ioug news
The 2007-2008 Membership Form is now available! Click here for more details!
Spring 2008 Conference
Please join us for the IOUG Spring Conference on Friday, May 9, 2008 at the Illinois State Library. Entitled, "Back to the Future: The Technological Evolution of Libraries Revisited," an exciting day is planned with talks from a stellar group of speakers. The conference begins at 8:00 a.m. with registration and continental breakfast, and concludes at 3:00 p.m. A limited number of rooms are available at the Abraham Lincoln Hotel and Conference Center, 701 East Adams, Springfield, IL, an easy walking distance to the Illinois State Library. Be sure to mention IOUG when reserving your room at 217-544-8800. Deadline for the $89 (plus tax) rate is April 17.
The $45.00 registration fee includes lunch. There will be gifts for attendees and door prizes. Please make your check payable to IOUG and send to: Jill Heffernan, Illinois State Library, Gwendolyn Brooks Building, 300 South Second Street, Springfield, Illinois 62701-1796 or click here to register.
PRESENTERS:
Bruce Crocco, Vice President, Library Services for the Americas, oversees library services and sales activities for OCLC in the United States and Canada. He manages customer support, market analysis, and sales programs, in addition to working closely with project management teams to provide input and intelligence on product strategy. Frequently asked to speak on OCLC research projects, Bruce will provide a look into OCLC’s latest study with his talk, “Sharing, Privacy, and Trust in Our Networked World.”
Beth Davis-Brown, Library Services Executive Secretariat, Library of Congress, is coordinator/liaison to the Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control. She brings years of cataloging expertise and knowledge of the challenges facing librarians in the digital world. Beth will speak on the final report of the Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control and its outcome affecting the Library of Congress.
Aaron Schmidt, Director of the North Plains Public Library in Portland, Oregon, is a specialist in technology and usability. A dynamic and nationally sought after speaker, Aaron has presented at ALA and the Internet Librarian Conference. He will speak on Web 2.0 and its applications for libraries.
Other presentations will include reports on Ask?Away, CARLI, OCLC Members Council, Illinois State Library and WorldCat Local.
Note: If you have special dietary requirements, please contact Jill Heffernan at jheffernan@ilsos.net or call 217-557-3386.
Ask Away!
Ask?Away is a virtual reference project that offers both e-mail and chat reference and is currently funded through a grant that is administered by the Illinois State Library. Ask?Away uses the OCLC QuestionPoint platform "to deliver professional library reference services to all residents and students of Illinois by providing them with digital access to librarians 24/7".
The Ask?Away project launched on April 24, 2006 and since then over 250 Illinois libraries have joined. Each of these libraries has taken the bold step to provide their patrons with access to librarians 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Illinois librarians monitor with back up from other librarians in the cooperative so that a patron can always get a reliable answer. Staffing is currently optional, so you don't need to use your staff hours to provide your patrons with this service.
Even if your institution is providing IM, e-mail or some other type of virtual reference, consider the benefits of offering your students access to trained and experienced librarians 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. We are still actively recruiting libraries and hope that your library will join. Please go to www.askawayillinois.info for more information or contact Natalie Tagge, Illinois Virtual Reference Coordinator at the Illinois State Library - ntagge@ilsos.net or 217-557-6329.
who is ioug
The purpose of the Illinois OCLC Users' Group (IOUG) is to promote the use of the OCLC database and related ILLINET/OCLC services for libraries and educational institutions for educational, literacy, scientific, and research purposes.
