[ODLC] Updates from Executive Committee

[Michael Grutchfield]

Hello ODLC Community,

As we move into December, it is a time of both great strain and great hope for libraries. We see our communities struggling with the Pandemic and individuals expressing frustration with the curtailment of normal services. We also see vaccines being approved at record speed, with hope for effective distribution beginning soon and continuing through the New Year. All of this leads to unprecedented demand for our digital services, which is what ODLC is here to provide.

The Executive Committee met at the end of November and there is some news to share from that meeting:

  *   With 100% participation, the Governing Board voted to pass the bylaws change necessary to allow libraries to join our consortium at two points in the year. Beginning with the next Fiscal Year, we will be accepting applications in both Fall and Spring.
  *   We've been growing our Spanish-language collection, assisted in part by LSTA grant money. We have been spending about $1500 per month on Spanish-language titles for the past two months. There is now a Spanish page on Overdrive: https://library2go.overdrive.com/library/espanol to showcase these titles, and the Collection Chair and the Spanish-language selectors are looking into improving it and getting marketing materials in Spanish that we can all take advantage of.
  *   It's budget season again! Governing Board Reps should keep an eye out for a future poll on whether to maintain or raise the budget for materials, and if the latter, how much to raise it. We know that there may be budget concerns at many of our libraries after the last atypical year, and we'll need to weigh the pain of that vs. the pain of long wait times and limited collection growth. I hope to have at least a preliminary poll ready early in January.

Happy holidays!

Michael Grutchfield, MLIS
Rogue River Branch Manager & Lower Rogue Area Manager
Jackson County Library Services
(541) 864-8862
mgrutchfield at jcls.org

Currently Reading: Revolution on My Mind: Writing a Diary under Stalin by Jochen Hellbeck

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