Happy holiday season to all! I've been busy partying lately, as you can see by this photo of me and the big elf. At the Library of Michigan we've had in-house festivities with the Library staff; we've had a HAL department-wide event; and we enjoyed a morning open house at the Martha W. Griffiths Michigan Rare Book Room with food and a featured exhibit of holiday-related rare items!This past week, Dept. Director Bill Anderson and I were both guests at the Capital Library Cooperative's annual holiday gathering that was held this year at East Lansing Public Library. The speaker that morning was award-winning Michigan mystery writer Doug Allyn, who is both entertaining and fascinating.
I think you can probably guess that we've been working as well as partying, at least some of the time. Statewide Services Director Sheryl Mase and I both attended the REMC Association's recent meeting at Ingham ISD, where we were able update the state's REMC directors about what the Michigan eLibrary (www.mel.org) has to offer for their members, especially about how their participation in the MeL Catalog (MeLCat) could exponentially expand access to resources for their members and their patrons in Michigan's K-12 schools.
And, we've been putting the final touches to the plans for my visits to thirteen locations all around the state in the months of March and April. Accompanied by Sheryl Mase, MeL Coordinator Susanna Davidsen, LSTA Coordinator Karren Reish, and Continuing Education Coordinator Debra Bacon-Ziegler, I'll be holding "town meetings" with librarians from libraries of all types, sizes, rural/urban settings, and budgets, to learn first-hand what needs they have that cannot be met by their own resources. We'll be gathering the information in order to look at the statewide picture for what is covered (and by whom) and what is not covered that should be. Together then, in collaboration with the various library resources in the state (LM and the other library associations, consortia, and vendors), we'll be able to look at how best to collectively cover and meet the needs of Michigan's libraries and their patrons in the coming years. We'll have more information about this tour in the new year, and I'll look forward to seeing you as we travel about!
