Desktop News - Issue 161

Desktop News
Issue 161	Monday, May 24, 1999	01:09:36 PM
For a bi-monthly wrap up of NOLA news and information, be sure to check out NOLA Notes! To receive The Desktop News in your email, go here. (You must be using Netscape, Internet Explorer or an HTML-based email program to use this service)

Daily Delivery Invoices

NOLA will be sending Daily Delivery invoices (1999-2000) to directors of all participating libraries within the next week.

Pizza and Pop on the House

Don't forget that NOLA will provide pizza and pop from 12:30 - 1:30 p.m. during the June 4th and 7th Book Look sessions. Bring your favorite recently published book and come prepared to tell us why you like it. See you there.

Ellison Dies - A Repeat of an Earlier Message

Please share the following information with your Youth Services Librarian. NOLA is interested in developing a listing of member libraries that own Ellison Dies (designs which are embodied in steel rule dies) and would be willing to loan them to other members for a very short period of time. These Dyes are very popular and are used by youth services librarians and public relations staff. If enough libraries respond, we will recreate a listing on the NOLA Desktop under the Youth Services area. It will be arranged in alphabetical order by Dye name/subject (e.g. computer, girl #3, pizza slice, rabbit) and list the library that actually owns that particular Dye. If you own Ellison Dyes and would be willing to loan them to other NOLA libraries, please e-mail Millie Fry at [email protected] and only give me your name/library at this time.

NOLA's May Member Spotlight is Out of This World!

We invite you to visit the May Member Spotlight, which is packed full of interesting information about the Kingsville Public Library. The library has the astro-photography of Dennis Kortyka on-line. The stars, the moon and the lively night sky! It is an amazing, fun page that is sure to capture your imagination.

Among other things, you can learn about various community activities that are going on throughout the spring and summer, like the ongoing children's storytime programs. Additionally, there are many great links that you can launch to from the KPL Site. Stop by to get a taste of this neat NOLA member website.

Youth Services Webpage gets a make-over!

Take a look at the re-freshened Youth Services home page. After we digitized the Programming Resource Collection, we decided to clean house on the page. There are numerous clickable links that Youth Service Librarians can easily use.

We have also developed a special YS Calendar that is very handy. We have tried to add links to the activities and updated children's websites that are invaluable assets for Youth Service Librarians.

For the last three months, I have been spending every single Sunday afternoon with the "Digital Goddess." Well actually, I have not been with her literally, rather listening to her on her radio talk show, the "Kim Komando Radio Show." Those of you who know me well will say that I could never be mistaken for a "geek." So it might surprise you to hear that I listen to a three-hour radio talk show about computers and the Internet. But that is what is so fantastic about Kim’s show. There are actually times I am riveted - her info is easy to understand and is very entertaining, even if you have limited knowledge about computers and the Internet. Because the show goes beyond tech jargon to subjects in the news and updates of interest to the common person who just plays on the Internet. For example, there is the Y2K weekly update, a topic everyone likes to debate, and "hot" sites to visit on the Internet. (And those of you who have filtering software cannot read this message because I just used the word "hot" which is blocked by some filters.)

The part of the show I eagerly await every week is Kim’s "Kool Site for Kids." And of course because I am anxiously waiting for it, Kim never seems to get to it until her third hour, which keeps me tuned to her, instead of the Cleveland Indians. But then, as I stated previously, her show is entertaining, and the Indians usually win anyhow.....

Since I am a fairly new listener to Kim’s show, I figured I most have missed many Kool Kid Sites. So I went to Kim’s web page http://www.komando.com to see if there might be a listing of all the kids sites she recommended in the past. After exploring all around the site, I turned up nothing, and decided to drop an email to the webmaster/s, really not expecting a response. The very next time I checked my email, I had a polite reply from Brian, one of Kim’s commandos, I suppose. Extremely helpful, he had me point to http://www.komando.com/other/kool_sites/kids.shtml In no time, I found a list of wonderful sites to recommend to my patrons. True, there were some of the common ones, like "Ask Jeeves for Kids," that we all know, but there were many more I never explored that were either great for homework, or, that were just plain fun. Here are a few to entice you: Discovery Kids, Thunk.com, "No Sweat Homework Central," I Spy, The Yuckiest Site on the Internet, Seussville, the Grim Reaper’s Age Guesser, and Yucky.com. Kim even has her pulse on what is popular with kids today - doesn’t about every other kid who enters your library have a yo-yo in hand?
Check out Kim’s suggestion for the Cosmic Yo-Yo Tricks Page. And then of course, there is the Cheat Code Central.....

So I highly recommend that you go to Kim’s Kool Sites and explore, and catch her on air if you can. (She is also a syndicated columnist, TV host, and computer editor for Popular Mechanics. And if looks count, check out her picture on the web site - she certainly does not look like a geek - digital GODDESS is a good description.)

And someone please let me know if the Indians start losing their games on Sundays........

Few people like to make "cold calls." As even veteran salespeople will tell you, cold calls bring basic anxieties (and fundamental insecurities) to the surface: "How will I be received? Will the person be upset? Will I be rejected?"

The anxiety is often magnified when approaching a grant-maker for the first time. First, if you have high expectations about the impact of a single grant, you may feel as though the future of your organization rests on the outcome of this interaction. Second, because the universe of grant-makers is limited, you may feel pressured that you have nowhere to turn in case the funder isn't interested.

Reasonable grounds for panic? Not if you take a deep breath and channel your energies into converting a cold call into a warm call. "Warming up" an initial contact requires one or both of two approaches: either you must learn something about your prospect prior to your conversation, or your prospect must learn something about you or your organization. To do this, you will use both public and personal sources. (Click here for the rest of the article)

NOLA Regional Library System 4445 Mahoning Ave Warren, OH 44483	Phone: (330) 847- 7744 Fax: (330) 847- 7704 Email: [email protected]
Copyright � 1999 by NOLA Regional Library System. Send comments to Webmaster. Revised: 05/24/99 01:09:36 PM URL: http://www.nolanet.org/tdn/issue161.htm