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State
Librarian of California,
Susan Hildreth
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Update from the State Librarian
We
have had quite a busy summer with much activity. At the American
Library Association Annual Conference in late June in Washington,
D.C., I completed my term as the Public
Library Association (PLA) president with the exciting
announcement that PLA has been awarded
$7.7 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to
provide advocacy training using its new
publication, “Libraries
Prosper with Passion, Purpose and Persuasion: A PLA Toolkit for
Success.” Also, California
continues to provide leadership to PLA as Jan Sanders, Pasadena
Public Library Director, began her term as PLA President.
I know Jan will have a successful year.
In
July, Melinda (Mimi) Morris joined the California State Library (CSL)
staff as the chief of Administrative Services.
Luckily Mimi had some time to learn the ropes from our
retiring chief of Administrative Services Andrew St. Mary who had
been with the library over 17 years and whose final day was
Friday, September 28th.
With the retirements of Andrew and Cameron Robertson in
April, much knowledge, expertise and history will be moving onto
the golf course but we know that we can reach out to these happy
(retired) gentlemen for assistance if need be!
In
early August, we were very pleased to welcome our new Deputy State
Librarian
Stacey Aldrich. We had been eagerly
awaiting Stacey’s arrival since her appointment this spring.
Fresh from
Omaha,
Nebraska, she was thrilled with the temperate weather in Sacramento. Sadly
since this summer
was rather cool, we had to tell her she has not yet experienced a
typical Sacramento summer. Stacey will be
working on several major initiatives, including statewide
reference; and you will hear more from her in the future. Check
out our interview with Stacey in this issue of CSL
Connection.
Stacey
is a veteran at the social networking activities outlined in Infopeople’s
“23 Things” challenge.
At the California State Library, many of us are meeting
that challenge. As I
work my way through the fun agenda, I am discovering that I am a
“Library Thing” and
“Twitter” fan and want to
become comfortable with many more tools.
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California
State Library,
Library and Courts I
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As
some of you are aware, the State has funded a complete historic
renovation of the Stanley Mosk Library and Courts Building (known as Library and Courts I or LCI) that includes many CSL
service points and administrative offices.
If plans fall into place, and we know that is always
challenging, all the inhabitants of the building, and all the
materials in the building, will be relocated for a period of 18 - 24 months beginning in early 2009.
Some CSL staff and functions will relocate to our partner
building Library and Courts II adjacent to LCI, and other staff
and most of the collection will transferred to a very large facility
hopefully close to downtown Sacramento where some public access to the collection will be available.
A project like this takes enormous planning efforts on the
part of the Department of General Services and Courts and Library
staff, thus planning activities have been in high gear since this
summer. I will keep you posted as this project moves forward.
In
early September I attended the 20th anniversary of the Benicia
Public Library Literacy program.
I was especially pleased because I was the director of the
library at the time the program began.
Many of our library literacy programs have been able to
grow and expand over the years and become truly critical
community/library partners. On
September 11th, I was pleased to attend the official
naming ceremony at the Davis
Branch Library. The
library was named for long-tenured county librarian Mary
Stephens who was my first boss and a great personal mentor.
My first job in California was as the Davis Branch manager so it was great for me personally
to see that building named for such a dedicated public servant as
Mary.
I
attended the OCLC Directors
Meeting in Pomona on September 12th and got an exciting glimpse of the
future of electronic resources. It was great to see many new faces
at the Public Library Directors Orientation on September 20 - 21
in Sacramento. Participants,
including assistant directors, system coordinators and other
library managers, learned about the services provided by the CSL
and were also able to network with their colleagues.
I was welcomed to Merced on September 24th by the League of Women Voters, a
group undertaking a study of the county library that will
hopefully result in enhanced services for residents county-wide.
I was honored to attend the opening of the Mendota Branch
Library in Fresno
County
on September 28th.
This new facility, one of the projects funded by the
Library Bond Act of 2000, was completed in less than fifteen
months and will have a huge impact on this very diverse and
economically challenged community.
In
October I am off to the CILIP (Chartered
Institute of Library and Information Professionals) conference
in Glasgow, Scotland. CILIP is the
professional librarians’ organization in the
British Isles and annually extends an invitation to the PLA’s president or
past-president to attend their conference.
CILIP’s president will attend the PLA Annual Conference
in March 2008 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I will share
my experiences in the next CSL
Connection issue and check our blog
for tales from Scotland.
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