Volume 2006, Issue 1
April 10, 2006

Project Highlights

Arnold AFB

IIa has been asked to take on additional work at Arnold AFB to support establishment of the AEDC Archives. The project mission is to identify, document, preserve, and to make information available to AEDC users and test customers. These historical materials help transition knowledge and experience of past and present AEDC operations. Developing access to information in the archives will be invaluable to AEDC in obtaining new business and performing projects more effectively as AEDC transitions its work force.

Currently, 24,000 plus items have been identified to be archived, which includes print, audio-visual material, and miscellaneous items with historical value to AEDC. One such item is the actual chair that President Harry Truman sat in when the Arnold Center was dedicated. The project will be headed by our newly hired Archivist Paige Hendrickson and Archives Technician Kathy McCrorey. The project, which is expected to take two to three years, began in April by identifying and organizing materials with a future goal to digitize the materials and identify additional materials in other AEDC locations.

Corporate Office

ALISE. Corporate staff involved with managing the Association for Library and Information Science (ALISE) successfully hosted the organization’s annual conference in January in San Antonio. IIa is responsible for planning and on-site management of the event for some 500 attendees. Representatives from Library Journal, School Library Journal, and American Libraries were on hand for the conference.

GreyLit Presentation. In December, senior researcher June Crowe presented a paper to the Seventh  International Conference on Grey Literature: Open Access to Grey Resources, in Nancy, France. The paper, Repositories, Tools for NGOs Involved in Public Health Activities in Developing Countries, was based on IIa’s and Crowe’s extensive work in the open source arena, developing studies on the medical capabilities of foreign counties. It underscored the need for a repository for NGO data on public health information.

GPO. IIa has partnered with DigiTech to undertake a web harvesting pilot project for the U.S. Government Printing Office. In an effort to help GPO move fully into the new digital publishing paradigm, IIa will be using web crawler technology to locate “fugitive” documents...digital government publications that have not been included in the Federal Depository Library Program. IIa and DigiTech will search, or crawl, the open web and the deep web to identify and harvest these fugitive documents.

Return to top

Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) Library

Goddard library staff have been working on a number of technology solutions for their users, including adding an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed, working with podcasts (see Tech Tips), and setting up a digital library testing lab.

RSS. If you aren’t familiar with RSS, it is a technology that automatically “pushes” information to the user’s RSS reader, allowing users to get the latest headlines and articles from multiple sources in one place as soon as they are published. Blog aggregators use RSS. The Goddard library is using an RSS feed to announce the Library’s latest book acquisitions to their patrons.

Podcasts. In an effort to meet the increasing use of mobile devices by library patrons, the library staff has begun to repackage videos to the MP4 format, which allows patrons to download tutorials to iPod devices as podcasts at approximately one-tenth the size of the original recording. This also solved a problem when the latest version of Windows Media Player stopped working with the new Mac operating system. Mac users could still access videos via the MP4 format.

Digital Library Testing Lab. Another innovation at the Goddard Library is their new Digital Library Testing Lab. Goddard staff are continuously exploring and testing new and improved information resource products, hardware, and software to meet the ever-changing user preferences and needs. The testing lab allows them to capture the methods and techniques they employ and to create and share best practice guidelines and methodologies with other Goddard employees and organizations.

Return to top

Kirtland AFB

AFRL Meeting. AFRL Kirtland Technical Library librarians and staff hosted the Annual F2F Meeting of the AFRL Library Council, March 21–23 at the AFRL Conference Center. Eighteen librarians representing AFRL's 9 Technical Directorates and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research attended the meeting. The agenda was developed by Carolyn Ray, AFRL Corporate Librarian, who also chaired the sessions.   Thanks to Deborah York's willingness to come to Kirtland and to remain on the Library's premises during the meetings, the entire professional staff, including Maryhelen Jones, Elizabeth Luebchow, and Valerie Valdez, were able to participate in the entire meeting. IIa also graciously provided funding for a continuous "fruit snack and beverage" table during the entire event.  Attendees were very complimentary about the local arrangements and the efforts all library staff had made to welcome them!

Back to School. Library Assistants Jeaninne Ortiz and Julie Mettler entered the New Mexico State University/Dona Ana Branch in March. This is a completely web-based 24 credit hour program. One of the first assignments Jeannine and Julie have is to visit three area libraries and conduct onsite interviews with library directors on a variety of administrative, collection, and services topics. Of course, Jeannine and Julie are "visiting" their own library!    

Langley AFB

April is going to be a crazy, busy month for staffers and patrons alike at the Bateman Library. Not only is April Poetry Month, but the first full week is National Library Week. Library staff have created an interactive poetry display for the month and have a full week of activities for National Library Week.

During that week, they are rolling out their B.L.A.S.T. Kits (Bateman Library Activity & Story Time). These are portable themed story and activity kits containing books, movies, activity booklets, and games or puzzles that family care providers and others can check out. This provides an alternative service for pre-school children in day cares and for home school children who cannot always get to Bateman Library’s in-house programs.

National Library Week at Bateman is also the time for awarding prizes in their Passport Program (below). Patrons were invited to explore the Library in February, March, and early April to collect stamps for completing information activities using books, DVDs and videos, computer resources, and their naked eyes. Activities included naming a bestseller from 1913, finding lyrics from your favorites song, checking on investments, and reading a graphic novel.

To keep staff hopping during National Library Week, librarians from Air Combat Command and the Air Force Special Operations Command will be at the library for training. Also, to round out the week, library staff are having a booth and story reading area at KidFest, a Youth Center and Child Care program.

Return to top