to the BALIS Advisory Board: The Association has joined the campaign to support the $600 million bond fund to build/renovate libraries in California. More information is available at www.yesforlibraries.com. You are encouraged to support the campaign by activities such as phoning likely voters, handing out information, making a financial contribution, etc. Furthermore, your friend’s group may elect to contribute to the campaign as an organization. As an example, the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library made one of the initial contributions to the campaign. Pssst! Want to know a secret? There is a source of funding from the State that supplements the Alameda Free Library budget of which most people have never heard. This source is called the Public Library Foundation (PLF). This state-sponsored program started 22 years ago and allocates funding based on population. The program, however, has never been fully funded and furthermore with the state’s budget crisis in the past few years, the amount provided was slashed by 70%. The end result is that on a per person basis less money is received today that was received 20 years ago. Currently the Alameda Free Library is expected to receive $29,111 this fiscal year. If the program was fully funded, our library would receive $181,530. It appears the State’s finances are improving and it is time for the library
community to write to their assembly member and Senator requesting that PLF be increased
this year. Alameda is fortunate that our Assembly member and Senator are library
supporters. However, there are many other special interest groups who expect their
programs to receive increased funding as well. Thus it is imperative they all hear from
us as individuals and as an organization, that it is critical to increase PLF funding
this coming budget year. Their names and addresses can be found in the government
section of the phone book or on the web. The California Library Legislative Day in Sacramento is scheduled for April 26. ~ Marc Lambert The ALA Midwinter MeetingThe 2006 Midwinter Meeting of the American Library Association (ALA) was held in San Antonio, TX, from January 20-25, 2006. Because I did not attend, I took a look at the ALA website to see what I missed. Cognotes is the daily paper of the ALA Midwinter Meeting and ALA Annual Conference. At the Midwinter Meeting, Cognotes is published Friday-Monday, with a "Highlights" issue mailed to all ALA members following the Meeting. Portable Document Format (PDF) images of the newsletter are available to ALA members at the ALA website. (www.ala.org ~Ed.) The biggest news release each January pertains to the book award announcements. The Cognotes issue on Monday January 23, 2006 had a colorful front page containing images of the winners of several book awards, including the Newbery and the Caldecott awards. The winners for this year are: John Newbery Award:
Randolph Caldecott Medal:
Page 3 of this issue had a list of the runners-up: Newbery Honor Books:
Caldecott Medal Honor Books:
I looked at every issue of Cognotes hoping to find announcements pertaining to California and I found out a little bit about an upcoming workshop to be held at City College in San Francisco this coming April.
Looking out much further on the calendar, the Public Library Association will be having its 2007 Spring Symposium, March 1-3, 2007 in San Jose, CA. Some of the advertisements were interesting. OCLC had an advertisement for a report
called “Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources.” An announcement of a
panel discussion of the report had some additional information. The recently released report is based on surveys of information users across six countries administered by Harris Interactive on behalf of OCLC, and is a follow-up to The 2003 OCLC Environmental Scan: Pattern Recognition, the award-winning report that describes issues and trends that are impacting and will impact OCLC and libraries. Perceptions found that information consumers view libraries as places to borrow print books, but they are unaware of the rich electronic con-tent they can access through libraries. “We wanted to know more about people’s information-seeking practices and preferences, how familiar people are with the wide variety of e-resources libraries provide for their users, and how libraries compare to other information resources, particularly Web-based resources. One of the most important goals of the project was also to gain a better understanding of ‘The Library’ brand.” The report is available at The PDF of the entire report is 290 pages. Individual sections are available. This gem of a document will keep me busy for a few cold, rainy nights.
~Mari Clark Friends Officers & Committee ChairsPresident: Molly Skeen |
