Contributions to the Weekly Wrap-up are from all SWKLS staff.
Future Dates & Training Opportunities
All times are in Central Standard Time (CST).
January 2021 – If you do your library’s W-2’s remember to be working on them to get to your staff
January 25, 2021 – State Library Survey Workday at Scott County Library from 10:00 am – 2:00 pm
January 26, 2021 – State Library Survey Workday at Cimarron City Library from 10:00 am – 2:00 pm
January 27, 2021 – Clean Up, Clean Out, Cling Onto – Methods Session at 2:00 pm / Registration Link
February 1 2021 – State Library Survey Report Due. If you need an extension please contact Richard.
February 2, 2021 – Directors Forum – 2:00 pm, “Bonding thru Board Games: Developing the Six Traits of Strong Families”, Elizabeth Brunscheen-Cartagena – Guest Speaker
The SWKLS Unity Project proposed calendar is now available on the SWKLS Wiki
Thank you for voluntarily participating in SWKLS U.P.! This calendar will be edited as 2021 progresses, and it contains recommended tasks in each of the four “branches” of the SWKLS U.P. “tree”: ILL (SHAREit), ILS (VERSO), new directors, and technology. You may wish to check the calendar regularly to organize tasks such as checking brief bibs, new directors’ training, counting ILLs monthly, checking CAT Express activity, weeding, New Leaf pick-ups, etc. (Note: In last week’s Weekly Wrap-up, dates relating to SWKLS U.P. were written in orange.) / Link
Governor Kelly’s Vaccine Distribution Plan
Follow the link to Governor Kelly’s Vaccine Distribution Order. You will notice no mention is in the order for where librarians will fall in the different phases. Richard have contacted Eric Norris, State Librarian, and he replied that he is reaching out to his contacts on this matter. Eric advises for libraries to reach out to your local Health Care Providers to see where you and your staff can be placed on the list for vaccines and when he here’s of any additional guidance he will let me know.
Continuing Education Hours
If you haven’t sent your Continuing Education Hours in yet please do.
With the new year Richard will be rounding out the end of year continuing education (C.E.) hours for the staff of our member libraries in the coming week. The System has the hours for everything that you and your staff did with the office. The C.E. hours I need from our member libraries are any training that you and/or your staff did that was done outside of the System (webinars from different sources, Zoom training sessions from different sources, conferences). Richard will need the title of the course and how long the course was.
Bonding thru Board Games: Developing the Six Traits of Strong Families
For the upcoming Directors Forum (February 2, at 2:00 pm) we will be having a presentation from Elizabeth Brunscheen-Cartagena, County Extension Agent/Family Life & Resource Agent/K-State Research & Extension of Sedgewick County, entitled “Bonding thru Board Games: Developing the Six Traits of Strong Families. This presentation is open to all who wish to attend in your libraries. Image provide by ErikeWittlieb via Pixabay.com.
After-Lunch Courses
Throughout 2021, the Kansas Regional Library Systems are offering four free continuing education workshops on Zoom, for a series we are calling “after-lunch course”. Registration announcements will be posted to Kan-Lib, and to the regional system’s website: systems.mykansaslibrary.org.
The registration for March’s online course, with Jamie LaRue, should be available on February 3rd.
In the month of January, we will have four sessions all at 2:00 pm. We will present tips and tricks on how to get yourself organized for 2021. If you attend all four sessions your name will be placed in a drawing. If you unable to attend the session and can carry out the task your name can still be placed in the drawing. Simply take a screenshot of the process and email it to jhattrup@swkls.org. Instructions will be added to SWKLS Wiki soon after each session. The winner of the drawing will need to refer to their library’s policies about prize winnings. The deadline for this series is February 5, 2021.
- January 6 – Clean-Up & Clean Out Emails / Recorded Link
- January 13 – Clean-Up & Clean Out Desktop/ Recorded Link
- January 20 -Cling Onto – Privacy /Recorded Link
Perfect time of the year to review privacy settings and how to protect yourself. - January 27 – Cling Onto – Methods/ Registration Link
Directors will discuss some methods they cling to throughout the year. We will have Holly Mathes (Grant County Library) a veteran director and Sara Koehn (Haskell County Library) a novice director as a presenter.
ARSL Leadership Institute Applications Are Now Open!
Good afternoon, ARSL members!
We are excited to announce that applications for ARSL’s pilot leadership institute, Outstanding In Their Field, are officially open! We are looking for 30 outstanding people who are currently working in rural and small libraries to join us for this special professional development opportunity.
Applications will be accepted through February 24th, 2021.
Participants, a.k.a. “Outfielders,” will undertake 18 months of online and in-person interactive sessions.
It’s a BIG commitment, and rewarding! Participants will gain:
- skills and confidence as leaders
- a network of colleagues throughout the country
- experiences at two ARSL conferences
New Leaf Pick-up Locations in SWKLS
Thank you to our members who have volunteered their libraries as pick-up “hubs” for weeded books which will be donated to New Leaf in Wichita. Prior to dropping off your weeded items to the locations below, please call the library’s director.
- April 14 & October 13: Dodge City Public Library & Haskell Township
- April 21 & October 20: Plains & Ashland
Expired patron accounts
While preparing the State Report, you may have noticed that you have many patron accounts which are expired and need to be deleted. It is possible to perform a “batch” delete of old patron accounts in VERSO. Auto-Graphics said: “The library can use the ‘expired patron maintenance’ option in Circ Admin to delete patrons by expiration date.” For example, perhaps you would like to delete all accounts which expired before 12/30/2018. You can complete this task at your library, or AG can perform it for you. If you would prefer the latter, email Kelly, and she will communicate with AG to get this done.