6.6. LIBSR 03-22-2016 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Pairon Services Supervisor Report To: Elk River Library Board CC: Will Hollerich, LSC From: Brandi Canter, PSS Date: March 14, 2016 February Regional Staff Meeting Twice a year GRRL holds a meeting for all library service coordinators and other supervisory staff. Our February meeting focused on moving services forward with a one-hour training on 21st Century Library Skills followed by the LSCs discussing their local action plans to focus on underserved populations. The goal of the meeting was information sharing, and for LSCs to gather ideas about how and with whom they might collaborate, where to focus on building relationships, and identifying potential allies in their community. Some interesting take-aways from the training focused on the importance of thinking locally. For example, Ebook publishing is creating a renaissance of self- and independently-published content, requiring many public libraries to revisit their selection policies. Also, the library as a provider of physical space (i.e. a `third space') in the community is becoming more important, and successful programming capitalizes on that fact through maker-spaces, living libraries, etc. GRRL Technology Updates Community meetings in the summer of 2015 gave us a wealth of information about what our patrons — and those who are not yet using the library — want to see at our locations and on our website. Technology-based services are a high priority, and already two key projects are moving forward. The first is a revamping of our public website to be more user-friendly and to work better for smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices. A workgroup of staff from multiple areas is looking at a range of library and other websites, surveying staff, and coming up with a number of good ideas. Their goal is to have the new mobile-friendly website live before summer. Also coming soon is an update to how the public searches and views the library catalog. GRRL started investigating VuFind, a "modern discovery layer" in 2013, but was unable to implement the platform due to staffing changes and vacancies. Now we are working on VuFind again, and our IT department is hoping to have it available to the public by April. Initially, VuFind will have a 'soft launch,' meaning that users will need to click into it from the familiar catalog page. The workgroup will use the soft launch to gather feedback from users in order to make improvements. (Samples on other side.)