ACRL Update - February 20, 2008

1. New ACRL Podcast: 2008 Vice-President/ President Elect Candidates Talk
2. 2008 National Library Legislative Day
3. Help ACRL make 2009 its greenest year
4. Register now for e-Learning opportunities

1. New ACRL Podcast: 2008 Vice-President/ President Elect Candidates Talk
Trying to choose your candidate for ACRL Vice-President/ President Elect in the upcoming election? In the latest ACRL podcast, College & Research Libraries News editor-in-chief David Free interviews the 2008 candidates, Lori Goetsch of Kansas State University and Janice Simmons-Welburn of Marquette University. Goetsch and Simmons-Welburn discuss two important issues facing the academic and research library community and outline their plans for ACRL.

The podcast is available on the new ACRL Insider blog at http://www.acrl.ala.org/acrlinsider/2008/02/11/acrl-podcast-2008-vice-president-president-elect-candidates-talk/.

Polls in the 2008 ALA election open on March 17. Make sure to get out and vote!

2. 2008 National Library Legislative Day
Be one of the hundreds of library supporters from all across the country visiting Members of Congress to share stories about libraries in your communities and to talk about the needs and accomplishments of libraries in your area during the 2008 National Library Legislative Day. The event will be held from May 13-14, 2008 in Washington, DC. More information on events, hotel accommodations, and registration is available at http://www.ala.org/ala/washoff/washevents/nlld/nlld2008.cfm. The registration deadline is Friday, April 4, 2008.

While in Washington, join your academic and research library colleagues at a special ACRL luncheon on Tuesday, May 13, 2008, at the Holiday Inn on the Hill. RSVP for the complimentary luncheon by Monday, April 28, 2008, at https://marvin.foresightint.com/surveys/Tier1Survey/ACRL/242.

If you can’t make it to Washington, participate in "Virtual Legislative Day." Find out how at http://www.ala.org/ala/washoff/washevents/nlld/virtuallibrarylegislativeday/vlld.cfm.

3. Help ACRL make 2009 its greenest year
The ACRL Green Conference Committee is a new component committee of the National Conference Coordinating Committee. Its charge is to reduce the environmental impact of the 2009 National Conference in Seattle WA, to educate and inform participants about the environmental costs of attending the conference, and to set precedent for greener conferences in the future for ACRL and ALA.

Please help the Green Conference Committee by completing a brief survey about ways to "green" the conference. There are only a few questions; depending on your enthusiasm, the survey should take you five to ten minutes. The survey is available online at https://marvin.foresightint.com/surveys/Tier1Survey/ACRL/246.

Your feedback will be used to shape the committee's work over the next year. The deadline to complete the survey is Friday, February 29.

4. Register now for e-Learning opportunities
Registration is now open for two upcoming ACRL e-Learning opportunities. The Webcast “Getting Started with Screencasting,” will be offered on March 11. This two hour session will explore screencasting—delivering screen captures via RSS—and its potential applications in the academic library. Participants will be provided with examples of screencasts, information on various software applications used to create screencasts, and tips for choosing content, preparing, recording and delivering a screencast.

“Electronic Collection Development for the Academic E-library” will be offered March 10-28, 2008. In this hands-on course you will learn to create an academic e-library collection development plan for free and fee-based Web-accessible resources for a patron community of your choice. Students will focus on developing a collection plan for one library patron group of their choice. Patron groups may include: faculty, students, researchers, general public, subject specialists, etc. This collection plan will be developed in five parts. Each part includes lecture, discussion and hands-on activities that will step participants through creating or assessing a collection plan for developing a e-library collection.

Additional details on both e-Learning opportunities, including learning outcomes and registration materials, is available online at http://www.acrl.org/ala/acrl/acrlproftools/elearning.cfm. Contact Jon Stahler at jstahler@ala.org for more information.

Registration closes on March 5. Don’t miss out!