System Spotlight
By Christopher Dressler
Lane County Library
Congratulations to Savanah Moomaw!
She wrapped up her Summer Reading with the sweet addition of Oliva Grace. Born on June 21st, 5 lbs 9oz. Baby and mom are both doing good. Savanah said, “She may be small, but she sure is mighty and full of spunk!”
(Thank you, Plains Community Library Director Sara Munn, for sharing the wonderful news with us!)
Pickleball Courts @ Stevens Co.
The Stevens County Library is so excited that the Hugoton Recreation Commission installed outdoor pickleball courts! As part of the Summer Literacy Program, we arranged for the rec center to teach pickleball to 6-11 year olds on Tuesday afternoon. Nearly 40 kids and caregivers attended the event! There were so many kids present, they had to fill time by choosing between tennis, basketball, card games, and birdwatching stations while other kids played pickleball. It was a great outdoor activity that encouraged lots of library patrons to hurry to the library to check out birding backpacks, board games, and pickleball sets! Due to popular demand, we already plan to hold an adult pickleball lesson in the future.
Future Dates & Training Opportunities
July 12, 2023, 1:00 pm CT – Niche Academy “Managing Difficult Conversations”, Registration Link
Sept 20 – 23, 2023 – ARSL Conference/Wichita, Hotel Booking/Conference Registration
Nov 1 – 3, 2023 – KLA Conference/Wichita
Consulting
By Richard Brookman
Image provided by Pixabay.com contributor Mohamed_hassan
Membership Accreditation Yearly Standards & New 2 Year Application ChecklistMembership Accreditation Yearly Standards & New 2 Year Application Checklist
The end of June is upon us. Half the year gone already. Remember that the Yearly Accreditation requirements are due December 31. I have been keeping track of CE that has been turned in and several members have accomplished other requirements on their checklist.
2023 also marks the year that accreditation for membership is applied for again for 2024 & 2025. The application page on the System’s website is here through this link. No changes have been made for this application term. The commitment to following the requirements, for accreditation, are the same as the last application period.
Remember that your library’s Technology Plan is part of the Accreditation Application now. Please send your updated Technology Plan to Steve (sandrews@swkls.org) so the Tech Team can review your plan and make any adjustments they need to make and then you can present the whole packet (Accreditation Application & Technology Plan) to your library board for approval and to sign off on both documents.
Both documents need to be turned in by October 31. This allows the Accreditation Committee to review the applications and technology plans for approval. If there happens to be a question on a library’s application and/or technology plan then it can be relayed back to the library for explanation before the end of the year. This allows the committee to reevaluate and approve before the start of 2024.
Image provided by Pixabay.com contributor jsks
Managing Difficult Conversations Webinar
As supervisors at one time or another you have had to have a difficult conversation with a patron, employee, or board member. Even in our daily life outside of the library world we have difficult conversations. Niche Academy is trying to help us out with these types of conversations with their “Managing Difficult Conversations” webinar. This webinar will be on July 12 at 1:00 pm Central Time.
When difficult conversations happen, “sometimes you can anticipate them. More frequently, one erupts without warning. Your leadership and the relationships necessary for the success of the library program depend on how well you handle these stressful occurrences.
In every such situation, power is in play on both sides. Join Hilda Weisburg to learn what these powers are, which ones you have, and the best ones to use when dealing with difficult conversations.”
If you are interested in attending this webinar you can register through this link.
Ryan Dowdy De-Escalation and Conflict Training
The State Library Kansas has added the Ryan Dowdy training sessions to their website for librarians across the state to view. The training feature homelessness issues, however there are session specifically titled for librarians. Also de-escalation and conflict training is transferable to any situation that a library might face. These webinars are provided through the Niche Academy webpage. The sessions will be available for the current State Library year (July 1 – June 30) for anyone who is interested in viewing them.
If you are interested the State Library of Kansas invites you to visit their page to begin the sessions.
Cataloging, Collection Development, and ILL
By Sara Wilson
Collection Development Inspiration
Adult Fiction
Children’s & YA Fiction
In Literary News
New Manuscript for Capote’s Kansas True Crime Classic, In Cold Blood
Truman Capote’s classic true crime novel, “In Cold Blood,” based on the mass murder of the Clutter family in Holcomb, KS is now being released in manuscript form, including Capote’s original notes, corrospondances, doodles, first draft prose, and more. Capote hand-wrote all of his notes and worked on the book for five years, amassing a large collection that has been housed at the Library of Congress and the New York Public Library. This collection has been condensed into the manuscript now for sale through SP Books. For more information, click here.
Recent Book Challenge Issues Making the News
Libraries are feeling the impact of book challenges across the country. Here are some recent news reports involving book challenges and bans across the United States. (Special thanks to Sara Koehn, Director of Haskell Township Public Library and Sean Bird, Interim Dean of University Libraries at Washburn University for their contributions to this list!)
Librarians Train to Defend Intellectual Freedom and Fight Book Bans at Chicago Conference
Parents, Religious Groups to Protest Montgomery Co. [Maryland] Schools’ Use of Some Books
Former Portales [New Mexico] Teacher Sues District, Says Book ‘The Hate U Give’ Led to Firing
Georgia Teacher Fired for Reading Children’s Book About Acceptance in Class
San Francisco LGBTQ Comic Artist Fights Back Against Book Bans
Pinellas [Florida] Schools Under Fire for Book Review List
ALA OIF Blog 06.16.23: https://www.oif.ala.org/intellectual-freedom-news-06-16-2023/
First Amendment Coalition: https://firstamendmentcoalition.org/news-opinion/first-amendment-news/
Empowered by Reading (Unitedagainstbookbans): https://uniteagainstbookbans.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Empowered-by-Reading-final.pdf
SWKLS Has StoryWalk®s
StoryWalk®s promote literacy, exercise, spending time outdoors, and the library! Best of all, having a StoryWalk® presents opportunities to partner with local businesses for a little cross-promotion.
How can you do that? Make your StoryWalk® a city activity by asking local businesses to display a page or two in their window or even on their wall for a select period of time. Readers of the StoryWalk® will venture over to (and maybe even inside) the businesses to read the pages. New businesses get noticed, old businesses get remembered, and the library provides yet another programming event that engages and enriches the community.
If you have StoryWalk® display cases installed in your community, you can count on us to help you keep your stories fresh and your community engaged all year with new materials to read.
Where can you get StoryWalk®s? SWKLS StoryWalk®s are available on SHAREit for ILL. To see what SWKLS has available, visit our VERSO page, search “SWKLS StoryWalk Collection” in the search bar at the top, then request the one you want in SHAREit. SWKLS will send the StoryWalk® to you on the courier and you can keep it for a loan period of 30 days. Summer time is a great time to engage your community outdoors in a fun StoryWalk® adventure.
In Case You Missed It
For VERSO Catalogers: Versed in VERSO Demos AGEdit
If you are curious about the new cataloging interface that Auto-Graphics will be replacing AGCat with (AGEdit), you have a chance to take a look at the beta version in the latest Versed in VERSO video. (Recorded 6/13). To access the video at any time, go to Staff Dashboard > Support > VERSO and it will be in the “Versed in VERSO” grey box.
Features that I’m excited about include:
- No more need to download new/latest versions of cataloging software.
- Ability to search within the record for specific fields and/or field information (i.e. author name, publisher, etc.). This is a BIG one and will be so useful for copy cataloging accuracy! 🙂
- Descriptions of the purpose of each MARC field.
- Spell check within the record.
I encourage you to check out the video for yourself! It looks like it’s going to be a really great addition, once it’s complete. They are still beta testing it as of now and they plan to release it in stages. The release isn’t expected to happen until the end of this year (2023), so we have some time, yet, before this becomes available. In the meantime, if you have any cataloging questions/issues/concerns OR if you have need of cataloging training or a refresher, please don’t hesitate to reach out & I will be more than happy to help!
For All VERSO Users
Auto-Graphics updated VERSO yesterday. These are the issues that the update addressed:
| AG-98 CS-71192 | Help URL link in User Admin > Self-Registration Management displayed wrong help page The Help URL link in User Admin > Self Registration Management opened the Circ Admin help page. The link now opens the help page for Setting Self Registration Options. |
| AG-2199 CS-75899 CS-76799 | VERSO CILL Users Only Automatically accepted renewals were incorrectly updated to overdue When a VERSO CILL lender automatically accepted a SHAREit borrower’s request for renewal, the deadline date in the database was not updated to reflect the new date causing items to become overdue. This issue has been resolved, and automatic renewals are now updated with the correct status “Accepted Renewal”. |
| AG-2436 CS-76944 | Back Arrow didn’t return user to previously selected title When in List View, clicking the back arrow in a full record returned to top of page results instead of the selected title. This has been fixed so that the back arrow returns the user to the previously selected title in the list view. |
| AG-2485 CS-76965 CS-76971 CS-76976 CS-76966 | OverDrive API Users Only OverDrive cover art not displaying in brief record view A condition existed where OverDrive cover art would not display on the brief record view. Cover art will now be displayed in both brief and full record views. |
For ILLers
Resource Sharing Taskforce Meeting Held Thursday
Yesterday, we had a Resource Sharing Taskforce Meeting. We talked about the recent issue with cover art in SHAREit, statistics record-keeping and transaction logs, changing the participant record to reflect library availability, the recent Basic ILL training offered through AG, the state of Kansas’ Book Discussion Group Sets, and a suggestion received to enhance SHAREit. Please add this date/time to your calendar and plan to join us next month: Thursday, August 31st, at 10 AM. The Zoom link has been emailed out. If you didn’t get it, get in touch with me and I’ll make sure that you do. I’ll send out reminders before the date, as well. We hope to see you then!
Reminders!
*The courier will not be running on the 4th of July holiday. If your library is going to be closed additional days surrounding the holiday, please remember to change your SHAREit Participant Record to reflect that and contact Caroline at NEKLS to advise the courier.
*Auto-Graphics will be having a repeat of Wednesday’s Sharing About SHAREit Basic ILL Training, due to popular demand. The training will be 90 minutes, as opposed to the usual 60 minutes.
Please register for Sharing about SHAREit #17.2 – ILL Basic Training – Repeat of June 28 session on Wednesday, July 12, 2023 2:00 PM – 3:30 PM EDT at:
Technology
by Christopher Dressler
What is a Botnet?
A botnet is a network of compromised computers or devices that are under the control of a single operator, known as the botmaster. These compromised machines, often referred to as “bots” or “zombies,” are typically infected with malicious software, such as malware or a virus. The botmaster gains control over these infected machines without the knowledge or consent of their owners.
Once a device is infected and becomes part of a botnet, it can be remotely controlled by the botmaster. The botmaster can issue commands to the compromised devices, instructing them to perform various activities. This can include sending spam emails, launching distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, stealing sensitive information, distributing malware to other computers, or engaging in other malicious activities.
Botnets are often created by spreading malware through various means, such as phishing emails, malicious downloads, or exploiting software vulnerabilities. The compromised devices are then used collectively to carry out large-scale attacks or perform tasks that would be difficult for a single machine to accomplish.
Botnets are a significant concern in cybersecurity because they can be used to orchestrate coordinated attacks, cause widespread damage, and facilitate criminal activities. Detecting and mitigating botnets is a complex task that requires a combination of security measures, including antivirus software, firewalls, network monitoring, and user education to prevent devices from being compromised in the first place.
Always feel free to contact me for training requests, library cards, or technology issues at cdressler@swkls.org or (620)225-1231. – Christopher Dressler – 6/21/2023