System Spotlight

By Staff

SCCC Library Hosts Latino Poetry Workshop

Are you a poet and you know it? 😉 National Poetry Month is in April and Seward County Community College Library is celebrating by hosting a Latino poetry workshop, led by former Kansas Poet Laureate Huascar Medina via Humanities Kansas. Registration information is below.

Hanston City Library Enhances Its Children’s Section

Hanston City Library added over 150 books to their children’s collection last year! These new books, colorful decorations, and bins of toys look all ready for the summer reading program. Great job, Hanston!

Consulting

By Sara Wilson

April 2nd – For Managers and Supervisors: Cultivating an Inclusive Workplace for Neurodivergent Staff | Webinar/Zoom Link
April 3rd – Summer Food Service Program | Webinar/Zoom Link
April 8th – Twosday Takeaway: SCCC Inclusive Spring Programming | Webinar/Registration Link Pending
April 8th – 2 PM – AI is More Than GPT – New Horizons in Artificial Intelligence in Libraries | Webinar/Registration Link
April 9th – 12 PM to 1 PM – Info2Go! Visual Literacy in Graphic Novels and Comics | Webinar/Registration Link
On Demand – Copyright at Work | Webinar/Access Recorded Session
April 11th at 10 AM CST – Hybrid Board Meeting at Dodge City Public Library | Hybrid Event/Registration Link
April 11th at 1 PM CST – Tandy’s Come-and-Go Retirement Reception | In-Person Event/RSVP Link

If you cannot attend the retirement celebration for Tandy, but would like to send a gift or card, you may send those to the office and we will be sure that Tandy receives them.

Spring Has Sprung!

The sun is out and it’s time to get out those cleaning supplies and start sprucing up! Here’s a quick run down of some spring cleaning that you can do at your library to welcome the season:

For April’s Twosday Takeaway, we have guest speaker SCCC Library Director Casandra Norin visiting with us about the inclusive programming that her library has going on this spring! Join us April 8th at 2 PM. We will send out a registration link for this event next week! Save the date!

Cataloging, Collection Development, and ILL

By Miguel Coca

Collection Development Inspiration

Adult Fiction

Children’s & YA Fiction

From the SWKLS Pro Collection

The rise of Google and its integration into nearly every aspect of our lives has pushed libraries to adopt similar “Google-like” search tools, called discovery systems. Because these tools are provided by libraries and search scholarly materials rather than the open web, we often assume they are more “accurate” or “reliable” than their general-purpose peers like Google or Bing. But discovery systems are still software written by people with prejudices and biases, library software vendors are subject to strong commercial pressures that are often hidden behind diffuse collection-development contracts and layers of administration, and they struggle to integrate content from thousands of different vendors and their collective disregard for consistent metadata.

Library discovery systems struggle with accuracy, relevance, and human biases, and these shortcomings have the potential to shape the academic research and worldviews of the students and faculty who rely on them. While human bias, commercial interests, and problematic metadata have long affected researchers’ access to information, algorithms in library discovery systems increase the scale of the negative effects on users, while libraries continue to promote their “objective” and “neutral” search tools

Reminder: Versed in VERSO

The March Versed in VERSO recording and presentation is posted. To access the recording and slides, please go to Staff Dashboard > Support > VERSO.

Topics covered:

Removal of old reports in upcoming release
Best practices in setting up SMS notices
Understanding MARC fixed fields and format types
Questions
- How to include Overdrive in your search
- Managing expired patrons

Thanks!

Julie

Julie Cavender, MLIS

VERSO Product Manager | Lakewood, CO

(909) 569-1527 | jjc@auto-graphics.com

Technology

by Christopher Dressler

How It Works – Library S.T.R.E.A.M. Ed.

Here at the office we have lots of toys that many of your patrons would enjoy using. These toys are fun to use, and you might even learn something while playing.

From another perspective with these toys a person can learn the skills that can transition to fixing real world problems, at home, on the farm, or at work. For an example, the Makey Makey can be used as a water detector to detect plumbing clogs near drains, water heaters or your HVAC systems, learn how to organize instructions to program a robot with our Code and Go Mouse Maze, or even become an CAD engineer or entrepreneur and print toys to sell with a 3D printer. The Toy Box 3D Printer can be used to print parts that were broken on equipment, temporary fittings, or an emergency fix when you can’t get a part right away.

These tools can be used for practical purposes like prototyping, making molds, and even making tools for specific purposes or one time uses. Let your patrons brainstorm ideas and decide if a 3D printer is right for your library. Call us today to setup a demo of our many STREAM tools that we offer. See our S.T.R.E.A.M. site for our list.

As always, if you have specific needs for in-person training, please feel free to reach out via phone or email.