It's Destiny!

We all got notification in late June, early July that our new software program will be Follett's Destiny. I am doing a happy dance! We don't know the exact timetable, but this is wonderful news. We will be starting school next week with Dynix, but it is a short time until we move to the 21st century!

I was in school this week and we have new HP thin clients being installed. Not only do they look awesome but the kids can use their flash drives! What a difference this will make in being able to finish their assignments in the library. I am really looking forward to these changes.

Today we had an updated class on Microsoft FrontPage and I redid some of the library website. This was also the day that my last paper for my graduate school was submitted! Now all I need to wait on is a meeting with my advisor and a grade and I AM FINISHED! MSLIS done! Five long years of taking classes completed. So, my husband s taking me on a mini trip to Chicago to celebrate. We will be tourists for a couple of days and see some museums and enjoy some time together before the hectic school year begins.

Dynix Dinosaur to go!

I got a notice today that there will be a meeting of all the librarians in the district to discuss the future of Dynix as the server has reached obsolescence! Yea!!! So, now we can look at more user friendly library software, what a concept! I am SO very encouraged. There may be an end to this in sight and actually get a usuable program! Got to go and finish my last paper for class! One class and a practicum to go! Yippee!!!

An actor in the family!

My son was called today and cast in the production of "The Diary of Anne Frank" at the Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago. We are very proud and pleased to see him pursuing his dreams. He was in many productions all though high school and one in college. After appearing in 5-25-77 a movie to be released, we think, in May of 2007, we weren't sure if anything else would come of this avocation. After more auditions that we can count, he got a part at this world-class theater company. So, watch for more of Mark Buenning coming soon!

Website of the month!

My goal in taking LIS 753 was achieved this week. I was notified by our tech teacher that my library website was named "Website of the Month" for our school district. That was one of my reasons for taking the summer class and imporoving the library website. This was great news. Thanks to all of you in our summer class that helped me through those rough html problems. I appreciated all the help and advice.

ISLMA Conference

Well, it is done! I presented at my first library conference and it was great, I think. I also went to a fabulous session by Jenny Levine, The Shifted Librarian. So, I got to see the other half of the Michael & Jenny road show. It was an awesome session and I felt much better after Jenny talked about what a hard concept RSS was. (Yea group!)

So now I am frantically running my school book fair and trying to get my book clubs going again this year. Registered for collection development for the spring so I will be getting closer.

On other fronts, my son is getting called back for parts at Steppenwolf Theater, so he is in search of a job. Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving and use the days off to get some much needed rest. I know I will.

LSTA GRANT!

We were notified today that we received the LSTA grant at both midle schools, both North and South in our district. We wrote for high/low books for our at-risk students "Science Success Begins @ the Library." So, this was a very good day! The librarian at the other school and I co-authored the grant and this is a nice boost to our budgets as well as a big help for the teachers and students. No one in my current district has applied for anything like this and so this is quite an accomplishment. It also comes just in time as some budgets are being cut in the district.

My Space Article & stuff

If you haven't seen the U.S. News & World Reports, it is well worth a look. It certainly gives a better view of the site that "the Internet & social networking is bad" frame of mind that is prevalent in many school districts.

I was able to get our catalog on our web site and it works when we are logged on at school. Still cannot put holds there and need some guidelines and instructions about how to customize it, but it is much improved over the Unix based catalog we used in the past. When we get updated computers, we can put that on as our catalog and not deal with Unix any more. Now when we can get rid of the Unix circ desk, we will really be somewhere.