Northeast Kansas Library System Fall Assembly
October 21, 2010
at the Kansas State Historical Society in Topeka
8:30 AM NEKLS Executive Board Meeting
9:00 AM Registration and Continental Breakfast
9:30 AM Welcome and Announcements
9:45 AM Keynote Speaker: Library futurist Joan Frye Williams “Make it count: Where to put your energy in the coming years” (Joan was recently a guest on NPR’s Here and Now – listen to that for a preview of her style)
10:45 AM Break
11:00 AM Executive Director Jim Minges “NEKLS State of the System”
Notes taken by Sharon Moreland:
- System finances – Things are better than they looked 6 months ago. Budget in good shape. Thank the good folks in Brown and Nemaha county and their pipeline.
- Priorities – CE and Advocacy issues.
- Brenda’s job one – reviewing and seriously reconstructing and needed our CE program to meet the needs of our members and introducing new ideas.
- Discussion questions will center on CE.
- Telling library stories through advocacy – state and local. Statewide library promotion campaign.
- Meet with local legislators before the session starts. KLA Push Card 2011 (pdf)
- Appointment of a lobbyist to help with KLA.
- Advocacy page on the Web site
- Trustee workshops – early Spring, budget workshops – beginning of the budget process, when it matters for promotion to local funding bodies.
- Advocacy presentation at Spring Assembly – emphasize nuts and bolts of advocacy at local level
- Accreditation/standards – early next year will re-examine those with committee.
- Significant changes to Resource Sharing program (NExpress and Courier). Moving to a new support company.
- Courier will eventually connect to Colorado courier (OCLC ILL first, then KICNET later)
- Examine and Upgrade Internet Bandwidth – Gates Grant/Broadband – T-1 is no longer a minimally adequate Internet service. State Library spear-heading the committee. “Challenging effort to deal with how to fund and obtain Internet service that will be adequate into the future.”
11:15 AM Discussion groups
Questions asked are listed below. Feel free to respond in the comments or by email to NEKLS staff if you have any answers to the questions.
- Fall Assembly is a time for NEKLS to hold discussion groups, which help inform the creation of the system plan (which is voted on at Spring Assembly). Fall Assembly is also a time for NEKLS members to get together for networking and learning. Rather than one large event (as was scheduled this year), we may hold smaller regional discussion sessions next year. What do you think of that idea?
- NEST is an annual event for public librarians. I has been held at The Barn Bed and Breakfast Inn near Valley Falls for 20 years and includes 1 1/2 days of workshops and an overnight option. Some people feel that NEST should change (location, length, target audience, even the name). Others feel it should stay the same. What is your opinion?
- NEKLS would like to help facilitate more opportunities for people with common interests to get together for informal discussions…. opportunities to share ideas and information. Catalogers, people who do ILL, children’s librarians, circulation staff, etc. Would you be interested in conversational group meetings like this? And if so, what interests would you be interested in discussion?
- What isn’t NEKLS doing that we could be doing to better meet your needs?
- Do you have any other feedback about NEKLS services?
Don and Elsie Jones, KCKPL, NEKLS Volunteers of the Year
12:15 PM Lunch, including the presentation of the annual NEKLS Volunteer of the Year Award to Don and Elsie Jones, Kansas City Kansas Public Library and a special appearance by beloved Kansas author Nancy Pickard
1:30 PM Adjourn
