We are pleased to announce that Pam Seabolt is the new Indiana Community Engagement Librarian. Pam most recently worked at the Jeffersonville Township Public Library, where she managed the Clarksville Branch and led several community engagement initiatives. Pam comes to us as a Public Innovator, having participated in the ALA/Harwood Public Innovators Lab for Libraries.  …Read more »

The Library of Michigan and MCLS are pleased to announce a continuation of their partnership with The Harwood Institute for Public Innovation. There now will be a  third opportunity for Michigan library staff to participate in The Harwood Institute training. This opportunity will include a full 2.5 day Public Innovators Lab, followed by 18 months …Read more »

Last month, I wrote about several unsatisfying interactions with call center representatives and retail clerks. As I pondered these customer service failures and the lessons they held for MCLS, I also thought about the ultimate responsibility for the problems I experienced. In each of these cases, I believe the fault occurred long before I got …Read more »

“You will not read a more important book about America this year.”—The Economist Hillbilly Elegy, a memoir by J.D. Vance, has been selected as the title for Libraries Read: 1 Book 2017, capturing 40% of the votes. MCLS invited library staff across Indiana and Michigan to submit titles for consideration, then to place votes for …Read more »

This month’s featured trainer, Jessica Barnes, has spent her career working in and for Indiana public libraries. After receiving her MSLIS from the University of Illinois in 2004, she worked in and managed reference, circulation, teen, and technical services departments in three northern Indiana public libraries. As the northern Indiana regional coordinator for the Indiana …Read more »

MCLS is pleased to announce a new partnership with Altarama Information Systems. Since 2001, libraries have used Altarama’s family of modules and services to better manage increasingly complex reference request services. Across the globe, libraries of all types and sizes use these open, scalable, and affordable tools to manage reference requests and to measure results. …Read more »

The MCLS Nominating Committee seeks nominations from the membership for the following openings on the MCLS Board of Directors: Special Library Representative (Indiana) Academic Library Representative (Indiana) K12 Library Representative (Michigan) At-Large Library Representative (Michigan) Research Library Representative (Michigan) Each seat has a three-year term, beginning January 1, 2018 and expiring December 31, 2020. The …Read more »

Our lives are full of customer service experiences. Almost every time we leave home, there will be an opportunity for someone to provide us with a pleasant or unpleasant service experience. In the last couple of weeks, I seem to have hit a spate of less than satisfactory interactions with companies who provide me with …Read more »

This turned out to be quite a different column than the one I thought I was writing. Lately, I’ve been thinking about linked data a lot, and I thought I’d opine a bit about the history and development of linked data, with an update on a couple cool linked data projects in Michigan and Indiana. …Read more »

 This month’s featured trainer, Mahasin Martinson, currently works in the IT Department at the Indianapolis Public Library. Originally from Lansing, Michigan, Mahasin bridges our two membership states, and has been a lifelong patron of libraries. She has volunteered and worked in public libraries for over 15 years. In May 2016, Mahasin completed her master’s degree …Read more »