We are pleased to present you with our Spring 2012 newsletter. Starting with this edition the BayNet newsletter will be issued electronically. We believe that by doing so we can reach a much broader audience as well as offer a more dynamic and interactive medium to our readers. Not to mention we are also saving trees!

Our two newly appointed co-editors, Mildred Arencibia and Tevis Jones, are responsible for designing, compiling, and editing all the newsletter content. Please contact them directly with any questions, topics or submissions.

Mildred is a Digital Archivist and Electronic Resources Management Librarian for Marin County Free Library. She received her M.L.I.S. At San Jose State University in 2008. She has worked as a cataloger, reference librarian, digital archivist, and electronic services librarian tackling projects such as e-support, Intranet design, and blogging about library services. By far the most learning experience of all has been dealing with OverDrive, the variety of electronic formats, and the dizzying restrictions imposed by publishers.

Tevis is the Head Librarian for the Hoffman Library at Stuart Hall & Convent of the Sacred Heart. She received her M.L.S. at U.C.L.A. in 1980 before the wide adoption of the personal computer, so graduate school computer training consisted of writing & submitting punch cards to the engineering school’s mainframe. She has worked in both public libraries and school libraries. Her school year leisure time is dedicated to reading as many of the new books she’s added to the collection (especially young adult novels), so summers consist of delightful & frequent trips to the public library for grown-up books plus visits to Ireland whenever possible.

 

President’s Message

This year BayNet has leveraged our multi-type tours, programs, events and initiatives to boost genuine connections among public, school, special and academic libraries in the Bay Area. At the Stanford Health Library tour and panel, we saw these efforts crystallize in a dialogue among the panelists about the strategies and dilemmas of using volunteers successfully to augment rather than replace professional services in diverse library settings.

In moments like these, we gain insights about the common bonds and potential collaborations among multitype libraries.

Culminating BayNet’s efforts this year or, perhaps more accurately, guiding our future work, we have created a visual metaphor which encapsulates our shared strengths and celebrates our cherished individuality.

In a poster which was designed by Katherine Becvar, an artist and Adjunct Reference Librarian at the College of San Mateo, and executed by designer Tawny Dovico, our libraries are depicted as vibrant California poppies, rooted in the soil of common services and values, flourishing through vigorous cross-pollination.

In that image, one of the nutrients in our common library soil is information literacy.  I’d like to share an example from my own experience about the need for concerted information literacy education.

NoodleTools is a Bay Area education company that I co-founded as a school librarian with my son to provide a platform for teaching and supporting the research process.  One feature of the program is that it allows any user to query an expert or librarian at NoodleTools about a source he or she is using. We get a steady stream of questions about types of sources (e.g., whether it’s a magazine or a journal), where to find elements for a citation (e.g., series title, volume number), but also about common knowledge, how to avoid plagiarism, the norms of attribution, etc. The ones we’ve received come from a broad cross-section of information seekers:

  • “Is it ok to cite a quote from Amazon’s “search inside the book” even though I didn’t use the book?” (college student)
  • “If I paraphrased my old essay do I cite the whole thing?” (high school student)
  • “Is common knowledge what I know or what my students know?” (instructor)
  • “Should my child cite his tutor?” (parent)
  • “Is it appropriate for me to put in-text references on my PowerPoint slides?” (aspiring politician)

Whether our patrons are speakers or writers, consumers or producers, students, parents or educators, clearly it takes a whole community with shared goals to nurture information-literate citizens. BayNet, as a multitype library organization, is strategically positioned to promote, enrich and protect a robust Bay Area information ecology in which information literacy can flourish.
In BayNet we believe that the synergy among all types of libraries, and the beneficial ecology that results, becomes possible when we work together.  Won’t you invite your colleagues in other organizations to join us?

Best,

Debbie Abilock
President, BayNet
Co-founder Principal, NoodleTools, Inc.

 

Covered in the Spring 2012 newsletter:

Upcoming speakers – BayNet’s upcoming annual meeting and keynote speaker David Silver

Past tours & events – Summaries of the joint BayNet and Northern California & Nevada Medical Library group tour program as well as the Bibliotecas Para La Gente and The Big Read event

Board of Directors News – Meet our board of directors members and the 2012 slate

Reports – Learn about BayNet’s Mentorship Program, a recent graduate’s experience in Getting a Library Job, and the Evolution of the “Ecology of Libraries” poster

Book reviews – Learn which books we are reading now. Featuring reviews by Janet Heston, Margot Hanson, and the Livermore Public Library staff