R.E.A.D. Awards - It's not too late to nominate your library! ...yet.

Chinook Arch is proud to announce the first annual Rewards of Excellence and Distinction (R.E.A.D.). These awards have been developed to reward and acknowledge Chinook Arch member libraries and library professionals who have displayed excellence in:

• Advocacy

• Community partnerships

• Circulation

• Intellectual Freedom

• Outreach

• Programs for children, adults and seniors

• Librarianship

• Marketing and public relations

• Videoconferencing

Nominations must be received by February 1, 2011.

Nominations and inquiries can be sent to Lauren Jessop (ljessop@chinookarch.ca). Awards will be presented during dinner on Friday March 4th, 2011 at the Southern Alberta Library Conference.

EBooks in the Blogosphere

For those of you who attended this Monday’s Librarian’s Committee meeting, you may remember me mentioning that libraries across North America have also seen a dramatic increase in their eBook usage since Christmas. In the days following December 25, OverDrive experienced some outages as they grappled with the flood of users to their sites. Earlier this month, Stephen Abram posted twice on his blog – Stephen’s Lighthouse – about this phenomenon sweeping libraries and the publishing world (eBooks: Change Happening Faster and 200% Increase in eBook Checkouts at Libraries).

Beyond this, some very interesting discussions have come out regarding the purchasing of the Kindle. In a post entitled Why I am a library traitor and love the Kindle, Librarian in Black confessed to loving her Kindle for the fact that it is an incredibly user-friendly device and synonymously hating it for being unable to access library eBooks with it. Librarian by Day responded to this announcement with her take on the issue: eBooks and eReaders: There Can Be Only One. She makes a number of excellent points in her post (definitely worth a read), one of which I would like to dissect here.

While LBD is quick to point out that companies that make eReaders have a vested interest in making it easy to buy their own books and hard as nails to access free content, I feel like she leaves out the other half of the equation. Companies that provide libraries with eBooks have a stake in this too and even if they are offering cumbersome interfaces and limited selection now, they are going to have to step up their game if they want to continue playing.

This is not to say that we should sit idly by but we, as advocators of our service, should take heart that it will get better. In the interim, we must persevere by fumbling with devices that we have never seen, reading instructions, forums, and the like to better understand how to do things, and producing our own guides to help our patrons. Because after all, we are not alone.

Family Literacy Day

National Family Literacy Day is January 27th. What a great opportunity for some unique programming and perhaps even to promote your library to a new audience. This year's theme is Play for Literacy which focuses on games - imagine the possibilities. You may even want to partner with your local literacy organization to hold events on the day or throughout the month that are mutually beneficial to both organizations.

Visit the Family Literacy Day website at: http://abclifeliteracy.ca/en/fld/celebrate-family-literacy-day for information and ideas and to find events already planned to celebrate the day.

Here are a few relatively easy and inexpensive programming ideas to promote literacy:

• Alphabet loop: Organize an alphabetical scavenger hunt. Participants seek out items that begin with each letter of the alphabet. Participants must visit the library to receive their instruction sheet and prizes.
  
• Scrabble anyone? Organize the world’s largest Scrabble® game.
  
• Wall of fame: Designate a wall in your library to display photos of patrons along with lists of their favourite books and authors.
  
• Pyjama party: Host a bedtime story night where young people and their families are invited to dress in their PJs and bring in their sleeping bags and favourite books.
  
• Karaoke night: Host a night of karaoke for parents and children. Not only is this a fun event, but it also encourages reading, singing, and family involvement.
  
• Monster masks: Read aloud a monster story that includes a good description of the monster. After reading the story, have children create their own visual of a monster out of paper plates, construction paper, paint and string.
  
• Giant crossword: Create a giant crossword puzzle with 100 – 200 clues to be displayed on a wall of the library. Encourage patrons to have some fun by solving one of the clues while they visit the library.

Lots more examples are provided on the site as well as resources for encouraging family learning, literacy tips, activity books and more.