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Hi everyone. Tuesday was a big day for us here at the Library of Michigan, as we celebrated the debut of MeL ReMix. The Michigan eLibrary (http://www.mel.org/) is Michigan's 24-hour anytime, anywhere library -- with its newly integrated content and services, smoother navigation and enhanced content. MeL Coordinator Sue Davidsen and I spent a fabulous but breathless hour fielding one-on-one online chat questions and comments from librarians, the public, and the media. The interest in the launch of the remixed resource and all that it has to offer for Michigan's libraries and residents is exciting and gratifying.
We've posted the chat questions, comments, and answers at the MeL ReMix page, in case you are interested in seeing the discussion. It's exciting to think about all that will be coming for MeL during these next months. The MeL Kids and MeL Teens pages will be developed and enhanced further. The Michigan Educator Resources (MER) pages will grow and will be tied closely into the state's K-12 curriculum. The other Michigan Digitization for Preservation and Access Grants projects that are just being completed now will be available via the MeL Michigana page, which already links to the Portage District Library's John Todd Photography Collection and Western Michigan's Civil War Collection of diaries.
Now that the new, more intuitive, integrated and accessible site is up and running, we'll be working to develop a marketing campaign to ensure that the Michigan eLibrary does not remain one of the state's best "best kept secrets." We hope that you'll be willing to help spread the word about it, too, wherever and whenever the opportunity arises.
Winter seems to have arrived with a vengeance, but hopefully, it will be short lived from this point on! You may have noticed I haven't posted anything for a while, and this picture of our new puppy Sydney should give you a hint as to why my blog has been on temporary hiatus! This Nova Scotia duck tolling retriever arrived at our house the first weekend in January and is now about 3 months old. He's wonderful, but he's certainly a handful.
Only a week and a half after Sydney joined the Robertson ranks, I departed for Seattle, leaving my husband and our elderly Jack Russell terrier to fend for themselves with Sydney. They handled the challenge, and I enjoyed seeing the city of Seattle for the first time. The new downtown library is something to see! It's a building that people have strong opinions about, but whether you like it or not, clearly the intent to serve the patron base was kept in mind throughout the design process and was, for the most part, successful. I'm sure that most of you who also visited Seattle for ALA Midwinter took the time to stop by and see it, but for those who have not had the opportunity, I urge you to check it out when next you are there in Seattle.
I don't generally find enough time to get much reading done these days, so a long trip affords me a welcome opportunity to do so. This trip, I decided to get a start on the 2007 Michigan Notable Books list. Since I had been working on a book selection committee for another project with Liesel Litzenburger, I decided to start with her book The Widower. It's a great read, poetic and riveting at the same time. So, now that I'm off to such a good and enjoyable start, I can look forward to finding the chance to read the other 19 books on the list -- wish me luck! Plans for the Night for Notables in April and the author tour are coming right along and the program will be even better than ever this year, so look for more information and details as they are posted on MichLib-L, in LM4X and elsewhere.
And, finally, for now at least, there is good news on the accomplishments of the work group for school library media center issues that I've been engaged with for the last year and a half or so. The marketing piece is really coming along, with arrangements for production being nailed down and planning underway for how to get the piece some visibility where it will make a significant impact. A week ago, the Library of Michigan (LM) Board of Trustees heard a presentation from George Bishop of Ovid-Elsie Schools and from Roger Ashley of the Michigan Association for Media in Education (MAME) explaining the need for the online marketing piece -- to enlighten funding sources and those allocating resources in school systems about the essential nature of these school library media programs to the success of our K-12 students and the need for qualified school library media center specialists to staff them. Additionally, George and Roger elaborated for the LM Board on the usefullness of the Guidelines for Michigan Library Media Programs (2003) Revised 2006. Following the presentation, the Board voted to endorse the revised Guidelines, and it is our hope that other bodies with an interest in advancing K-12 educational success for our Michigan students will also endorse them, so that their acknowledgement of the need for Michigan schools to meet these benchmarks can be cited when we get the marketing piece disseminated statewide. We are making great progress in this joint effort, and I think all of us are very excited and encouraged by it!
Of course, there's lots more going on as well, but that's a sizable update for now. Stay warm!
