GLA Awards - deadline for nominations is extended to May 31, 2013

Do you know someone whose contributions to Georgia libraries and/or GLA should be recognized with a GLA award? Take the time to nominate a deserving individual today. 

Each year the Georgia Library Association seeks to honor outstanding librarians, library staff members, and library advocates through the following awards:

Bob Richardson Award
Charles Beard Library Advocacy Award
Honorary Memberships
Library Support Services Award
McJenkin-Rheay Award
Nix Jones Award
Nora Symmers Paraprofessional Award
GLA Team Award

Complete a nomination form and write a letter supporting the nomination.  Feel free to provide additional documentation about the nominee’s contributions to libraries and/or GLA.

Read more about the awards and complete the nomination form at http://gla.georgialibraries.org/comm_awards_nomination.htm


Send the nomination form electronically (if possible) to jcook@westga.edu  or mail to:
Jean Cook, GLA Awards Chair, University of West Georgia, Library 1601 Maple Street, Carrollton, GA 30118.

2013 GLA Awards Nomination DEADLINE is May 31, 2013.

COMO Presentation Proposals are due on June 15!

Reminder:

The website for the annual Georgia Conference of Media Organizations is now available.

COMO 2013 will be held on October 9 – 11, 2013 Macon Marriott City Center in Macon, Georgia.  The conference is jointly sponsored by the Georgia Library Association, Georgia Association for Instruction Technology, and the Georgia Library Media Association.

COMO 2013 invites proposals for pre-conference workshops, concurrent and poster sessions. Please submit your proposals on GA COMO website.  

The deadline for submissions is June 15, 2013.

The Georgia Room in the Spotlight!

The Georgia Room is the Cobb County Public Library System’s genealogical and historical collection. Located in the Central Library near the downtown Marietta Square, the Georgia Room serves informational and educational pursuits of a wide range of users.

Demand for the Georgia Room has grown steadily as its holdings and physical space have increased since it opened nearly four decades ago. The Georgia Room draws visitors from Cobb County, Georgia, and beyond. No appointment is required to visit the room and to use its resources.

Major features of the Georgia Room are an extensive collection of Georgia history materials, including books, photos, maps, and newspapers; Georgia and U.S. genealogy resources in print and online; and the Cobb African American Connection, a special collection documenting the cultural life and contributions of people of African descent in Marietta and Cobb County. Items on the Civil War, Native American history, and family histories are also available.  

Although Georgia Room materials are non-circulating, the ease of access of its offerings has improved in recent years with the addition of new space and resources, such as the Gale Genealogy Connect, an advanced online research tool.

Overall, there are about 15,000 items in the Georgia Room, according to Carolyn Crawford, head of the Georgia Room since 1988.

A wide variety of people use the Georgia Room, from causal researchers to professionals, Crawford said. Topics they explore include family histories and the development of Georgia and Cobb County. Milestone events in Cobb such as the Civil War and the economic growth spurred by the rise of aircraft manufacturing during World War II and the post-war era are popular topics, she adds.

All are welcomed to the Georgia Room, anyone from anywhere. “We definitely should be a stop on your path to discovery,” Crawford says.

For her leadership in developing the Georgia Room collection and enhancing public access to its holdings, Carolyn Crawford was the recipient of an annual award by the Cobb Landmarks and Historical Society in January. The organization calls her “a walking encyclopedia of Cobb County’s history.”

Professional genealogist David Brandenburg is a Georgia Room regular. “It’s a destination,” says the Smyrna resident, who has been visiting the Georgia Room since the early 1980s. “A lot of genealogists from around Atlanta come here.”

A major factor in growth of the Georgia Room is support from the Cobb County community. The Georgia Room opened in 1970 after the generous contribution from Miss Virginia Vanstone Crosby of Marietta in memory of her father, Charles Mayo Crosby. In 2007, the Cobb Library Foundation contributed to the Georgia Room expansion to house the growing collection and add more computers and microfilm/fiche readers.

For more information on the Georgia Room, please visit www.cobbcat.org. A panoramic photo tour of the Georgia Room is located at http://www.cobbcat.org/tour/.

GLA Library Photo Contest and 2014 Calendar

Deadline to receive photos, releases, captions is June 20, 2013.

The library photos from all types of libraries in Georgia are eligible. We will not accept any photos of animals, not matter how cute, even if they live at the library, unless they are part of a library program. Photos of programs, readers, displays, structures, and library buildings are all welcome. Remember to make sure that the pictures are appropriate for all age groups.

The winning photos will be included in a GLA calendar that will be available for sale at the GLA booth at COMO 2013. Depending on the number of pictures and the different types we hope to have a collage of pictures for each month. 

All photos must be a minimum size of 4-by-6 inches with a minimum resolution of 180 pixels per inch. Larger sizes and higher resolutions are welcome, but the maximum acceptable file size is 10 MB.
One entry per person is allowed. Each photo must be submitted separately in JPEG format to photocontest@georgialibraries.org by noon on Thursday, June 20, 2013.

A panel of judges will select the winners following the contest’s end. Winners will be notified by email. The winners will be announced and the winning photos will be featured In the GLQ Winter 2014 issue.

• Suggested photo opportunities are:
• Library user reading, any age
• Technology use in libraries
• Library-sponsored or Friends-sponsored event
• Library advocacy/support in action
• Library employee, friend, or volunteer
• Exterior photo of a library
• Interior photo of a library

Photos from different times of the year for the different months
 

Judges will select one photo from the category winners as "best overall" and GLA will award its photographer with the grand prize of $100 and the photo will be put on the front cover of the calendar.

 Find Photo Contest Rules and GLA Photo Release Form on GLA website.

2013 GLA Paraprofessional Award Grants

ATTENTION SUPPORT STAFF AND PARAPROFESSIONALS in GEORGIA LIBRARIES
 
The Paraprofessional Division of the Georgia Library Association announces its 2013 Paraprofessional Grants.  

Three (3) $250 Award Grants will be given to the winners to facilitate their attendance at GaCOMO 2013 – GLA’s Annual Convention to be held in Macon, Georgia October 9-11, 2013.  In addition, each winner will receive an awards plaque, which will be presented at a GLA Association function and a one-year free paraprofessional membership in the Georgia Library Association.

If you are interested in applying, please download and complete the following documents:

2013 Application Form
2013 Recommendation Form

Please note that while applicants do not have to be member of the association in order to compete, they must be full-time employees in a library falling under GLA’s auspices (normally a college-level academic, public, school, or special library). 

The deadline for submission of application forms is Friday, June 14, 2013.  

Please feel free to contact Rhonda Boozer at 678-466-4329 or via email at Rhondaboozer@clayton.edu if you have any questions.

Athens-Clarke County Library celebrates 100 years in April

The Athens-Clarke County Library is celebrating two major milestones this April with a whole month of special programs and events. Not only does April mark the end of the library’s long-running construction project, but this year is also the Library’s 100th anniversary.

In 1913, the Athens Library Association received its charter. For 1 cent per day per item, Athenians could borrow from the small collection of 500 books, which was housed in a room in the Athens Railway and Electric Company Building. The small library had 200 registered readers. The 1 cent per day fee helped pay for rebinding of books and purchase of new books.

Through the years, the Library moved around town as it grew, first to a building adjacent to the National Bank of Athens on Broad Street in 1936, then to the YMCA building at the corner of Lumpkin and Broad streets in 1937, to the Stern House at the corner of Hancock Street and College Avenue in 1949, to Dougherty Street in 1970, and finally to its current home on Baxter Street in 1992.

The Baxter Street building has just completed a $10 million renovation and expansion project, which began in May 2011 and includes two additions and a complete makeover for the entire building. With the additions, the formerly 63,000-square-foot building is now 83,000 square feet. The Library now has a larger Heritage Room for local history and genealogy, a larger and newly designed Children’s Department, more room for books and other materials, and a new 300-seat multipurpose room. With the renovation also came the arrival of self-checkout and an automated materials handling system, which automatically checks in returned items and sorts them into bins for quicker return to the shelves, freeing library staff to assist patrons with more complex requests. A formal dedication and grand opening the building will take place on Sunday, April 7.

In one hundred years, the library’s collection has grown from a small room of books with a weekly story hour for children to a full-service resource center and hub of regional library services with access to thousands of materials, both housed locally and throughout the state, dozens of programs for all ages each month, and more. From 200 registered readers one hundred years ago, the number of registered patrons has grown to over 66,000 in Athens alone. Those patrons checked out more than 1 million items last year.

To commemorate its one hundred years serving the Athens community, the Athens-Clarke County Library will host a month full of exciting programs throughout April. Every department will hold special events, including Family Fun Day sponsored by the Friends of the Athens-Clarke County Library, a visit by Georgia author Joshilyn Jackson, an Edible Book Contest and more. For more information about the library and its special events for April, visit the Athens-Clarke County Library website at www.clarke.public.lib.ga.us.

March Monthly Recap for GLA 2013

March was a slow month for GLA. We had an Executive Board Meeting on March 22, 2013 which was hosted by Elizabeth Bagley at Agnes Scott College. Minutes are available on GLA website. We voted to change the name of the School Librarian Division to Georgia Association of School Librarians, a division of Georgia Library Association. 

The next day was a COMO Planning meeting in Macon, GA at the Marriott Hotel. Plans of where the activities will be located and what changes need to be made from last year were discussed and, hopefully, will be addressed by October. We plan on coffee being available all day for all those coffee lovers who were without in the middle of the day during the last COMO Conference.  COMO 2013 is in Macon, Georgia on October 9- 10-11, 2013. We have lots of areas for volunteers to help create a great conference. Send in a proposal for a presentation of the great work that you’re doing; volunteer for the scholarship booth, the Poster Sessions, or the Authors’ Reception. It should be a wonderful time.

We are in the middle of the Photo Contest. Start taking pictures now through June 20 of your libraries or programs. No photos of animals, even if they live in the library, please. Winners will be put in a calendar for 2014 which will be sold at the GLA booth at COMO 2013.

Picnic in July – firm arrangements have not been completed, but the plan is to have a GLA picnic in middle Georgia in mid-July for FUN. We’re hoping to find a State Park or other area with a covered picnic area and restrooms close by. It looks like we are a little late to obtain an air conditioned center. I was told that we do not want a picnic in Southern or Middle Georgia in July without having an air conditioned retreat. With that in mind, I’ll be looking for places in the northern half of the state. Let me know if you have any ideas. The meat will be provided and everyone will bring a side or dessert. We’ll need registration forms completed so the proper amount of meat is available.

I’m still working on a Strategic Plan for GLA 2014-2016. The goal is to help the membership work together on a common mission with common goals and objectives. A survey was sent out in the last couple of years and we’ll look through those responses to provide ideas for some of the next steps we want to take. You will probably receive more information during the next few months to help gather opinions from the membership for the plan. Please give your opinions and suggests.

I want to end this recap with a BIG THANK YOU to Oscar Gittemeier. He worked very hard on a calendar project he created and sold during the last year. He gave a generous donation of his sales to support the GLA scholarship fund. THANKS, Oscar!!

The fun of being in GLA is the relationships with other people with library interests and goals. My hope is to have fun events throughout the year to bring us all together. Thanks so much and feel free to contact me for more information or questions and comments.

Diana Very, GLA President 2013
404-235-7156
dvery@georgialibraries.org