Making Contact with Millennials

He holds a Master's degree in social policy and a bachelor's in public administration.

Novello Festival Press: Grassroots Publishing with National Impact
Coffee and Conversation with Novello Festival Press Founder & Publisher Amy Rogers. Did you know that Charlotte is the home of the only public library funded literary publisher in the United States? One lucky participant will win a copy of the forthcoming NFP title Absolution, by Miriam Herin, to be released in October 2007 (the winner will receive a gift certificate, redeemable when the book is released). Two participants will each win a copy of Thriving in the Shadows: The Black Experience in Charlotte and Mecklenburg County by Fannie Flono, Associate Editor of The Charlotte Observer. This February 2007 release contains more than 100 archival photographs that were contributed by members of Charlotte’s African American community. Every participant will receive the book Novello: Ten Years of Great American Writing. This anthology, which features 25 short works from such renowned writers as Pat Conroy, Tom Wolfe and others who have appeared at the Novello festival, received the first of four Independent Publisher Book Awards award to NFP. Learn more about NFP at http://novellopress.org/.

Information Literacy at Any Speed: Point of Service, One Shots, or Credit Courses
Featuring Joanna Burkhardt and Mary MacDonald, authors of the book Creating a Comprehensive Information Literacy Plan: A how-to-do-it manual and Teaching Information Literacy: 35 Practical, Standards-Based Exercises for College Students.

Libraries in the Metaverse
Presenters Matt Gullett, Kelly Czarnecki, and Rhonda Trueman will discuss and demonstrate the new frontier of virtual library services developing in Second Life, a 3-D virtual online universe.

Kelly Czarcecki is the Technology Education Librarian for ImaginOn, a branch of the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County. She works with teens and kids at the library to help them build literacy skills for the 21st century. Kelly has been involved in Second Life with the Alliance Library System since April 2006. She currently is co-leader of a project on Teen Second Life to develop library services for teens in this 3D environment.

Rhonda Trueman is reference librarian at Johnson & Wales University Charlotte. The potential for education in virtual worlds drew her to Second Life and through her work with the Second Life Library she has helped to bring library resources and programs into this environment. Currently serving as the Assistant Director /Director of Operations for the Second Life Library, she heads the collections effort there and works with various groups on projects and events.

Matt Gullett is the Emerging Technology Manager for the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County. He manages Virtual Village which is currently a place that offers computer/Internet access and learning. In this role he is creating new services and experiences around the expansive world of digital culture. He was previously the manager of IT Services in Bloomington, IL where he directed the efforts of the Library's Community Technology Center, founded the Bloomington Normal Film Festival, the Students Involved with Technology Conference and the Game Fest initiative in Bloomington-Normal, Illinois. He was named a 2006 Mover and Shaker by Library Journal for being a trendsetter and youth/teen activist.

Library Luncheon and Tour
We celebrated our successful year of 2006 during the Library Luncheon and Annual Meeting at the beautiful Art Institute of Charlotte. Several Roundtable Topics were explored by the luncheon groups. Ideas and plans included: Events & Programs; Membership; and Publicity. Everyone enjoyed culinary delights at the Artisan Restaurant, which is completely staffed by students in the Culinary Arts program. The superb lunch creations included Mediterranean lamb filled flaky pastries and miniature sweet potato pies, in addition to other wonderful menu choices.

Copyright Conference
Copyright ownership and management issues abound for all libraries and information centers. How we use and distribute scholarly journal publications and teaching materials, electronic collections, and AV media can make our break our compliance with copyright law.
Peggy Hoon, renowned copyright expert, brought her vast insights in copyright as it applies to all realms of scholarly publishing, electronic journals, teaching materials, digital rights management, electronic teaching materials, films, music, performance rights, issues in access, copy, distribution, and outlined many of the tensions between technology, researchers' access to information, digital rights, and copyright.

Peggy Hoon, Copyright Administrator and Scholarly Communications Librarian at North Carolina State University, is widely renowned for her copyright expertise. She has widely written, consulted, and presented on copyright issues including the Grokster decision and the far-reaching implications for knowledge environments of elements such as technology, distribution methods, and copyright protection and infringement.

2006 Information Literacy Conference
The morning session on information literacy, assessment, and learning styles was led by keynote speakers Jennifer Arnold and Mary Metzger. To begin, a brief introduction to information literacy was presented by Jennifer. Mary and Jennifer then teamed up to discuss learning styles. Their presentation incorporated an audio/visual clip and some time requiring participants to reflect upon their own learning style. It later involved matching participant learning styles to groups whereby each group was then required to design a brief assignment for the participants of an opposite or different learning style. Mary then concluded the morning session with a discussion of assessment.

Afternoon sessions: "Information Literacy in the Classroom", Johnson & Wales University faculty members Daphne Thompson and Brian Mooney showed how information literacy standards may be incorporated in different classroom environments and how its integration improves student work. There was also much discussion of the nature of the partnership which must exist between faculty and librarians for an effective IL program. “Information Literacy 1.5: Expanding the toolbox and bridging the gap”, led by Helene Blowers and James Kelly from PLCMC, dealt with some of the more exciting changes taking place with regard to social networks and technology. Participants were also guided through the process of setting up their own blog. “Core Modules of Information Literacy” and “The EmbeddedLibrarian”, was led off by Christine Tran who discussed the modular information literacy program at Johnson & Wales University’s Charlotte campus. She framed the program as a whole and explained how various standardized modules are attached to specific classes. She also provided attendees with real lesson plans and handouts which have been used with past student groups. Richard Moniz followed Christine Tran to specifically discuss module III and the instruction that we are engaging students in with regard to issues such as plagiarism and copyright. The session concluded with Dr. Helena Rodrigues, Dean of Libraries for Johnson & Wales University, doing a presentation called “The Embedded Librarian.” Helena took the topic full circle explaining how library services have evolved into what they are today and what they must become in the future.

Podcasting in Education
This 3-hour session on creating podcasts for educational contexts was presented by David Staton and Edwin White of Apple Computers. Their multimedia presentation covered everything from deciding on content to creating, producing, metadata-tagging, and publishing a podcast. In the spirit of "go to where the students are" many different teaching scenarios in several universities -- lectures, material compilations for students etc -- reflect the growing importance of incorporating instruction into the widely used ipod. As instructional technologies evolve, the library’s information role stands to gain from plugging into ipod instruction delivery.

Library Crawl
Members of the Metrolina Library Association spent the evening visiting the just-opened Imaginon Children's Library, the Robinson-Spangler Carolina Room at the Public Library of Charlotte-Mecklenburg County, and the brand-new Library at Johnson & Wales University. The evening concluded with special desserts created by the world famous culinary talents of Johnson & Wales University.

Library Disaster Recovery
Hurricanes are seasonal but disasters can happen any time. Libraries need disaster plans, response teams, and team training. The North Carolina Preservation Consortium (NCPC) contributed toward the disaster recovery training of Charlotte-area library response teams in a full-day workshop. The discussion, guided by NCPC trainers, included examples of the kinds of disasters that can affect libraries and solutions to the scenarios. The hands-on portion entailed work with materials that have been damaged, particularly by water. Discarded items including books, journals, microfilm, and video tapes were the focus of this practice session on carrying out a salvage operation. The hands-on session was designed to increase participants' confidence in coping with a library disaster—an event we hope will never happen! This workshop was taught participants how to: Raise awareness about appropriate responses to disaster; enhance team-building; and strengthen confidence and skills needed to respond to disasters appropriately.

Grant Writing and Administration
This informative panel discussion of grant writing and grant administration was co-sponsored by the Metrolina Library Association and the Charlotte Charlotte Area Library Instruction Group. Jeanne Crisp and Penny Hornsby shared their expertise on LSTA grant programs available to North Carolina libraries. The observations on elements of a well-written grant and grant-writing behaviors that really annoy reviewers included tips ranging from how to write the grant to address the funding agency to following small (but important) filing nstructions. Teresa Justice from Winthrop University and Elaine Kushmaul from Central Piedmont Community College shared techniques and tips for writing and administering grants, from formulating your proposal to designing and managing the grant budget.

Who Let the Blogs Out?
Lisa Nickel from UNCC gave a demo on her Distance Education Library Blog. Her PowerPoint is linked on the Charlotte Area Library Instruction Group website at www.cpcc.edu.library/calig. Check out her blog presentation and her list of favorite blog websites. Have you blogged yet? If you missed this casual but intense discussion of blogs with UNCC's blog creator Lisa Nickel and a group of Charlotte area blog designers, here is a brief summary. Blogs, or web logs, are a cutting-edge trend in communication that many libraries are using to promote services and programs. Blogs have recently become a hot topic for libraries and librarians. The discussion addressed questions such as:

1. What is a blog? What is blogging?
2. How can libraries use blogs? What benefits could they possibly offer?
3. How are blogs set-up and managed?
4. ...and more...

Check out: www.blogwithoutalibrary.net for context about the program.