Attention members of ALA:

ALA has just released a survey to get input from members about electronic participation in the association. More information about the survey and a link to the online survey is at http://blogs.ala.org/memberblog.php?title=electronic_member_participatio....

Attn: Public Library Summer Reading Coordinators

One hundred eleven (111) public libraries signed up to receive free paperback books for their summer reading programs. These books are provided through a grant for $15,000 from the Fred Meyer Fund. We just received the check this week and the books have been ordered. We anticipate that the books will be shipped to the Commission by June 23rd. We plan to begin mailing books to libraries by June 27th. To see if your library signed up to receive books, check the list here.

Libraries that received funding commitments for e-rate in Waves 7 and 8 are:

• Kootenai-Shoshone Area Libraries (Wave 7)
• Twin Falls (Wave 7)
• Clarkia (Wave 8)
• Clearwater District (Wave 8)
• Jerome (Wave 8)

The total funding commitment for Idaho libraries in Waves 1-8 is $98,566.80.

Mixing It Up: The Mashed up Library was a symposium sponsored by OCLC at the ALA conference in Anaheim. Michael Schrage, Research Fellow, MIT Sloan School for Digital Business, shared his perspective in his presentation "Managing Challeges of Instituional Innovation." Innovation in an institution is difficult because of its values, traditions, cultures, and bureacracies.

Started the day with Legislative Committee which included information on telecommunication and broadband (i.e., regional cooperatives, rural broadband deployment, network neutrality),reauthorization of LSTA, e-rate, and copyright.

This workshop was set in the frame of "assessment." "The most serious mistakes are not being made as a result of wrong answers. The truly dangerous thing is asking the wrong question." Peter Drucker

Rather than asking what went wrong, ask "how can we get significantly better results?"

The first round of the WESTPAS workshops on "Protecting Library & Archive Collections: Disaster Preparedness, Response, & Recovery" was conducted in Eastern Idaho at the Portneuf District Library and then in Southwestern Idaho at the Garden City Library.

Tuesday's session included Ira Frosch, President, Palazzo, Inc., presenting a perspective from outside the realm of library land, and Jamie LaRue, Director, Douglas County Libraries, providing an overview of the efforts of a Colorado library district which is working toward providing a seamless interface for the customer and the library's resources.

We've announced it in other places, but it obviously is appropriate to announce it here:

There is a new round of training planned for e-branch in October!