volume 71, no. 1 spring 2007title: instructional coordinator institution: cook library - usm e-mail:...

Volume 71, No. 1 Spring 2007

Vol. 71, No. 1, Spring 2007 Mississippi Libraries

Can anyone working in Mis-sissippi libraries today evenremember life before MAG-NOLIA? Yes, the MAGNO-LIA Project is now ten yearsold – and is being celebrat-ed across the state this yearin a variety of special ways.The state legislature, whichpicks up the bulk of the tabfor the MAGNOLIA Project,was given a piece of MagnoliaBirthday Cake at this year’s MLALegislative Reception on Febru-ary 6, 2007.

I have been privileged to serve as amember of the Project’s Steering Commit-tee, representing public library interests,since the Institutions of Higher Learning(IHL) assembled us and commissionedthe committee to “work together” and tofigure out the logistics of “how to make astatewide electronic library possible.” Twolibrarians from each type of library – uni-versity, community college, public school(K-12) and public – were asked to serve.Although many of those pioneering librar-ians have either retired or moved on tojobs in other states, their contributions liveon.

In 1997, there were only a handful ofstates that had the kind of consortia wecould “pattern” ourselves after – and thevendors which offered the products wewere considering were often “caught”without established pricing guidelines. Tosay that the steering committee helpedpush, drive and even determine some ofthe database marketplace at that momentwould not be an understatement.

The original funding earmarked by thelegislature to create MAGNOLIA camedirectly out of the IHL and community col-lege boards’ budgets. IHL became thepass-through agency for the payment ofMAGNOLIA’s bills for a number of years.Eventually, the Mississippi Library Com-mission agreed to take on that responsibil-ity and has been processing the invoicesfor payment ever since – with the state leg-islature providing the funding for the pur-chase of the database access.

The steering committee hadto keep several things in mind

as it began its work: 1. the consortium must work

out a way to provideaccess to database info-

mation for all publicly-funded institutions – as perthe state legislature;

2. the consortium was toprovide access to database

information helpful to alltypes of publicly-funded

libraries, including those sup-porting the K-12 institutions;

3. the legislature wanted all of the moneyit had earmarked for this purpose to beused to purchase access to information– i.e., not to hire a director, a staff, orto maintain an office.To that end, librarians from the various

types of libraries were recruited to serve onthe many working sub-committees thatwere formed. These scores of volunteercommittee members came together inJackson – often meeting each other com-ing and going along our state’s highways.Remember: these were the days before“virtual” meetings!

Some of the more important questionsthese sub-committees were asked to solveincluded which vendors to select whilestaying within the amount of money wehad been “given,” how to tame the tech-nological issues, how to train folks andhow to get the word out. Ultimately, theproblems were solved, the databasesselected, and the MAGNOLIA Project wasborn in 1997 – offering information fromdatabases from a variety of vendors forFREE!

The MAGNOLIA Project has changedsome over the past ten years, but itsimpact on the way in which we all providelibrary services within Mississippi hasremained significant. For example,because of the MAGNOLIA Project, ayoung high school student in the Deltanow has access to much of the same peri-odical information that is contained in thebest college and university libraries any-where in the nation. �

Mississippi Library AssociationPO Box 13687Jackson, MS 39236-3687Office Hours: 9 a.m. – 1 p.m. M, Tu, Th, FE-mail: [email protected] Executive Secretary: Mary Julia AndersonMLA Web site: http://misslib.orgWebmaster: Molly Signs McManus, [email protected]

Catherine A. NathanPresidentTitle: DirectorInstitution: First Regional LibraryE-mail: [email protected]: 662-429-4439

Jeff SlagellVice President/President-electTitle: Director of Library ServicesInstitution: Roberts-Laforge Library/DSUE-mail: [email protected]: 662-846-4441

Otha KeysSecretaryTitle: Media SpecialistInstitution: South Jones High SchoolE-mail: [email protected]: 601-477-9199

Carol D. GreenTreasurerTitle: Serials Librarian/Assoc. Prof.Institution: Univ. of Southern Miss.E-mail: [email protected]: 601-266-4476

Susan S. CassagneImmediate Past PresidentTitle:DirectorInstitution: Natchez Adams Wilkinson Lib. Serv.E-mail: [email protected]: 601-445-8862

Robert LipscombALA CouncilorTitle: DirectorInstitution: Harrison County Lib. Sys.E-mail: [email protected]: 228-868-1383

Mary Beth ApplinSELA CouncilorTitle: Instructional CoordinatorInstitution: Cook Library - USME-mail: [email protected]: 601-266-4245

Mary Julia AndersonMLA Executive SecretaryPO Box 13687Jackson, MS 39236-3687Phone: 601-981-4586 Fax: 601-981-4501E-mail: [email protected]

Molly McManusParliamentarianTitle: Pub. Serv. Coord. & Systems LibrarianInstitution: Millsaps-Wilson College LibraryE-mail: [email protected]: 601-974-1086

2007 Sections

ACRL SectionChair: Margaret Jane [email protected]

Public LibrariesChair: Marsha [email protected]

School LibrariesChair: Diane [email protected]

Special LibrariesChair: Tracy [email protected]

TrusteesChair: Randy [email protected]

For additional information and a list of committees androundtables, see the Mississippi Library Association’sWeb site at http://www.misslib.org/.

PRESIDENT’S PAGE

Catherine A. Nathan

Mississippi Libraries Vol. 71, No. 1, Spring 2007 Page 2

A Quarterly Publication of the ISSN 0194-388X

Mississippi Library Association

©2007

EDITORIAL STAFF

EDITOR

Elizabeth StephanJD Williams Library

The University of MississippiUniversity, MS [email protected]

662-915-6628

ASSISTANT EDITOR

Lauren YoungRowland Medical Library

The University of Mississippi Medical Center2500 North State Street

Jackson, MS [email protected]

COPY EDITOR

Tisha ZelnerThe University of Southern Mississippi

[email protected]

BUSINESS MANAGER

Tisha ZelnerThe University of Southern Mississippi

[email protected]

ADVERTISING EDITOR

Missy MurpheyThe University of Mississippi

[email protected]

REPORTER

Tina HarryThe University of Mississippi

[email protected]

BOOK REVIEW EDITOR

Christina TorbertThe University of Mississippi

[email protected]

MLA PUBLICITY

COMMITTEE CHAIR

David BrownFirst Regional [email protected]

INDEXER

Shirlene StognerThe University of Southern Mississippi

[email protected]

President’s Page ................................................................................................1

Tackling Technology ..........................................................................................3Elizabeth Stephan, Editor, Mississippi Libraries

Library 101 Online & the Mississippi Delta: Reaching the Remote..............4Paula Webb, Serials/Interlibrary Loan Librarian, Roberts-LaForge Library, Delta State University

MSU Libraries’ Implementation of Federated Search Software .....................8Marybeth F. Grimes, Associate Professor/Reference Librarian, Mississippi State University Libraries, Mississippi State University

Using RSS to Push Electronic Resources to the Patron: Giving Power to the Patron .............................................................................11Steven Turner, Associate Professor and Library Web Services Manager, The University of Southern Mississippi Libraries, The University of Southern Mississippi

Renovating the Library Web Site: A Case Study ..........................................16Debra A. Riley-Huff, Web Services/Reference Librarian, Assistant Professor, J.D. Williams Library, University of Mississippi

Lamar County Library System’s Experience with

Thin-Client Computing ...................................................................................20Jeanne Crider, Director, Lamar County Library System; Jaketha Farmer, Training and Technology Specialist, Lamar County Library System

MLA Officer Nominees.........................................................................................24About Books........................................................................................................27People in the News ..............................................................................................29News Briefs .........................................................................................................30MLA Executive Board Minutes ..............................................................................31MLA Membership Form........................................................................................34

This month’s cover is one half of the diptych Highway 45 by Norma Sanders Bourdeaux. Bourdeaux received her Master ofFine Arts degree in painting from the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Mississippi. Her work was also featured on the

Winter 2005 Mississippi Libraries. Bourdeaux has shown her paintings in various exhibits including the 2003 MississippiInvitational in Jackson, Mississippi. Her work is in numerous collections, including the aircraft carrier John C. Stennis.

She resides in Meridian, Mississippi. Bourdeaux can be reached at 601-482-2964 or 662-234-0022.

Mississippi Libraries is a publication of the Mississippi Library Association (MLA). The articles, reports, and features here-in represent the viewpoints of their respective authors and are not necessarily the official opinions of the Association.

Subscription Rates: $16.00 per year ($4.00 per issue); $24.00 per year outside of the U.S.; free to MLA members.Back issues are available from University Microfilms International.

Advertising Rates: Rates are available upon request from the Advertising Editor. Advertising Deadlines: Spring: February 10; Summer: May 10; Fall: August 10; Winter: November 10Submissions: Manuscripts must be submitted in electronic format in Microsoft Word, WordPerfect, or ASCII text format.

Documents can be sent as an attachment via e-mail or on a CD-ROM or a 31⁄2 inch disk via surface mail. Deadlines for submission: Spring: February 2; Summer: May 2; Fall: August 2; Winter: November 2.In order to assure the widest possible audience for the work published in Mississippi Libraries, that work is added in elec-

tronic form to the Mississippi Library Association Web site and, by contractual agreement, to one or more EBSCO Publishingdatabases. Mississippi Libraries is also indexed in Library Literature and Information Sciences Abstracts.

Dues must be paid by March 1 in order to receive the Spring issue of Mississippi Libraries.

Contents


Tackling TechnologyElizabeth Stephan

Editor, Mississippi LibrariesBusiness Reference Librarian

J. D. Williams LibraryThe University of Mississippi

Love it or hate it, technology is here tostay. It’s been “here” for a long time; it’sjust been in different formats. As an under-grad I remember using the so-called“dummy terminals” in the library at North-west Missouri State University to searchthe catalog. It seemed like such anadvanced system at the time; now it seemslike ancient technology.

When I started library school in 2001,we had MadCat, the university online cata-log. I graduated with my B.A. shortlybefore my university changed to an onlinecatalog, so when I began to work at the ref-erence desk as a grad student, the onlyexperience I had with an OPAC was the lit-tle bit of searching I had done at home (sothat I wouldn’t look like an idiot the firsttime someone asked me a question). Ipicked it up pretty quickly, though: while Idon’t always understand how differenttypes of technology work, I can figure outhow to use them fairly readily.

See, I’m one of those people whoknow just enough to be dangerous. I’m amad clicker. My theory has always been:“They build these things so the user can’tmess them up.” I’m not sure how true thatis since I’ve messed up a few things in mylifetime. Despite that, I keep on clicking.Madly.

This issue is dedicated to technology intoday’s library. “Technology” and “library”go hand in hand these days, and we arecovering several different areas and severaldifferent levels of expertise. (If you readsome of these articles and wonder what allthe coding means, don’t worry – it’s pret-ty much a foreign language to me, too.) Inthis issue we’ll look at technology andinstruction, federated searching, RSSfeeds, Web design, and thin-client comput-

ing. It’s kind of a mixed bag, but technol-ogy has become synonymous with manyaspects of librarianship, so an issue devot-ed to techie issues is bound to cover manytopics.

Distance learning and distance educa-tion seem to be growing trends at manyuniversities; the distance learning programat the University of Mississippi continues togrow every year. Paula Webb noticed thesame trend at Delta State University.Librarians at Delta State teach a successfulLibrary 101 course, and Webb began towonder how she could reach students thatwere strictly off campus. In her article,“Library 101 & the Mississippi Delta:Reaching the Remote,” Webb describesthe process of developing and teaching anonline version of Library 101.

Metasearch engines are no longer thenewest thing, but a couple of years agolibraries all over the country were experi-menting with federated searching. In fall2004, Mississippi State Universityreviewed several metasearch engines, set-tling on ExLibris’ MetaLib. In her article,“MSU Libraries Implementation of Feder-ated Search Software,” Marybeth Grimes,reference librarian at MSU, outlines howtheir system was set up and what chal-lenges librarians faced with instruction anduse. Grimes also provides an update ofhow MetaLib has been received, used, andchanged since its implementation in fall2005.

RSS (rich site summary) feeds arebecoming more commonplace on libraryWeb sites – both on main sites and on sub-ject guides and similar pages that areupdated frequently. How are RSS feedsbeing used by our own libraries? In hisarticle, “Using RSS to Push ElectronicResources to the Patron: Giving Power tothe Patron,” Steve Turner, Library WebServices Manager at the University ofSouthern Mississippi, explains how RSSfeeds have been implemented at USM.Turner also gives examples of RSS code –

from USM as well as other already-estab-lished feeds, like that of the New YorkTimes.

The University of Mississippi is in themiddle of a major redesign of its Web site.Trying to redesign an entire library Website without restricting access or downtimeis difficult. In her article, “Renovating theLibrary Web Site: A Case Study,” DebraRiley-Huff, Web Services/ReferenceLibrarian at the University of Mississippi,describes the project thus far. Phase I,which included the redesign of the homepage, header, footer, and some secondarypages, was recently completed. Riley-Huffdetails the goals of the redesign as well asthe timeline and process of the project.

We’ve covered Web design, federatedsearching, RSS feeds, and online instruc-tion, and now we turn to networking. Fiveyears ago, the Lamar County Library Sys-tem switched to thin-client computing.Jeanne Crider, director, and JakethaFarmer, training and technology specialistat the Lamar County Library System,describe issues they have had with thin-client computing in their article “LamarCounty Library System’s Experience withThin-Client Computing.” Crider andFarmer discuss the issues they faced aswell as the pros and cons involved withusing thin-client computing versus person-al computers.

MLA elections are around the corner.Information on all candidates can be foundin this issue.

The summer issue of MississippiLibraries will be on collaboration. A cou-ple of years ago we had an issue devotedto collaboration between different types oflibraries. In the summer issue we want tolook at the collaboration of libraries withnon-library organizations or institutions. Ifyou have an idea for an article for the sum-mer issue, please contact me [email protected]. The fall issue willbe devoted to grant writing. Any tips? Sug-gestions? Let us know. �


Library 101 Online & the MississippiDelta: Reaching the Remote

Paula WebbSerials/Interlibrary Loan Librarian

Roberts-LaForge LibraryDelta State University

Abstract

Natural barriers of rolling hills make themiles and miles of flatland appear as if theMississippi Delta is another state entirely.Spotted with numerous towns and villageswith populations as small as a few hun-dred people to over fifteen thousand, theMississippi Delta does not boast largecities or metro areas. The MississippiDelta and its people are in a land untothemselves. Technology and Internetaccess in homes are quickly changing thelandscape. Library 101, along with othercourses offered at Delta State University,are using technological advances to edu-cate those students who live in the remoteareas of the Delta.

Introduction

A significant problem in the MississippiDelta is that in an area two hundred mileslong and seventy miles wide (Cobb), anarea larger than the state of New Jersey,there are only three community colleges,one university that teaches up to a master’sdegree level, and one that teaches up to adoctoral level. The community collegeslocated in the Mississippi Delta are Missis-sippi Delta Community College, Coa-homa Community College, and NorthwestMississippi Community College. The oneuniversity that offers courses up to master’s

degree level is Mississippi Valley State Uni-versity and the one school that providesdegrees at the bachelor’s, master’s, anddoctoral levels is Delta State University.These institutions, while scattered through-out the Delta, can prove to be too far awayfrom potential students’ homes to allowthem to attain any form of college-leveleducation.

Technology has changed this scenarioin recent years. According to TechnologyUse in the Mississippi Delta: A SummaryReport from the 2003 Delta Rural Poll:

Computers and the Internet canbe valuable tools for rural fami-lies. Many rural residents musttravel long distances to accessnecessary services, such as med-ical care, shopping, and educa-tion. Computers and Internetconnections can provide ruralfamilies instant access to theseand other services, as well asbetter communications with dis-tant family, friends and col-leagues. (Barton)

Despite the lag behind urban and sub-urban homes with computers, there is anincrease in homes in the Delta that havecomputers. Delta residents are seekinghigher education and one of the best waysis by attending classes at Delta State Uni-versity online.

Background of the Project

In 2004, I noticed a drastic increase instudents taking classes offered only online.While we have a very successful Library101 course available to our students oncampus, I realized we were not providingthe same service to those students whowere strictly off campus. I began toresearch what options were available toteach Library 101 in an online environment.

In the fall of 2004, Delta State Univer-sity offered Winter Technology InstituteAwards to train faculty to apply WebCT, ane-learning system for higher educationinstitutions, in their instruction courses. I

applied and received the award, with anintensive week of training in January2005.

During the training, Dr. Felix Rizvanov,the Director of the Technology LearningCenter at Delta State University, and vari-ous other faculty experienced in the use ofWebCT taught us how to use the instruc-tional software to create online courses.We learned about setting up and designingour individual classes. We were taughthow to give assignments and have class-room discussions using the tools providedby WebCT.

With the assistance of Dr. Rizvanov, thefaculty assistants, and other award winners,I began the construction of the onlineLibrary 101 course. Since all participantsin this session were faculty who instructedin the Mississippi Delta, I asked them whattype of training the students would needand how Library 101 online could meetthat need.

The English and nursing faculty wereespecially interested and advised that I pro-vide good directions on how to accessdatabases such as Academic Search Pre-mier, CINAHL, and other EBSCOhostdatabases. I took their advice and incorpo-rated this training into the class coursework.

Overview of the Library 101 Online

Course

The concept of the Library 101 onlineinstruction course took an entire year toresearch, develop, and apply. I met withmembers of the Delta State referencedepartment, currently responsible forLibrary 101 instruction, numerous times. Isought from them advice on teachingmethods, their patterns of instruction, andhow best to communicate with the students.

In addition, I researched online libraryinstruction coursework offered at other uni-versities and publicly accessible throughthe Internet. Among the best Web sites Ivisited were the College of San MateoLibrary’s Library Studies 101 Course,Seattle Central Community College’s

Paula Webb designed an online instructional course,Library 101, to reach out to those unable to come toa classroom. Photo by Dianne Schattner.

Introduction to Information Services, andResearch Survival Online by Portland StateUniversity. I looked at these sites to get anidea of the best methods for teachinglibrary instruction principles online.

I then took the information I gatheredfrom our reference librarians and the data Igathered from the research of online infor-mation literacy courses and molded it intoone Library 101 online course.

Course Collaboration

I wanted the online instructional courseI was creating to be of the same caliber aswhat the reference librarians were offering.Their teaching methods were meeting thelibrary instruction needs of students fromthe Delta and I wanted to do the same.

I did realize, however, that an onlineclass could not be taught in the same wayas a face-to-face class. If one of the refer-ence librarians wanted to teach their classabout the Library of Congress Classifica-tion System, all they needed to do wasshow them the books on a shelf at theRoberts-LaForge Library. I had to developa different way of accomplishing this goal.

Developing a different instructionalmethod was not my only concern. I had todecide the best method for one-on-oneinteraction with the students. I needed todevelop assignments and quizzes to testtheir knowledge. I was concerned that thestudents would feel disconnected and not apart of the class. I wondered how I wasgoing to communicate with them.

Course Development

I wanted the students to experiencethree distinct levels of library instruction.The first level was a general knowledge ofhow a library worked and was arranged.The second level was how the generalknowledge of a library was applied to theRoberts-LaForge Library. Finally, the thirdlevel of library instruction existed in theweekly assignments. In these assignments,the students had to apply the knowledgethey learned from the previous two levels.

If I was instructing this class in a face-to-face learning environment, I would haveused general knowledge about libraries as apart of the in-class discussion. What could Iuse in place of this sort of interaction?

In researching other online Library 101courses, I found that almost all of thecoursework required either a textbook orextra reading of some sort. The College ofSan Mateo used The College Student’sResearch Companion, 3rd Edition byArlene Rodda Quaratiello, and SeattleCentral Community College librarianswent so far as to create their own textbooktitled Research Methods and Strategies: ATextbook for Library 101 at SCCC.

I looked at both of these textbooks anddecided to use the publication byQuaratiello for my class as well. Whenevaluating the text, I thought it coveredlibrary instruction very well. I did not find ittoo wordy and felt the average college stu-dent could follow its principles.

In addition to using the textbook tocover general topics, I also used eachchapter to define one week of work. Forexample, chapter three of the textbook wastitled “Reading the Map: Library Organiza-tion.” The chapter went over the basics ofLibrary of Congress and Dewey Decimalclassification systems. Week four of myonline library instruction course, titled“Library Organization,” covered the samematerial.

One chapter of work being equal to oneweek of work was acceptable for the mostpart. However, there were instances inwhich a week was not long enough tocover each chapter. In the case of chapterfour’s section on reference resources, Iused it to cover week five and six of myclass instruction. In breaking down thematerial, plenty of time was given to goover the materials without the studentsbecoming overwhelmed.

The next level of library instruction wasapplying the general knowledge to theRoberts-LaForge Library specifically. I cre-ated PowerPoint presentations that took the

general information the student read andapplied it to how the library works at DeltaState University. For example, chapterthree talks about library organization, and Ineeded to find some way of explaininghow to find a book using the Library ofCongress Classification System.

I worked to copy the process by usingMicrosoft PowerPoint and screen shots todo a step-by-step description of how to finda certain book in the catalog. I taught thestudents how to look at the call number tofind its location at the Roberts-LaForgeLibrary. Then, using a digital camera, Itook photos of the call numbers on variousbooks in the library, working my waytoward the actual book. I finalized thesearch by taking a photo of the book at itsshelf location. I pasted the screen shotsand the photos in the proper order to givea virtual explication on how to find a bookon the shelf using Library of Congress callnumbers.

The coursework finally attained thethird level of instruction by having studentscomplete weekly hands-on assignments.One of my assignments required studentsto find two books using the Library of Con-gress Classification System and two booksusing the Dewey Decimal ClassificationSystem. In this assignment, they had tosubmit the title of the books, the call num-ber of the books and tell me what type ofcall number it was.

Using WebCT, I was able to see if anyof the PowerPoint presentations I createdwere viewed by the students. By giving theweekly assignments, I was able to tell ifthey were learning any of the material I wasteaching. In an effort to make sure theywere also reading the textbook, I createdtwo quizzes in WebCT that were basedcompletely on the textbook and worthmore points than the individual assign-ments.

Communication

One of the largest problems with class-es that are taught in an online-only envi-

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ronment is that some feel they are not partof an actual class. In response to this, mygoal for this course was to try to removethis barrier. I wanted the students to knowthey were a part of the entire class, knowother people in the class, and not focusonly on me.

For this class, I tried something differ-ent. I asked my class to meet and discusstopics at Facebook. If they did not have aFacebook page already created, then Iasked them to create one. I created myown Facebook page and used a picture ofone of the library rows as my photo. Inaddition, I told them some of my likes anddislikes, giving them an idea of who I was.

I created a Group page on Facebooktitled “Library 101 at Delta State Universi-ty.” I asked all of my students to join thisgroup page. As members of this group,they were able to see each other’s Face-book profile and get better acquainted witheach other. With this format, I could sendall my students the same discussionassignment. Also, they could post theirfindings and talk to each other at thegroup site.

I originally had my doubts concerning theuse of Facebook as a form of communica-tion, but I quickly discovered that theadvantages greatly outweighed the disad-vantages. Not only was I able to getresponses from many of my students morequickly than by e-mail, but I was also ableto get to know them individually by theirprofiles on Facebook. In my opinion,using Facebook was the best route forgroup communication with a moderatenumber of students in an online course.

In the case of one of my students, shewas not allowed to use Facebook at work,but she was permitted to use instant mes-saging, another great communication tool.The student knew my office hours and wasable to reach me whenever she had a prob-lem with the assignments or concepts Iwas teaching.

Despite the great use of Web 2.0 tech-nology, a back up location is always need-ed to communicate. In our case, standarde-mail was the best system for sending filesand assignments that didn’t load properlyinto WebCT the first time or for when anurgent reply was not needed.

Lessons Learned

My experience instructing Library 101in a completely online environment wasinvaluable. You can create the class andtheoretically guess how students willrespond to the lessons, but it is an entirelydifferent matter to see the actual results. Itdid not take me long to discover those stu-dents who were very organized and thosewho were not. I also had to remember thatmany of my students had various liferesponsibilities, resulting in the need to beflexible with deadlines.

In regard to the syllabus and classexpectations, I tried to be very detailed withdirections for the work of each week.While you, as the instructor, may under-stand and present the material in one man-ner, the student will understand it fromanother perspective. I encountered this sit-uation when I was setting up the class for-mat. I didn’t want to grade all of the assign-ments during the last few days of thesemester, so when I set up the releaseschedule for the assignments in WebCT, Ionly made them accessible one week at atime. I thought this was self-explanatory,but quickly discovered it was not.


In the syllabus, I implied that the assign-ments were available on a weekly basis,but I never actually put that down in writ-ing. This caused confusion among someof the students, resulting in their assign-ments being turned in late or not at all.They assumed they had until the end of thesemester to complete their assignments,like other online courses they took.

One of the greatest advantages to offer-ing Library 101 online was that my stu-dents could read the lesson, watch the

PowerPoints, and do their homework any-where in the Delta. Students attended myclass from all locations in Mississippiincluding Greenville, Shaw and Benoit. Inone case, I had a student turning in workwhen they were visiting family as far awayas Memphis, Tennessee.

Conclusion

I believe that my attempt to provideLibrary 101 services to those studentswho could not attend class on campus

was successful. In fact, after viewing theadvantages of an online version of thiscourse, two of our reference librarianshave agreed to create an online Library101 course to be taught next year at DeltaState University.

Creating and instructing Library 101online for students in the Mississippi Deltahas taught me an important principle.Technology is a viable pathway for expand-ing library research skills and it is never toolate to explore this route. �

References

Barton, Alan W. and Roshun Williams. Tech-nology Use in the Mississippi Delta: A Sum-mary Report from the 2003 Delta Rural Poll.Policy Paper No. 05-01, Center for Communi-ty and Economic Development. July 2005.

Cobb, James C. The Most Southern Place onEarth: The Mississippi Delta and the Roots ofRegional Identity. Oxford University Press.1994.

College of San Mateo Library’s Library Studies101Course. http://smccd.net/accounts/gibbsd/101syllabus.htm. Accessed December5, 2006.

Librarians of Seattle Central Community Col-lege Library. Research Methods and Strate-gies: A Textbook for Library 101 at SCCC.http://dept.sccd.ctc.edu/cclib/Instruction/textbook.pdf. Accessed December 5, 2006.

Quaratiello, Arlene. The College Student’sResearch Companion, 3rd ed. Neal-Schuman:New York. 2003.

Seattle Central Community College’s Introduc-tion to Information Services. http://www.seattlecentral.org/faculty/kmicha/lib101/index.htm. Accessed December 5, 2006.

Research Survival Online by Portland StateUniversity http://www.lib.pdx.edu/instruction/survivalguide/index.htm. Accessed Decem-ber 5, 2006.


MSU Libraries’ Implementation of Federated Search Software

Marybeth F. GrimesAssociate Professor/Reference Librarian

Mississippi State University LibrariesMississippi State University

Abstract

Mississippi State University (MSU)Libraries wanted to provide its patronswith a way to simultaneously search mul-tiple databases using one uniform inter-face; therefore, in the fall 2004 semester,librarians reviewed several federatedsearch programs. The administrationdecided to purchase Ex Libris’ MetaLib®and asked the head of systems administra-tion and several librarians to form a taskforce to oversee this new metasearchengine.

Overview of MetaLib

MetaLib, Version 3, allows patrons tofind journal and magazine articles, books,e-journals, and other material by searchingany of five different modules. Each modulemay be customized by the institutions thatlicense the software. While each moduleallows users to search multiple databases atonce, two modules require librarians toorganize products into categories, thus giv-ing students and faculty the ability tosearch specific topics easily. QuickSearchis targeted for novice users; librarians havethe option of creating several categories,and identifying databases to go within eachcategory, to help patrons new to electronicsearching with their information needs. Forexample, one category may be called,“Find information for Speech Class!” withAcademic Search Premier and the online

catalog as the databases to search. WithMetaSearch, not only can librarians identi-fy categories, they can also create subcate-gories within as many categories as theyneed. MetaSearch allows advancedsearchers to see easily what databases aninstitution has under a certain topic, or cat-egory, and what databases are useful forsubtopics, or subcategories. For example,librarians can create a category called Lib-eral Arts and have many databases listedunder that heading, and have a subcatego-ry of Literature with two to five databasesrelated to that subject listed. Patrons havethe ability to select and search databasesfrom the list under the main category, picka subcategory, or pick both a subcategoryand databases from within the category tosearch. “Find Databases” allows patrons tofind their favorite database and search its

Flowchart outlining MetaSearch categories.


native interface, and patrons can find elec-tronic journals through “E-Journals.”Users who want to pick and choose theirown databases to search can manage theirown personal data with “My Space.”

MSU Libraries assigned different com-mittees to work with two of MetaLib’s mod-ules, “QuickSearch” and “MetaSearch.”The associate dean of public services andother members of public services met todiscuss how to organize “Quick Search”to meet our patrons’ needs. The task forceasked the Reference Electronic EvaluationCommittee (REEC) to develop the“MetaSearch” module to serve the univer-sity community. This paper explains theprocess the committee underwent to createthe categories and subcategories neededfor this metasearch process.

History of REEC

The head of the reference departmentcreated REEC about ten years ago to eval-uate the newest form of reference tools,electronic indexes and abstracts. Since, forthe most part, these products directlyreplaced print indexes and abstracts, itmade sense for all members of the refer-ence department to belong to this commit-tee. REEC established and followed poli-cies and procedures to evaluate theseproducts and made formal recommenda-tions to the library administration. Over theyears, electronic versions of more than justindexes and abstracts have become avail-able; journals, reference books, govern-ment materials, and Web sites all neededto be tested and reviewed. Three yearsago, REEC expanded its membership andits scope. Current membership includes allof the reference librarians and staff, librari-ans from government documents andlibrary instruction, the head of serials, andthe head of systems administration. Thescope of REEC has become ambiguous.Some products, such as reference booksin electronic form (i.e., Mental Measure-ment Yearbook), and those with librarywide impact, such as electronic books(i.e., NetLibrary) are discussed by other

groups. REEC tests and evaluates electron-ic products, makes recommendations tothe library administration, approves whichfree resources, generally Web sites, shouldbe added to the list of indexes and data-bases, and keeps up-to-date with newsoftware and upgraded versions of exist-ing products.

MetaSearch Categories and

Subcategories

In May 2005, the MetaLib task forcecharged REEC to identify the“MetaSearch” categories and to identifythe databases/resources that should beincluded in each category within the mod-ule. The committee first had to understandhow the “MetaSearch” process wouldwork. Since the new software was not yetoperational on site, the committee lookedat several other university libraries that usethis software to see how they organize theirmaterials. Members had many questions,including the following: software compati-bility amongst the different products,which patrons the libraries anticipatedusing this search feature, and how toorganize a huge number of databases(over 150) into a small number of cate-gories (less than 20).

REEC’s first step was to agree on whichpatrons would be likely to use the“MetaSearch” function. The membersbelieved that lower level college students(i.e., freshmen and sophomores) woulduse “QuickSearch.” Upper level under-graduates, graduate students, and facultywould more likely use “MetaSearch,”since it allows users to search multipledatabases at once. Next, the committeefocused on creating the categories withinthe module. Since it would be very difficultto change them at a later date, REECneeded to agree on the purpose and thename of each category. Members lookedat the existing list of indexes and databasesand agreed to use many current subjectheadings as future categories. The com-mittee wanted the groupings to reflect boththe academic programs offered at MSU

and the libraries’ collections. Therefore,they initially came up with fifteen cate-gories: General Reference, Catalogs, Artsand Humanities, Social Sciences, Educa-tion, Law, Government Documents, Busi-ness, Sciences, Engineering, Health Sci-ences, Agriculture, Life Sciences, Archi-tecture, and Veterinary Medicine.

MetaLib allows institutions to providesubcategories for each category. REEChad a hard time thinking of potential sub-categories without knowing which databas-es would go into each category. As chair ofREEC, I asked everyone to put all the elec-tronic products (150+!) into whichevercategory or categories they thought eachone belonged; I then compiled all the listsinto a spreadsheet so the committee couldsee each other person’s placements. Someproducts fit neatly into one category, manybelonged in several places, a few seemedto go into every category, and a few werehard to place into any grouping.

It became obvious that everyonethought certain databases transcended sub-ject areas and needed to be in every cate-gory, so the committee created a subcate-gory, General, for every category exceptGeneral Reference and Catalogs. Databas-es for this subcategory include: AcademicSearch Premier, Dissertation Abstracts,LexisNexis Academic, WorldCat, Newspa-per Source, Web of Science, Galaxy (theonline catalog), ArticleFirst, and Directoryof Open Access Journals (DOAJ). SinceREEC put all of these databases into “Gen-eral Reference,” and since it is not applica-ble to “Catalogs,” there was no need forthe General subcategory in these twomodules.

Using the master list, members spentseveral days eliminating and addingresources to each category, and createdsubcategories for those groups that neededthem. REEC recognized that the first cate-gory, General Reference, meant nothing tothe majority of users, but needed to placeseveral disparate databases together andcall it something, and came up with thatname. The committee also came up with

four subcategories: Reference, Biogra-phies, Papers, and News; the resources,generally speaking, fell neatly into one ofthose areas.

Members created Catalogs to allowpatrons to search multiple online catalogs;the next category, Arts and Humanities,proved more problematic. Since this mod-ule involved several different subject areas,REEC agreed that it needed seven subcat-egories: General, Literature, History, FineArts, Religion/Philosophy, Music, andInterdisciplinary. This way, a patron couldfind, for example, all the history databaseseasily without having to go through a list oftwenty-six titles.

The next category, Social Sciences,proved to be the most difficult challenge.The committee spent a lot of time dis-cussing the name, the subject areas, andthe databases belonging to this category.REEC came up with ten subcategories toreflect the thirty-six resources: General,Psychology, Interdisciplinary, Communi-cation, Library Science, Sociology/Anthropology/Social Work, Economics,Political Science, History, and Geography.The members had few problems with thenext four categories: Education, Law, Gov-ernment Documents, and Business. OnlyGovernment Documents, with Federal,State, and International, has more than justthe General subcategory attached to it.

Committee members could not agreeon how patrons would use the Science cat-egory. Some though it should be a clear-inghouse for all the science related data-bases, while others thought it should havethe large, popular science/agriculture/engineering databases in it. In the end, thecommittee agreed this category wouldhelp those patrons in physics, chemistry,mathematics, geosciences, and other relat-ed fields. The thirteen databases in Sci-ences reflect this thought.

Almost everyone listed the same data-bases for the Engineering category; onlyone or two needed to be added to com-plete the list of seventeen titles. Someresources for the Health Sciences category

appeared to go in other groupings, buteventually everyone agreed to the list offorty-one electronic products.

After seeing that the next two cate-gories, Agriculture and Life Sciences,shared all but three databases, it becameobvious to combine them into one catego-ry, ‘Agriculture and Life Sciences,’ with thelargest number of resources, fifty-twoattached to it. The last two categories,Architecture and Veterinary Medicine, aredesigned to help faculty and students inthose two schools.

Ultimately, the committee created four-teen categories, with four having morethan one subcategory. Nine have only one,General, because members could not seethe need for more. Only one, Catalogs,has no subcategories. While not everyoneagreed where every database should go (orshould not go), the committee always triedto anticipate the needs of the libraries’users. After much discussion, and debate,REEC created an excellent way foradvanced users to find multiple relateddatabases they may or may not havethought of on their own, and to searchthem in one easy step. As the final stepbefore sending a report to the task force, Ishared this list of categories, subcate-gories, and databases with the library facul-ty and asked for their suggestions, ques-tions, and/or concerns. I received severalthoughtful and helpful comments and thecommittee implemented many into the list.The libraries’ implemented MetaLib, withall its search features, before the fall 2005semester started.

Librarians and staff at MSU Libraries’anticipated the huge impact MetaLibwould have on its users. Many depart-ments, including reference, library instruc-tion, and the branch libraries, experienceda change in how they help patrons findinformation. Every librarian had to discussthis new search engine with their assigneddepartments. Faculty and students hadmany opportunities to express their opin-ions on how the categories and databaseswere arranged.

Update

MetaLib has been available for ourpatrons for two years, and we’ve noticedseveral things about its use. One is thatthe undergraduates like the QuickSearchfunction. They have twelve categories tochoose from, including Business, Biogra-phy, Education, Humanities/History,Term Paper Due, Current Events, Engi-neering, Science, Literature and More,Agriculture, Health/Medicine, and SocialSciences. Each category has one to sixpre-selected databases in it; the studentsbullet whichever category they want, putin their search words, and enter. Theydon’t know, or seem to care, which data-bases they are searching; they’re justinterested in the results. The second thingis that a few of our databases are not com-patible with the federated software. Thishas proved challenging to us to remem-ber when teaching classes and helpingpatrons. Finally, it may be that our facultyare not utilizing the categories andMySpace as effectively as possible. Thisspring, the REEC will evaluate MetaLibby looking at the usage statistics andsharing anecdotal information. It may bethat we find some categories and subcat-egories are working better than others. �


Members of REEC: Newkirk Barnes,Bradley Brazzeal, Jessica Buehring,Maria Collins, Ida Cunetto, StephenCunetto, Karen Davidson, ChristineFletcher, Cindy Harris, MarybethGrimes (chair), Deborah Lee, andGail Peyton. Harry Llull made signifi-cant contributions to this project aswell.

The author would like to thank PaulGrimes for his editorial assistance.


Using RSS to Push Electronic Resources to the Patron:

Giving Power to the PatronSteven Turner

Associate Professor and Library Web Services Manager

The University of Southern Mississippi Libraries

The University of Southern Mississippi

Abstract

Steven Turner, Library Web Services Man-ager at the University of Southern Missis-sippi, explains RSS technology, its libraryapplications, and details the process ofimplementing RSS feeds at USMLibraries. Turner includes onlineresources that proved helpful in thisprocess. This is a useful article for thosewanting to understand this technologyand those wanting to offer the technologyto patrons.

About RSS

Much has already been written aboutRSS, an XML language subset (or dialect)originally created by Netscape in the mid-nineties for the Netscape Browser’s Chan-nels environment (Celikbas 2004). Manylibraries have taken advantage of this XMLdialect to further their institution’s reach, toprovide more effective resource discoveryand presentation to patrons, and to gener-ally make their own lives easier as theyattempt to discover, dissect and presentsalient information to their patrons. TheUniversity of Southern MississippiLibraries is no different than any otherlibrary in our attempts to fulfill the afore-mentioned goals. This article will explainhow we explored the advantages of RSSuse as part of our attempt to meet thosegoals, and of our subsequent implementa-tion of RSS with our e-resources andlibrary news items.

The questions that beg asking, and thathave already been extensively explored innumerous books and articles, are what isRSS and why is it important to my library?

At its most basic, RSS (an acronym for‘RDF or Rich Site Summary’) is essential-ly a specialized markup language – a sim-plified version (subset, child or dialect) ofXML that provides a simple list of tags todescribe content from a Web site. ThisRSS-tagged content is usually called a‘feed,’ as in ‘RSS feed’ or ‘XML feed.’Content published or distributed by a Website is often referred to as being ‘syndicat-ed’ since “information is being shared withother sites at the same time” (Celikbas2004). The type of content presented asan RSS feed is often transient or active innature and generated from a dynamicsource such as a database, e.g., newspa-per articles, news items, news headlines,new items in a library catalog, and databas-es.

For example, if you were using RSS toserve news articles, then the RSS tagswould mark up, delineate and identify spe-cific sections of the feed such as the articletitle, the article content or an associatedimage. Tags can contain data elements fur-ther describing or more accurately describ-ing the surrounded content (see Fig. 1).

[Fig.1] New York Times feed example

<rss version=”2.0”><channel><title>NYT > Art andDesign</title><link>http://www.nytimes.com/pages/arts/design/index.html?part-ner=rssnyt</link><description/><language>en-us</language><copyright>Copyright 2007 TheNew York Times Company</copy-right><lastBuildDate>Thu, 4 Jan 200712:05:00 EST</lastBuildDate><image><title>NYT > Art and Design</title><url>http://graphics.nytimes.com

/images/section/NytSection Head-er.gif</url>

<link>http://www.nytimes.com/pages/arts/design/index.html</link></image><item><title>In China’s New Revolu-tion, Art GreetsCapitalism</title><link>http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/04/arts/design/04arti.html?ex=1325566800&en=ba1a6b8418c78d5a&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss</link><description>Auction frenzy isgripping the art world and inresponse hundreds of new sellersin big cities like Beijing andShanghai are putting contempo-rary experimental artworks onthe block.</description><author>DAVID BARBOZA</author><guidisPermaLink=”false”>http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/04/arts/design/04arti.html</guid><pubDate>Thu, 04 Jan 200712:01:17 EDT</pubDate></item></channel></rss>

The marked-up RSS feed can then beread by either RSS-capable browsers (suchas the Mozilla Foundation’s Firefox,Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 7 or Apple’sSafari browser) (see Fig. 2), or aggregatedby a newsreader or feed readers, which aresoftware programs built specifically to col-lect, organize and read RSS feeds. Feedreaders can be desktop-based or Web-based; online blogging tools and sites(blogger.com, for example, or MySpace)often offer integration of a feed readercomponent into a user’s blog which osten-sibly allows the blogger to incorporateRSS feeds from other Web sites directlyinto their blog pages.

Just to muddy the waters a little, therehappen to be several competing standards


of RSS – RSS 1.0, which offers moremetadata tags, RSS 2.0, which offers thedeveloper more leeway and flexibility (andis the semi-standard across the Web) andAtom, an extension of RSS 2.0 that offersthe developer a more accurate program-ming model with a more flexible output(Yue and Greene 2006).

Why Use RSS?

A primary factor in RSS popularity isthe fact that it is such a simple specifica-tion. The tags are easy for even non-XMLprogrammers to parrot or understand; cre-ation and implementation requires only agood grasp of how to pull your informationfrom a database or other data source andpresent this content as RSS marked-up text– either to what programmers call the stan-dard output or written to a text file. Theother key is the willingness and recogni-tion by various entities on the Web tounderstand the power inherent in such aneasy-to-read, easy-to-use and standardizeddescription language. Programmers sim-ply create an RSS feed using various meth-ods, and locate this feed somewhere ontheir Web site. At that point, the readingsoftware simply needs to collect that URL,

parse the results ofthe requestedpage, and thenpresent it to theuser in some fash-ion. Consequently,information suchas news headlinesor link lists can bestored in the inter-face of a browser(as in Firefox’s Livebookmarks) or anewsreader andaccessed directlywithout ever visit-ing the Web sitethat created thiscontent.

How Other

Libraries Are

Using RSS

We (USMLibraries) definitely had our ideas aboutwhat we wanted to do with RSS – presentnews and information and syndicate our e-resources. But, were we missing some-thing? What were other libraries doing withRSS in these specific areas? How werethey doing it, and were there other ideasthat we hadn’t thought of that might alsobe useful to implement? A review of thecurrent literature discussing RSS revealedsome interesting ideas and implementa-tions.

First, the idea of pushing a library‘snews and events was common andstraightforward; it seems that (almost with-out exception) libraries who use push RSSfeeds include at least one news feed. Com-mon examples include the University ofNevada Reno Libraries (Yue and Greene2006) and Hennepin County Library inMinnesota (Library Technology Reports2006). Some libraries use blogs to dis-seminate news while others use more typi-cal news-type formats or newsletter tablesof contents (TOCs). A complete list ofexamples from the literature is shownbelow:� Offer “live hyperlinks to online

resources” (Celikbas 2004)

� Present news and announcement itemsas a syndicated feed (Celikbas 2004)

� Offer lists of newly added items fromthe library catalog (Corrado andMoulaison 2006)

� Present reader’s advisory recommenda-tions (Stephens 2006)

� Broadcast podcasts (Huffman 2006)� Serve images (Yue and Greene 2006)� Create video media lists from the library

catalog (Yue and Greene 2006)� Provide current awareness or TOCs

direct from publisher Web sites (Celik-bas 2004)

� Provide current awareness of subjectmaterials from the catalog (Corrado andMoulaison 2006)

� Build self-updating subject resourcepages from the RSS feeds of otherlibrary, e-resource, internet sources andother blogs or RSS feed aggregationsites (Huffman 2006)

� Push library blog content (Yue andGreene 2006)Most importantly, RSS gives the advan-

tage to the patron. As mentioned before,library content can be “subscribed to anddisplayed everywhere, and users are nolonger forced to remember to come to oursite.” As a result, patrons are not forced touse our “proprietary interfaces” to discoverand view content. Instead, resources arepushed to them and can be navigated andviewed in a single, consistent interface(Library Technology Reports 2006).

RSS at The University of Southern

Mississippi Libraries

During the fall semester 2006, USMLibraries decided it wanted to push selectedcontent to our users via RSS. We primarilywanted to push our electronic resources,but we were also keen to provide news,alerts and announcements via RSS feeds.

RSS Feeds: The Easy Way

Fortunately, the University of SouthernMississippi Libraries had just migrated itsWeb site to MODx, an open-source con-tent management system (CMS) whichallowed any grouping of pages within theWeb site hierarchy to be syndicated as anRSS feed. Our news, events and alerts sec-

An RSS feed using Apple’s Safari browser.


tions were logically organized as groups offolders within folders. Since each eventannouncement took the form of a pagewithin each section folder, this hierarchicalgrouping allowed us to easily create RSSfeeds from the pages contained withineach section. Currently, USM Librarieshave five current news and patron aware-ness areas available on the Web site: 1. Current Library News2. What’s New in Library

Collections3. Known Problems – Electronic Services4. Exhibits and Events5. Library Newsletters and Guides

The MODx CMS software allowed usto create an RSS feed from the contents ofthese five sections via a MODx RSS snip-pet (a small program that performs a spe-cific function and then communicates theresult with MODx using the MODx appli-cation programming interface). The snip-pet we used (NewsFeed) to create RSSfeeds automatically lists the pages con-tained in a designated directory. The result-ing feed’s URL is then accessed by yourchosen news- or feed reader as mentionedpreviously. And while we used it to simplycreate an RSS 2.0 valid feed, the News-

Feed snippet can also be customized in avariety of ways, such as setting copyrightinformation, generating a link to the feed(rather than generating the feed itself), ortruncating summary posts (among otheroptions).

RSS Feeds: The Hard Way

However, our primary goal still remained– pushing our databases and e-resources toour patrons. Southern Mississippi Librariesstores their e-resource URLs, proxy infor-mation and e-resource metadata within aMySQL database; MODx provided no easysolution by which to retrieve this data so thatit could be accessed by the NewsFeed snip-pet. So, as my major professor would say inlibrary school, it was time to “roll our own”solution.

The first thing we did was decide ourapplication parameters. We wanted to useRSS 2.0 as this was the de facto standardfor most RSS feeds, and therefore the mostaccessible and usable for our patrons (Yueand Greene 2006). We would use thePHP Web programming language onwhich the library Web services had stan-dardized to pull the data from the MySQLdatabase. At this point I would write the

program to wrap the data in the appropri-ate RSS tags and push it to the standardoutput. The alternative consisted of havingthe program create a text file of the pushedRSS data. While viable and present in theliterature, this method seemed cumber-some and required the extra step of creat-ing the RSS-containing text file via a timedserver operation every few hours or so,and was more suitable to an environmentwhere one had less control of the data out-put (Corrrado and Moulaison 2006 ).

Second, I had to research RSS 2.0, andfind some valid examples of feeds. At itsmost basic level, an RSS feed is fairly easyto understand and parrot and can be creat-ed without a good understanding of all thespecifics or background surrounding thespecification. However, when you want thecode to validate as a valid XML document,a decent grasp of the RSS specificationand XML options available helps tremen-dously.

Much of my research kept pointing metowards one Web site – feed validator.org,a non-profit Web site created by IBM pro-grammer Sam Ruby that includes annotat-ed specification of all RSS versions alongwith a Web-based validation program. Thevalidation program will take your feed,parse it, and either output a successfulresult or output specific problems withyour script along with line numbers.

Most good RSS feeds look the same,so I used a readily available feed from theNew York Times as an example. Well-writ-ten, valid and simple, it provided me withenough of a framework to complete ninetypercent of my work without performingany heavy lifting (that is, writing my owncode) via a simplistic copying of their for-mat. Unfortunately, when I started pullingdata from the database and it failed to ren-der as an RSS feed, I knew I needed morehelp. A few minutes of troubleshootingwith Feed Validator indicated problemswith the data in the title tag and in the URLtag. A little more Web research indicatedthat I might have odd characters in the datafields, and various interest group blogpostings indicated that inclusion of anSGML CDATA token in the tags would tellthe browsers and feed readers what to

USM uses the snippet NewsFeed to create RSS feeds that automatically list the pages contained in a designat-ed directory.


expect and how to treat these characters. Aquick trip over to the W3C Web site’sHTML 4 section offered an explanationand description of the CDATA tag. TheW3C defines CDATA thusly:

CDATA is a sequence of charac-ters from the document characterset and may include characterentities. User agents should inter-pret attribute values as follows:� Replace character entities with

characters,� Ignore line feeds,� Replace each carriage return

or tab with a single space.User agents may ignore leadingand trailing white space in

CDATA attribute values (e.g., “myval ” may be interpreted as“myval”). Authors should notdeclare attribute values with lead-ing or trailing white space.

The addition of the CDATA token to thetitle and URL tag solved the invalid feederror for those tags. However, the FeedValidator application still wouldn’t validatemy feed, and now indicated an issue withthe description tag; based on the amountof text and non-standard ASCII entitieswithin this datafield, I decided to simplyescape the entire field by using the PHPfunctions of trim() and escapehtmlenti-ties(). This last addition to the script solvedthe problems, and the feed finally validated.

The completed script looks like this(with numbered annotations):

<?//include connection function

[1]include_once(“/avatar/httpd/html/includes/db_connection2.php”);db_connect(“library”);

[2]$sql = “select * from library.odbs_new where shown = ‘y’ order byname”;

[3] $results =mysql_query($sql) ordie (mysql_error());

[4] $date = date(“D, j F Y G:i:s AT”);

[5] echo “<?xml version=\”1.0\”encoding=\”iso-8859-1\”?><rss version=\”2.0\”>\n”;echo “<channel><title>Library Databases</title><link>http://www.lib.usm.edu/index.php?id=41</link><description>University LibraryDatabases</description><language>en-us</language><pubDate>[$date]</pubDate>\n”;

[6]while ($row =mysql_fetch_assoc($results)) {

echo “\t\t<item>

\t\t\t<title><![CDATA[{$row[name]}]]></title>\t\t\t<link><![CDATA[{$row[url]}]]></link>\t\t\t<description>”.htmlentities(trim($row[description])) .

“ </description> \t\t</item>\n”;

}

echo “

[7]</channel></rss>”;?>

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1. Include a pre-written library for con-necting to our MySQL databases.

2. Write the very simple SQL query.3. The results are pulled from the data-

base.4. The publication date is formatted and

placed in a variable.5. The XML version is indicated, lan-

guage encoding is indicated, RSS ver-sion indicated. The basic RSS contain-er for the database data is created.

6. A simple loop is created to iteratethrough the results set, and print all ofthe databases to the screen.

7. The file is ended with the appropriatetags.As you can see, the finished script is

short and simple. Provided that the basedata is easy to obtain in a manipulatableform, then the custom creation of an RSSfeed is really very simple. Far more timewas spent during this process researchingthe specifics of RSS 2.0 and learning itsidiosyncrasies than was spent actuallyobtaining the data and writing the script. Infact, the title of this article section is a mis-nomer – creating this feed was not difficult,just more time-consuming than creatingpages and clicking GUI interface buttonsas was performed for the other feeds with-in the MODx CMS framework.

However, all was not complete; therewas one more item of business – browserauto-discovery of the RSS feeds. A link tagis needed in head of the document to indi-cate to patron browsers that an RSS feed(s)exists; this tag, which indicates a link to theURL location of each feed, also creates theRSS icon in the URL bar. The RSS icon,which differs according to browser type,functions in two ways. First, it visually noti-fies the user that RSS feeds are availablefor the taking on pages being viewed; sec-ond, the RSS indicator becomes an inter-face element – the user clicks and holdson the icon to reveal a drop-down menu ofavailable feeds.

Link Tag:<link rel=”alternate” type=”applica-tion/rss+xml” title=”Library Databases”href=”http://www.lib.usm.edu/scripts/db_rss_feed.php” />

Results And Future Use

The introduction of RSS at SouthernMiss Libraries can be, I believe, character-ized as successful insomuch that: (a) theirusage can be caveated by realizing that arelatively small number of the Web surfingpopulation actually uses RSS in their dailysurfing lives; (b) a cursory investigation ofthe Web site statistics shows steady usageof the RSS feed URLs; (c) anecdotal patronreporting indicates usefulness among fac-ulty and students.

One thing is clear – RSS use will onlyincrease as it becomes more common-place and users lose their unfamiliarity withthe technology and the tools used to har-ness it, especially in light of the manybrowsers that now support RSS discovery.As for Cook Library, we intend to expandour RSS offerings to include a completeRS directory/Linked TOC to our Help andLibrary FAQ documentation, to developRSS feeds from the library catalog, and toeventually build subject resource pagesalmost entirely out of RSS feeds. The latteris the most exciting, because we’ll be ableto offer comprehensive patron tools thatwill auto-create by completely and pro-grammatically supporting themselves fromRSS feeds, requiring almost no interven-tion by a subject specialist. The Universityof Southern Mississippi Libraries looks for-ward to a long and useful relationship withRSS. In an era where academic librariesoften struggle with the perception of rele-

vancy and subsequent usage, any tool thatcan provide the patron with more flexibilityfor discovering and utilizing our resourcesis a welcomed addition indeed. �


Results in drop down from RSS icon:

RSS feed result in browser:

References

Celikbas, Zeki. What is RSS and How Can itServe Libraries? In Proceedings First Interna-tional Conference on Innovations for theFuture: e-Learning, edited by Mesut Yalvacand Sevin Gulsecen, 277-92. Istanbul, Turkey,2004.

Corrado, Edward M. and Heather L. Moulai-son.Integrating RSS Feeds of New Booksinto the Campus Course Management Sys-tem. Computers in Libraries. 26 no. 9(2006): 6-9, 61-4.

Huffman, Karen. Web 2.0: Beyond the Con-cept: Practical Ways to Implement RSS, Pod-casts, and Wikis. Education Libraries. 29 no. 1(Summer 2006): 12-19.

Ruby. Interwingly.net. RSS20andAtom20Compared. http://www.intertwingly.net/wiki/pie/Rss20AndAtom10Compared.

Ruby, Sam.. RSS20andAtom10 Compared.Feedvalidator.org. http:www.feedvalidator.org.

Stephens, Michael. Chapter 3 - RSS. LibraryTechnology Reports. July-August 2006.

Yue, Paoshan and Araby Greene. Do You SeeRSS in Your Future? The Serials Librarian. 50no. 3/4 (2006): 305-10.


Renovating the Library Web Site: A Case Study

Debra A. Riley-Huff Web Services/Reference Librarian

Assistant Professor J.D. Williams Library

University of Mississippi

Abstract:

The University of Mississippi LibrariesWeb site is undergoing a major refurbish-ing project. Site assessment leads to pro-posed major changes to the library Website in the areas of infrastructure, design,accessibility, usability, and contentupgrades in four phases. Riley-Huff dis-cusses the motivation and goals for theoverall project and details the processesinvolved in the now-complete Phase I,which involved integrating majorupgrades to the current library “bridge”page, homepage and secondary levelheaders and footers.

Introduction

In the summer of 2006, librarians atthe University of Mississippi made a deci-sion to start a major library Web site refur-bishing project. This decision was basedupon several converging factors related tolibrary users, library staff concerns, thecampus Web environment and the tech-nology needs of the Libraries’ electronicinfrastructure. While the changes would besignificant, there would be little or no toler-ance for Web site “down time.” The Uni-versity of Mississippi operates on thesemester system with both winter and sum-mer intersession schedules. A plan wasneeded that would provide for a minimumof inconvenience to the campus community.

The initial concern was the recognitionthat in order to accommodate futuregrowth in Web and electronic services, thesite needed to be upgraded to current Webstandards. The underlying technical struc-tural changes would be significant enoughto allow the incorporation of full scale sitedesign and navigational changes. Thisconveniently coincided with a campus-

wide push by the University administrationto move towards a unified Web presence.New ideas regarding content, content pres-entation and user services have also beencatalysts. The resulting project, currentlywell underway, is in the process of bringingthe library Web site up to current Web stan-dards by utilizing a phased focus processto address structural standards as well asdesign, usability, accessibility and contentconsiderations.

Web site Assessment and Relevant

Vision

Before embarking on any type of largescale Web site redesign or upgrade, it isnecessary to completely understand yourcurrent site’s strengths and weaknesses aswell as how the Web site is accessed andnavigated by your users. It is also neces-sary to have a clear picture and under-standing of current Web standards anddesign principles. This is essentially theprerequisite for getting your organizationfrom point A to point B and on to points C,D, E ... ad infinitum; ad infinitum because,unlike static information sources, Web sitesare constantly evolving entities which, dueto the concept of hyperlinks, do not exist inisolation to themselves or even of them-selves. Rapidly changing technologieshave already seriously impacted the way inwhich large Web sites can and should bemaintained. While static HTML pages ini-tially sufficed, Web sites which still relyheavily on them are at a serious disadvan-tage in terms of site maintenance andgrowth opportunities (Dahl 2005).Libraries, as vital information organiza-tions, should show evidence of continualgrowth and change and this should cer-tainly be reflected in the library Web site.

The first step in Web site assessment isto take a look at the site’s current architec-tural elements with a goal of shifting fromstatic format to dynamic formats. This canbest be accomplished by maintaining anorganizational commitment to adhering to

current Web standards. Understanding andkeeping current with Web standards can bea daunting task, but it has been mademuch simpler by the leadership providedby the W3C. The W3C, or World WideWeb consortium, “develops interoperabletechnologies, specifications, guidelines,software and tools to lead the Web to its fullpotential” (W3C 2007). By modelingyour Web site’s infrastructure to the rec-ommendations of the WC3, your organi-zation will be able to quickly respond toWeb changes and utilize new technologiesas they become available.

Our initial assessment of the Universityof Mississippi’s library Web site revealedseveral areas which would need improve-ment, along with components that madethe site very useful. Basically the weaknessin the site lay in the significant use of stat-ic HTML and its accompanying overuse offont tags and table-based layout. CSS(Cascading Style Sheets) was in minimaluse and most often found in the difficult tomaintain “embedded styles format.” Whilethis type of Web site architecture was finein its day, the reality is that for most sites ithas grown into a maintenance headachethat ultimately shows up poorly on theuser’s screen, as well. The Web site alsohad some strong areas that gave us a goodfoundation to start with. The directorystructure on the server was in very goodorder and the way SSI (Server SideIncludes) had been incorporated into theheaders and footers made the siteswitchover possible without inconvenienc-ing our users. In terms of design andusability, while most of the homepage andnavigation was somewhat dated, the sitedid have some key design features that hadgenerated a fair amount of library brandingand recognition. We also noted accessibil-ity problems primarily related to imagesused as header fonts. Usability was a con-cern as well. The libraries had conductedusability studies of the site in recent years(Stephan et al 2006) and we knew, via our


public service librarians, which areas of thesite were problematic or inaccessible. Outof this initial assessment came the decisionto make major changes to the library Website in the areas of infrastructure, design,accessibility, usability and contentupgrades. The major goals in each areaare as follows:

Infrastructure: We wanted to apply Webstandards by upgrading the site to XHTMLand fully integrated CSS and SSI. We alsowanted to prepare the site for the eventualinclusion of data-driven components utiliz-ing PHP, SQL, Python, Ajax and opensource content management tools.

Design: Coincidentally, at the time wewere assessing the site, the UniversityAdministration began moving toward aunified Web presence across all depart-ments. This is an international professionaltrend with many benefits to both the orga-nizational image and the user experience.We wanted to take advantage of this oppor-

tunity to redesign our homepage and nav-igation with an eye to balancing universityexpectations with access to the library’svast array of electronic resources.

Accessibility and Usability: We built aprocess of removing barriers to the Website and incorporating some enhancedaccessibility features. We made an earlycommitment to usability by seeking inputfrom library faculty and staff. We alsoincluded our users in structured usabilitystudies.

Content Upgrades: A commitment wasmade to examine and evaluate LibraryWeb site content, department by depart-ment and to strive for uniformity and con-tent excellence.

Team Formation, Project Planning

and Goal Setting

It was decided early on that there wouldneed to be a working committee whosecharge would be to provide the primary

oversight for the upcoming and futurechanges to the library Web site. While theimportance of having committee memberswith technical skills was obvious, there wasalso a significant amount of recognition bythe library administration that Web servicesare indeed “public services.” Recent litera-ture regarding Web committee establish-ment and dynamics offered us valuableinsights regarding what to expect frommembers and the group as a whole(Church et al, 2005). In formation of thegroup we sought to balance the team withmembers who expressed a real interest inthe Web and members whose technicalskills made them ideal members. To thisend, a broad committee was formed ofeight members whose skills represent bothpublic service and technical serviceaspects of the organization. Two additionalteams were also formed. A small Web siteGraphics Team met regularly and workedout the major design elements of the site.This included color schemes, font choices,banner graphics and logo site brandingimages and locations. Additionally, aUsability Team was formed to test the site.Team members first completed trainingprovided by our school’s InstitutionalReview Board regarding the testing ofhuman subjects. The team was chargedwith completing and interpreting two qual-ity usability studies on the site’s newhomepage and navigational elementsbefore the site went into production.

The University of Mississippi LibrariesWeb site, like most major University libraryWeb sites, is large and complex. In orderto meet our Web site renovation goals, itwas necessary to create a project planwhich would both break out tasks intomanageable workflows and prioritize focusareas according to a logical schedule. Wemade a decision to set as a primary goalthe implementation of a new homepageand navigational scheme (headers andfooters) by the beginning of the springsemester. From this vantage point we wereable to fragment the project initially intoThe USM Library homepage as of July 2006.


three large focused phases as follows:� Phase I: Consists of integrating major

upgrades to the current library “bridge”page, homepage and secondary levelheaders and footers.

� Phase II: Consists of prioritizing depart-mental upgrades according to a prede-fined rubric and upgrading each librarydepartment to current Web standards.

� Phase III: consists of providing ongo-ing, dynamic database-driven Webcapabilities and site management. (Thisalso includes acquiring and setting upan Apache Web server in order to pro-vide dynamic content. The currentLibrary Web site is located on a campusserver which offers limited possibilitiesfor dynamic services and content man-agement systems).With our stated goal of having a new

homepage and navigational scheme upbefore the start of the spring semester, webegan focusing on Phase I of the project.Our timeline gave us roughly four and ahalf months to complete this section.Good project management was critical tothis phase of the project due to the tighttimeline and firm deadline involved. Bybreaking the phase into fairly granularcomponents and then placing the summa-ry elements and associated activities neces-sary for completion into a Gantt chart, itwas clear where critical dependencieswould be. This then allowed us to createan exacting, task-specific timeline to meetour goal.

Nuts and Bolts: Problem Solving

and Completing Phase I

The core goal of Phase I was to createa new homepage, site-wide navigationalscheme and prep the site for the transitionto XHTML and CSS. Upgrading a largesite’s code core while retaining originalcontent can be a real challenge; however,a few temporary stages can make it possi-ble. When we initially set out to redesignour homepage and navigational system wedid not allow ourselves to be constrained at

all by the technical frailties of the existingsite. In other words, we would bend andbreak the old site to accept the new ratherthan adapt the new site based upon anylimitations imposed by the existing Webinfrastructure. With the exception of somepreviously well-branded imagery (note theprinter’s marks), the new homepage andnavigational scheme is entirely fresh.

For our new homepage, we created atop banner with a five section dropdownnavigational menu set. The dropdown nav-igation menu is entirely built with CSS andis fully accessible. Although Web forumsabound with naysayers, pure CSS drop-down menus are possible by coding inconditional comments for Internet Explor-er. We also wanted a fully accessible rotat-ing news feature to keep the site alive andinteresting. This was accomplished with aJavaScript routine which freezes with allpanes open when JavaScript is disabled.Footers have become increasingly impor-tant on large sites as navigational tools. Inour footer we placed an A-Z site index and

links to other areas of the University Webthat we know our users need while they arestill using our site.

An early mock up of the site design wasbuilt in Photoshop and presented to thelibrary faculty and staff for input and com-ments. From here, a rapid prototype wasbuilt and tweaked until it was exactly howwe wanted it to look. It was this prototypethat was used in our formal usability stud-ies. Coding the page and site navigationfor total accessibility across all modernbrowsers took considerable time. We want-ed the site to be fully expandable withenlarged text without any of the contentoverlapping that so often plagues CSS-styled sites. By utilizing concepts of “Bul-letproof Web Design” (Cederholm, 2006),we were ultimately able to get everythingwe wanted in our design with full and evenenhanced accessibility features.

A significant problem related to upgrad-ing large Web sites that cannot be shutdown is how to get new XHTML/CSS-based headers, footers and navigation into

New homepage as of December 2006.


older HTML pages. Or conversely, howcan masses of content be migrated fromHTML to XHTML (or PHP). Fortunately,at the UM Libraries, headers and footerswere integrated throughout the site as serv-er side includes. One file controlled theheader and another file controlled the foot-er. Normally, it would be a simple matter ofbuilding new include files and giving them

the same namesas the include filescurrently in use.This, however, isnot often possible.In the case of UMLibraries, the stat-ic HTML pagescould not acceptthe new headerand footers fortwo reasons. TheCSS dropdownmenus in theheader requiredthat the pagesthey go into beXHTML and thatthe content areasare z-indexed. If

content areas are not z-indexed, then over-lapping or rearranging of the page occurs.Both render the page useless. Additionally,because our pages are of different lengths,it was necessary to have a floating footer.Pages that are not properly coded cannotaccept a floating footer as it actually willrise to the top of the page and hide behindthe header. We solved this problem by cre-

ating an interimheader and leav-ing the old footerin place temporar-ily.

The interimheader did notfeature a dropdown menu.Rather, the topmenu levels led toa new set of pageswhich mimickedthe links on thedrop downmenus. In thisway the site wasstill fully navigablefrom the olderpages.

Over the course of the next month,every page on the library site was fitted intoa template which replaced the Doctype toXHTML 1.0 Transitional, replaced the oldSSI code, referenced appropriate stylesheets and created style control with onlytwo content div tags.

Conclusion

At UM Libraries we have now begunthe work of Phase II: content upgrades andPhase III: dynamic content and long termmaintenance. Looking to the future, forlarge scale library Web sites, major renova-tions like these should become a thing ofthe past. Commitments to Web standards,dynamic technologies and daily attentionto content will make library Web sites thecutting edge information portals they canand should be. �

Note the small “home” link at the top left.

Note the small “home” link at the top left.

References

Cederholm, D (2006). Bulletproof webdesign. Berkeley, CA: New Riders.

Church, J. & Felker, K. (2005). Web teamdevelopment. portal:. Libraries and the Acade-my. 5, 545-554.

Dahl, M (2004). “Content ManagementStrategy for a College Library Website.”Library and Information Technology. 23,23-29.

Shea, D, & Holzschlag, M (2005). The Zenof CSS design: Visual Enlightenment for theWeb. Berkeley, CA: Peachpit Press.

Stephan, E. , Cheng, D. T., & Young L. M.(2006). “A Usability Survey at the Universityof Mississippi Libraries for the Improvementof the Library Home Page.” The Journal ofAcademic Librarianship. 32, 35-51.

W3C, (2007, 1,17). W3C World Wide WebConsortium. Retrieved January 21, 2007,from W3C World Wide Web ConsortiumWeb site: http://www.w3.org/


Lamar County Library System’s Experience with Thin-Client Computing

Jeanne CriderDirector

Lamar County Library System

Jaketha FarmerTraining and Technology Specialist

Lamar County Library System

Abstract

Thin-client computing was implementedseveral years ago in the Lamar CountyLibrary System (LCLS) to accommodate asmall IT staff. Since that time, the waysthat libraries are used and how patronsstore data have changed. Crider andFarmer have found that their once usefulsystem is not able to accommodate theirneeds or their patrons’ needs. While thin-client computing works for some systems,it has not been successful for the LCLS.In their article, the authors look at howtheir thin client system is not working andwhat they are now trying to do to accom-modate their patrons’ needs.

Introduction

When I came on board as the newdirector in May 2006, I spent most of mytime gathering information from staff andpatrons with the intent of evaluating everyaspect of the library system. Very quickly Idecided that customer service – in terms ofproviding a patron and staff-friendly envi-ronment – would be my first priority. Fromthe beginning, I was bombarded with com-plaints about public access computingfrom both staff and patrons. Lamar Coun-ty Library System is one of the fewlibraries in the state that utilizes thin-clientcomputing. At this point in time, severalmajor problems exist with our thin-clientsituation:1. Patrons cannot use flash drives to save

work because the thin-client terminalswe own do not support USB 2.0. Forthe few newer terminals that do supportUSB 2.0, we can not configure the Cit-rix server to recognize those drivesonce plugged in.

2. If problems occur on the Citrix serverand it unexpectedly shuts down, every-one connected, including staff andpatrons, loses the connection to theserver and thus all of their work.Branch managers often have to writenotes on library letterhead to teachersexplaining why students lost or couldnot finish presentations or reports.

3. Plug-ins, such as QuickTime, ActiveX,and Flash, cannot be downloaded ontothe terminals to support many onlineactivities. Only the system administra-tor can allow downloads to occur. Thisoften requires that the server be reboot-ed, thus kicking everyone off the net-work. Even then, some plug-ins stillwill not open when a patron attempts toload a page.

4. With thin-client computing, networktraffic must route through the host site;therefore, software, such as InternetExplorer and the Microsoft Office suiteproducts, often runs very slowly. Evenwhile typing in Microsoft Word, oneexperiences a latency that causesconfusion and makes working inWord inefficient.

5. When problems occur, staff usuallycannot troubleshoot and have to workaround it until the IT consultant could

be called in. Unfortunately, our IT con-sultant often cannot do a site visit onthe same day (or week) that we call.In December 2006, our Training and

Technology Specialist, Jaketha Farmer,and I took part in the Rural Library Sustain-ability workshop at the Mississippi LibraryCommission (MLC). As we sat around thetables in our various small groups, the dis-cussion focused on brainstorming ways tofund sustainable technology in a world oflimited funds.

“At Lamar County Library System, we need to decide whether we want toupgrade our thin clients or move back

to a PC environment,” I said.

“Thin clients…only in our dreams,”breathed one director.

“We wish we had thin clients; PCs are such a headache,” another

director stated.

Jaketha and I looked at them incredu-lously. Were Mississippi public librariansseriously dreaming of one day movingfrom PC-based environments to thin-clientcomputing? Surely they had not experi-enced how thin-client computing works, or

Table 1. Active Workstations at LCLS(as of 2/2/07)

# of # of

Thin Clients PCs

Staff Patrons Circ OPACLumberton Library 1 3 1 –Purvis Library 1 3 1 1Oak Grove Library 3 10* 2 –Sumrall Library 1 3 1 –TOTAL

*Two thin clients serve as OPACs.


in our case fails to work. The grass isalways greener on the other side. While wedo not believe that this form of networkingis bad for every situation, it has not workedfor Lamar County Library System.

We hope that by sharing our experienceit will provide other librarians with the prosand cons surrounding thin-client comput-ing. While some see thin clients as theanswer to their network problems, LamarCounty Library System is realizing that thin-client computing has its own set of prob-lems and requires careful consideration.

Background

In July 1997, Lamar County Board ofSupervisors voted to separate from PineForest Regional Library System and estab-lish the Lamar County Library System(LCLS). Becoming official in October1997, LCLS was composed of threebranches: Sumrall, Lumberton, and PurvisPublic Libraries. The LCLS headquarterswas located in Purvis Library. At that time,we were one hundred percent PC-basedand most of our active computers werePentium processors running Windows 98.In anticipation of a fourth branch, therewere several 386 and 486 PCs being keptin storage.

In the existing branches, each had atleast three PCs for public use, one PC atthe circulation desk, and one PC in eachbranch manager’s office. The public work-stations provided Internet Explorer andMicrosoft Office. The branch manager andcirculation workstations provided MicrosoftOffice, Internet Explorer and the libraryautomation system (Sirsi’s Unicorn).

At that time, all users had access to thefloppy disk drives and CD-ROMs.Microsoft Office and Norton Antivirus wereinstalled on each machine. Internet accesswas available through the MISSIN networkand to gain entry, 56K lines ran from thetwo satellite branches to Purvis. A T-1 lineconnected Purvis to the wider MISSIN net-work through MLC and onto the Mississip-pi Department of Information Technology

Services (ITS) in Jackson. With the incep-tion of thin clients, the 56K lines had to be

upgraded to T-1 lines. When Oak Groveopened in late 2003, this added another T-1 line into Purvis, thus giving us three T-1lines into Purvis and one going out toMLC onto ITS. On November 30 of lastyear, we migrated from MISSIN to Bell-south’s MPLS network.

Sirsi’s Unicorn was – and is – thelibrary’s automation system and it resideson its own server located in the administra-tive wing of the Purvis Library. With theinception of thin clients, two new storageservers were added: an application serverand a domain controller/file server.

What Is Thin-Client Computing?

A thin client is “a low-cost, centrally-managed computer devoid of CD-ROMplayers, diskette drives, and expansionslots” (Thin Client). Thin-client computingrelies heavily on the client-server modelwhere the thin client provides a graphicaldisplay and the fat server houses all thesoftware and performs all of the process-ing. In other words, thin-client computingprovides an optical illusion. When patronsclick on an icon locally, that softwareappears to be running locally as if it wereinstalled on the machine itself.

At LCLS, we have three servers, two ofwhich are required to handle thin-clientcomputing. First, there is the applicationserver that runs the thin-client server oper-ating system, Citrix MetaFrame. This serv-er houses all software used by patrons andstaff. Second, we have the domain con-troller/file server, which authenticatesmachines to the LCLS domain as well ascentrally stores our data files.

The Decision For Thin Clients

In the late 1990s, the idea for thin-client computing came about for severalreasons. First, funds were limited andalthough an IT consultant was hired on anas-needed basis, LCLS simply could notafford to hire anyone internally to handleeven the simplest computing issues.Therefore, the full-time Head of Technical

KEY TERMS

Application server: A networkedserver dedicated to running softwareapplications, such as the MicrosoftOffice suite.

Domain Controller: Authenticatesusers to the network.

Fat server: Same as an applicationserver.

Flash drive: Portable storagedevices. Also known as memorysticks, thumb, jump, pen, or keydrives.

File server: A server that centrallystores data files.

Mixed environment: Also knownas hybrid environment, which runsboth thin clients and PCs.

Terminal Services: A server pro-gram running on Windows NT 4.0(or higher) operating system that pro-vides the graphical user interface ofthe Windows desktop to user termi-nals that do not have this capability.(Terminal Services Product)

Thin client: A low-cost, centrally-managed computer devoid of CD-ROM players, diskette drives, andexpansion slots. (Thin Client)

Thin-client computing: Reliesheavily on the client-server modelwhere the thin client provides agraphical display and the fat serverhouses all the software and performsall the processing.


Services, Terry Lajaunie, volunteered tohelp.

Within a short time, this put him in thecompromising position of performing notonly acquisitions, cataloging, reports, andlater serial control; but also constantly trav-eling to the branches to perform PC instal-lation, maintenance, and troubleshooting.The anticipated growth and actual demandfrom the Oak Grove Library along with thewearing of many hats proved taxing for oneperson. After many meetings with vendorsand at least one visit to another library sys-tem with thin clients, the decision wasfinally made. LCLS adopted the thin-clientarchitecture as its first true network. Thisallowed the Head of Technical Services todeal with problems on the server in admin-istration rather than traveling to thebranches.

Why Return To Personal Computers?

Three of the greatest inconvenienceswith thin-client computing are (1) latencyand bandwidth, (2) the inability to add orconfigure much-needed drives such asUSB 2.0 ports, floppy and CD-ROM, and(3) the inability to run certain types of pro-grams, including graphical games andonline courseware.

Latency & BandwidthIn plain English, latency is “wasted

time” (Latency), which involves waitinglonger than usual for a Web page to loador waiting on words that were just typed toappear on the screen. In terms of network-ing, it is “the amount of time it takes apacket to travel from source to destina-tion. Together, latency and bandwidthdefine the speed and capacity of a net-work” (Latency).

To our understanding, T-1 lines are theminimum bandwidth for thin-client com-puting; therefore, we had to upgrade to T-1. During talks with hired consultants itwas suggested that the move to the MPLSnetwork would improve latency becausethe switches would be far more efficient

than the outdated hubs in use prior to themigration. However, this did not occur andour only recourse would be to take Admin-istration up to a 3mbps line. Doing thiswould more than double our monthlytelecommunications charge. We are one ofonly a handful of systems that run thinclient, so when attending the MPLSforums last summer, Bellsouth consultantscould not specify how MPLS would actu-ally function for our environment.

DrivesAlthough most thin clients now come

with two to four USB ports, that does notguarantee that your staff or patrons will beable to utilize those ports because they willneed to be upgraded/configured to work(if possible). For LCLS, 83% of our activethin client terminals are out of warranty, sono upgrades exist that would allow the useof flash drives. To add even one externalfloppy drive at each branch, we wouldneed to purchase four newer-model thinclients. At this point in time, thin clients arenot much cheaper than PCs, so the sav-ings in purchasing them rather than PCs isminimal.

Just as configuring USB ports poses aproblem, so too does adding other exter-nal drives including floppy drives, which atthis point are becoming obsolete. With thatstated: how do patrons save their work?How do they save that PowerPoint presen-tation or that research paper? PowerPointpresentations most often exceed the 1.44MB storage capacity of floppy drives, sowhat can we do?

Software & Internet IssuesAside from hoping to offer computer

classes to patrons, we would also like tooffer WebJunction courses to library sys-tem employees. However, with thin-clientcomputing, this is impossible. Accordingto WebJunction’s technology require-ments, purchasing and/or accessing anonline course requires that cookies areenabled, pop-up blockers are turned off,

and the course be launched from a PCwith Internet Explorer. All of these require-ments simply cannot be met in our thinclient environment.

Words of Wisdom

First and foremost, setting up a thin-client environment can be costly. Asidefrom the thin-client terminals, there areother costs, such as “dedicated servers torun the applications, possible networkupgrades to handle the increased loadsincurred by the thin client system, migra-tion costs, and software licensing”(Chickowski, Thin Client).

When it comes to licensing, softwarecompanies will not be cheated. While asingle license is needed on each PC thathas the Microsoft Office suite installed, thinclients also need a license. The thin clientlicense is called a client access license(CAL) that allows remote access to termi-nal services. Regardless, the equipment,software and other licenses will cost youdearly and any type of skimping when itcomes to purchasing reliable and efficienthardware and software will result in theestablishment of a poor back-end infra-structure. Instead of the thin-client comput-ing environment offering stability, it slowlybut surely becomes a costly liability.

Second, Windows updates are neces-sary. Our application server runs both Win-dows and Citrix MetaFrame operating sys-tems. In 2005, sets of Windows Updateswere installed that “knocked out” the entirenetwork. Apparently, Citrix MetaFramehad “an allergic reaction” to one of theWindows updates and our entire networkwas down for several days. Since we hadno network for staff or patrons, we had noother choice but to call the IT consultantwho worked until the wee hours of themorning for several days to get things backup.

Third, thin-client computing was nevermeant to exceed more than 15% of a net-work. Currently, thin clients make up – tobe exact – 86% of the active workstations


at LCLS. “While it would be nice toreplace all of your PCs with more easilyadministrated thin-client terminals, that israrely advisable or feasible. … 85% to95% of Citrix users work in a mixed envi-ronment” (Chickowski, Slimming Down).

Fourth, upgrades in equipment are nec-essary. Just because thin clients have afive-to-seven-year life span, this is nothingto get excited about as the warranty expireswithin three years. If something goeswrong after the warranty expires, and youdon’t have a large IT department, moneyis spent on an outside IT consultant. OurIT consultant recently found out thatupgrades simply do not exist for terminalsthat are out of warranty. That seven yearlifespan quickly becomes much less inreality. In actuality, you must purchase newthin clients and add external drives inhopes of configuring them to operate.Even then, there is the question of whetherthe server can be configured to recognizethese external storage devices.

Fifth, with some commercial softwareand hardware, there are compatibilityissues. For example, Dymo label printers,of which we have quite a few, do not workin a thin client environment. However, thevendor’s Web site claims that they do andwe purchased them with this understand-ing. We have learned that they must beattached locally to a PC to function on ournetwork.

Lastly, thin-client computing will notmask an already poorly managed IT envi-ronment. If your library system is notdesigned to properly manage your existingPC network, then thin-client computingmay not make things any easier. Instead, itcould shine a spotlight on your variousnetworking problems, which places you inthe position of either dealing with thoseproblems or ignoring them in hopes thatthey will go away on their own. Of coursethe problems will not go away and yourpatrons will wonder who is actually in con-trol of your network.

Conclusion

Who could have known that in the fiveyears since deploying thin-client comput-ing at LCLS, patrons (and some staff)would be carrying high capacity storagedevices on their key chains? Who wouldhave foreseen that students in junior highwould be required to prepare PowerPointpresentations that far exceed the storagecapacity of a floppy disk? Few could haveforeseen such drastic changes in technolo-gy or our patron needs.

Although there may be library systemsthroughout the state that find thin-clientcomputing a viable alternative to PCs,Lamar County Library System has foundthin clients to fall short of our needs andexpectations. Patrons today are muchmore computer savvy than only a fewyears ago. Patron satisfaction is so impor-tant to the vitality of our library system andbecause of network problems we are sim-ply falling short. Aside from patrons, frus-trated staff cannot provide a high level ofcustomer service without properly func-tioning equipment. In the coming monthsand years, Lamar County Library Systemwill begin to add PCs to our thin clientenvironment. Our hope is that we canfunction more efficiently in a more bal-

anced hybrid environment by routingpatrons to the terminals that will fit theirneeds. Those who need to do large pre-sentations and save them to flash drivescan be put on PCs while those just check-ing email can be put on thin clients. Aftermuch research and consideration, we feelthat this is the best decision for everyoneinvolved. �

References

Chickowski, Ericka. (2005). “Thin ClientTechnology Gains Momentum.” Tech andTrends, 27 (7), p. 1.

__________, Ericka. (2005). “SlimmingDown: Thin Client Deployments Are NotAlways Easy.” Tech and Trends, 27 (7), p. 30

“Latency.” Retrieved January 31, 2007 fromhttp://www.webopedia.com/TERM/L/latency.htm

“Terminal Services Product.” Retrieved Febru-ary 1, 2007 from http://searchwinit.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid1_gci213124,00.html

“Thin Client.” Retrieved February 1, 2007from http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid7_gci213135,00.html

Visit our

Website:www.misslib.org


MLA Officer Nominees

Vice President/President-elect

ANNIE PAYTON

Education: Ph.D. University of Mississip-pi (Psychology); M.L.S. University ofSouthern Mississippi; B.A. Tougaloo Col-lege (Psychology).

Professional Experience: Director,James Herbert White Library, MississippiValley State University.

Professional Activities: Member of ALA,MLA, ACRL, and Black Caucus of ALA.

Publications and Presentations: Co-host of the 2006 ACRL leadership instituteat Harvard University.

Vice President/President-elect

JAN WILLIS

Education: M.L.S. University of South-ern Mississippi, 1998; B.A. University ofMississippi, 1979; A.A. Itawamba Com-munity College, 1977.

Professional Experience: Director,Lee-Itawamba Library System, 2004-pres-

ent; Assistant Director, Dixie RegionalLibrary System, 1987-2004.

Professional Activities: MLA, mem-ber: 1998-present; MLA Legislative Com-mittee, member, 2006-present; MLAExhibits Committee, Co-chair, 2006-pres-ent, MAGNOLIA Database SelectionCommittee, member, 2004-present.

Secretary

JUDY CARD

Education: M.L.S. University of Ten-nessee, Knoxville, 1972

Professional Experience: Youth Ser-vices Coordinator, First Regional Library,April, 2006-present; Memphis/ShelbyCounty Public Library & Information Cen-ter, 1975-2003. Positions included: Chil-dren’s Librarian, South & HollywoodBranches; Manager, Main Library Chil-dren’s Department; Director, Adult LiteracyProject; Administrative Assistant to theDirector; Administrative Liaison to Friendsof the Library; Staff Development Officer.

Professional Activities: MississippiLibrary Association: MLS Local Arrange-ment Chair, 2006. Tennessee LibraryAssociation: Chair, Staff DevelopmentCommittee. American Library Associa-tion: Activities include: President, Continu-ing Library Education Network Exchange,2005-2006; Congress on ProfessionalEducation Activity: COPE I-Steering Com-mittee, COPE II, Presenter; COPE III,attendee and facilitator; ALA ConferenceCoordinating Team-Toronto. TennesseeStorytelling Association-Secretary.

Honors: Memphis Area Library CouncilLibrarian of the Year 2004

Secretary

JULIA RHOLES

Education: M.L.S. Rutgers University,1978; M.A. University of Texas (Austin),1974 (Zoology);.B.A. Mount HolyokeCollege, 1972 (Biology).

Professional Experience: Dean, Uni-versity of Mississippi, 2003-present; Assis-tant Dean, University of Kansas 1998-2001, 2002-2003; Interim Dean, Univer-sity of Kansas, 2001-2002; Head, Refer-ence Division, Texas A&M University,1990-1998; Acting Assistant Director,Texas A&M University, 1992-1994;Head, Maps & Microtext Depts., TexasA&M University, 1983-1990; ReferenceLibrarian, Texas A&M University, 1978-1983; Information Scientist, AmericanCyanamid, 1974-1978.

Professional Activities: ALA, Member,1980 to present; ALA councilor 2000-2003; Reference and User Services Asso-ciation, secretary 1993-1995; MLA,2003 to present; member, MLA Legisla-tion Committee. ASERL, member, 2003to present; Chair, ASERL Education Com-mittee 2006 to present. EPSCOR ScienceInformation Group, President 2006-2007.

Publications and Presentations::“Developing Partnerships to Create Elec-tronic Reserves at the University of KansasLibraries,” (with Nancy J. Burich), Journalof Access Services, 1(4)59-70(2003);“What Do the Patrons Think?

Annie Payton

Jan Willis

Julia Rholes

Judy Card


Library Surveys: Old & New Approachesto Assessment,” (with Kay Wall),SOLINET Workshop presentation,Starkville, December 5, 2003.

Honors: Frye Institute Fellow, 2002;Association of Former Students Outstand-ing Librarianship Award (Texas A&M Uni-versity), 1994; Whitney-Carnegie Award(American Library Association), 1990.

Treasurer

DEE HORN

Education: B.A. Delta State University,1996 (English)

Professional Experience: George E.Allen Library, Booneville, 1998-present;Head Librarian, 2002-present.

Professional Activities: MLA member;Graduate of 2006 Librarianship 101 Insti-tute; Attended Children’s LibrariansRetreat in 2003 and Youth ServicesRetreat in 2006.

Presentations: Learning programs forstaff at 2006 Northeast Regional LibrarySystem staff meeting; Librarianship 101Institute Alumni program at 2006 MLAconference.

Grants & Honors: Awarded grants fromEzra Jack Keats Foundation, the Wal-MartLiteracy Fund, Prentiss County LiteraryFund, and Libri Foundation.

Treasurer

AMANDA POWERS

Education: M.I.L.S. Simmons Collegeof Library and Information Science, 2005;B. A Wellesley College, 1996 (English).

Professional Experience: ReferenceServices Librarian, MSU Mitchell Memor-ial Library Reference Department, 2005-present; Serials/Processing Staff, MIT’sDewey Library, 2001-2005; MarketingManager, Chronos Asset Management,Cambridge, MA, 1999-2001; AssistantEditor, Bantam Books,1996-1998.

Professional Activities: ALA RUSACODES committee on Collection Devel-opment Policies and Assessment, andASERL Virtual Reference Group; Missis-sippi State University’s Faculty AdvisoryCommittee for the Center for Teaching andLearning, Libraries’ Podcasting Commit-tee and Library 2.0 Group.

ALA Councilor

BILLY BEALE

Education: M.S. (Library Science) Sim-mons College, 1976; A.B. Loyola Univer-sity of Chicago, 1971; additional studyChicago State University; Northern IllinoisUniversity; The University of SouthernMississippi.

Professional Experience: At MeridianCommunity College: Dean of LearningResources, 1992 - present; Head Librari-an, 1991-1992; Computer Assisted

Instruction Supervisor, 1983-1991;Acquisitions Librarian 1982-83; SelfStudy Director 1979-1982; CirculationLibrarian 1977-1979; Middle SchoolLibrarian Enrico Fermi Elementary School,Chicago, Illinois, 1973-1975.

Professional Activities: ALA memberfor 32 years; ACRL Copyright Committee,1988-1990; Social Responsibilities TaskForce, 1989; ACRL-Community and Jr.College Libraries Section Committees: Ser-vice to Special Needs Students, Chairper-son 1987-1989; Computers in Communi-ty Colleges Application and Management,1986; Integrating New Technologies withLearning Resource Centers, 1987-89;Conference Program Committee, 1982;Instruction and Use Committee, 1982.MLA: ALA Chapter Councilor, 2000-04;Executive Board Parliamentarian 1982,2003; Legislative Committee, 1993;Junior Members Roundtable: Treasurer,1979; Vice-Chair, 1980; MLA-ACRL nom-inating committee, 1984; Black CaucusRoundtable: Vice-Chair, 2003-04; chairper-son 2005-06; MAGNOLIA board member.Southern Association of Colleges andSchools: On-site Evaluator of College Sup-port Services, 1980-present.

Honors: MLA Past President’s Award1980; Stone Wall Book Awards Juror,2005-2007;

ALA Councilor

SHERRY LAUGHLIN

Education: M.S.L.S The University ofTennessee, 1977; B.S. The University ofSouthern Mississippi, 1974.

Professional Experience: Associate Uni-versity Librarian, 2006-present; Head, Infor-mation Services, 1996-2006; Head, Refer-

Dee Horn

Amanda Powers

Billy Beale

Sherry Laughlin


ence Department, 1990-1996; Govern-ment Documents Coordinator, 1986-1990,The University of Southern Mississippi;Medical Librarian 1980-1986; VeteransAdministration Medical Center, Jackson; Ref-erence Librarian 1977-1980, USM.

Teaching Experience: GovernmentPublications 1987, 1989; Introduction toReference Resources and Services 2001,School of Library and Information Sci-ence, USM; University 101, Division ofUndergraduate Studies, 2002-2004;undergraduate advisor 2002-2006.

Professional Activities: ALA: ACRL,LAMA, Chapter Relations Committee,Chapter Editors Interest Group 1987-1990; RUSA Managers of Users ServicesSection Professional Development Com-mittee.

MLA (selected): Association President1993; Annual Conference Chair 1992;Conference Local Arrangements Chair1999; ACRL President 1996; MississippiAuthors Awards Committee Chair 1989;Legislative Committee 1992-1995; Mis-

sissippi Libraries editor 1986-1990,2005; Constitution, Bylaws & Organiza-tional Review Committee Chair 1998.USM (selected): Honor Society of PhiKappa Phi President 1995-1996; Presi-dent-elect/President, Faculty Senate 1999-2001; University Strategic Planning Com-mittee 1999-2000; Campus Master Plan-ning Committee 2000-2001; PresidentialSearch Advisory Committee 2002; Distrib-uted Learning Committee/IntellectualProperty Subcommittee 2002; UniversityAssessment Committee 2005-present;Library Building Committee 1990-1997;Library Allocations/Acquisitions Commit-tee Chair 1992, 2002-2006; Public Rela-tions Work Group Chair 2004-present.

Publications and Presentations:

“The Ready Reference Collection: Missis-sippi,” Tennessee Librarian, vol. 30, Fall1978; “Concept Paper for a StatewideHealth Information Network,” MississippiHealth Information Network organizationalmeeting, 1986; Mississippi LibraryAutomation Directory, Jackson: MLA,1987 (with E. A. Williams); “Challengesand Opportunities: Building Programs atMSU, UM, and USM,” MississippiLibraries, vol. 55, Summer 1991; “Chart-

ing Our Course: The Annual Conferenceof the Mississippi Library Association,”Mississippi Libraries, vol. 56, Fall 1992;“Sailing Through: MLA Conference aSuccess,” Mississippi Libraries, vol. 56,Winter 1992; Children’s Authors Speak,Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited,1993 (with J. L. Porter).

Honors: MLA Outstanding AchievementAward 1991; H.W. Wilson Library Period-ical Award for Mississippi Libraries 1991;Mississippi Legislature Higher EducationAppreciation Day, Working for AcademicExcellence nominee 1992.

SELA Representative

ADRIENNE MCPHAUL

Education: M.L.I.S. University of Alaba-ma, 2003; B.A. University of SouthAlabama, 2002 (English).

Professional Experience: InformationServices, Cook Library, University ofSouthern Mississippi, 2003-present.

Professional Activities: Chair, MLALibrary Instruction Roundtable.

Publications and Presentations:Journal of Academic Librarianship, TheSoutheastern Librarian and The GeorgiaLibrary Quarterly.

SELA Representative

DEBORAH LEE

Education: Ph.D. Mississippi State Uni-versity, 2005; M.S.B.A. Mississippi StateUniversity, 1998; M.S.L.I.S. Universityof North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 1990;

B.A. University of North Carolina,Chapel Hill, 1984.

Professional Experience: AssociateDirector, MSU Center for Teaching andLearning, 2006-present; Associate Profes-sor/Coordinator, Library Instructional Ser-vices, Mississippi State UniversityLibraries, 2003-present; Reference Librar-ian, MSU Libraries, 2000-2003; Coordi-nator of Serials, MSU Libraries, 1997-1999; Acquisitions Librarian, MSULibraries, 1993-1997; Collection Devel-opment Librarian, Millsaps College,1991-1993.

Professional Activities: MLA, SELAand ALA member; Past chair of MLA’s Association of College and ResearchLibraries section and Automation and Net-working Roundtable.

Publications: “The Union RelativeWage Effect for Academic Librarians” inIndustrial Relations, “Research Consulta-tions: Enhancing Library Research Skills”in Reference Librarian, “MAGNOLIAResources for the Classroom” in the Mis-sissippi Reading Journal, “iPod,You-Pod,We-Pod: Podcasting and MarketingLibrary Services” in Library Administra-tion & Management, and “Mentoring theUntenured Librarian: The Research Com-mittee” in College & Research LibrariesNews. �

Adrienne McPhaul

Deborah Lee


About BooksIles, Greg. True Evil. New York: Scribn-er, 2006. [512 pp.] $25.95 hardcover.

“True evil has a face you know and avoice you trust.” Like an adoring husbandor a beautiful wife, as you will come tobelieve in this latest of many books of mys-tery and intrigue by Natchez native, GregIles. Like most of his works in recent years,this mystery is set in Natchez and its envi-rons. If you have visited its local shops andrestaurants, such as Planet Thailand on N.Commerce Street, you will enjoy the localhometown feel of this thriller.

When Agent Alexandra Morse, a suc-cessful FBI negotiator in hostage situa-tions, makes a fatal error on her last case,it ends with her partner’s death and multi-ple lacerations to her face. But Alex isalready a woman in crisis. Suffering fromthe loss of her father, a bystander in a hold-up gone badly, she must face an addition-al calamity as her mother is diagnosedwith terminal cancer. With the suddendeath of her sister, sorrow finally finds abreaking point; she is compelled to gosolo as she focuses all her energies andresources to find some answers. A deathbed plea from her sister Grace launchesAlex into a murder investigation not sanc-tioned by the FBI. But her promise to pro-tect her young nephew Jamie keeps herfocused on what is most important as shegoes it alone in her search for a killer – orkillers – responsible for the all too natural,untimely death of her sister.

Unknown to Alex, a ruthless lawyer inJackson, Mississippi offers an unusualservice for wealthy clients intent on findinga way around divorce and prenuptialagreements that proves to be more lucra-tive than acrimonious settlements couldever be. His partnership with a ruthlessmedical genius named Dr. Eldon Tarver sealsthe deal in providing trusting victims for hisdiabolical medical experiments too heinousfor the ordinary mind to comprehend.

When Alex begins to untangle the webthat is designed to entrap its next victim, asmall town doctor in Natchez, she takes abig chance by warning him that his perfect

life with a beautiful new wife is not to bebelieved. So begins a tense and uneasystruggle between Dr. Christopher Shepardand the rogue FBI agent. Together they arelocked in a series of events that finally con-vince the reluctant Dr. Chris to take measuresto protect himself and his young son.

Mystery thrillers set in familiar placestake on a credibility that you might notexpect. True Evil has just enough reality inits characters and settings to make itbelievable that something truly evil couldeven happen in a charming town on theMississippi River. Highly recommendedfor a good weekend read.

Ann Branton

Head of Bibliographic ServicesThe University of Southern Mississippi

— ◆ —

Kolin, Philip C. Wailing Walls. Windand Water Press, 2006. [51 pp.] $9.95paperback.

Kolin, Philip C., and Susan Swart-

wout, eds. Hurricane Blues: poemsabout Katrina and Rita. Southeast Mis-souri State University Press, 2006. [181pp.] $17.00 paperback.

Two books of poetry on a similar themeassociated with Philip C. Kolin seemed anatural pairing for review. In WailingWalls, we get the deeply personal side ofKolin’s poetry. He looks starkly at sufferingin a multitude of forms, mostly describedin the structure of a personal story. Heuses images that are both expected andunexpected in his stories, and his perspec-tive remains true to a Catholic heritage.The book begins and ends with poemsthat could be read as prayers, as might beexpected by the book’s title, and the lastpoem finally brings hope for redemptionof all the described suffering. Some poemsare too personal to carry a broad meaning,and rarely does he startle his reader withnew insight. This book is recommendedfor libraries with strong literature and Mis-

sissippi writer collections. The publishers canbe contacted at [email protected].

In Hurricane Blues, Kolin and Swart-wout present the poems of many poets.Some are well-known in the poetry world,and others are new to publication. Thiscollection is amazing in its variety of voic-es and styles. Most poems are first personexperiences, and display how widely thedamage was felt throughout the country.Many of the poems invoke Nature andGod – even Gaia gets a mention – but themost moving stories are those that focuson the small details with large implications.Many of the poems express the anger andthe pain of the experience; politicians arenot considered favorably by these poets.The poems are grouped thematically fromexpectation to experience to recovery toresolution, with one entire section devotedto the flooding of New Orleans. This pro-gressive organization does a good dealtoward encouraging the hopefulnessexpressed in the editors’ forward. Also,proceeds from the sale of this book will gotowards hurricane relief. Since the poemsare so personal and touching, it is disap-pointing that biographies are not included.The editors’ intend this anthology to be ahistorical record of experience, and assuch, this book is recommended forlibraries keeping such records and forlibraries with strong poetry collections.

Christina Torbert

Head of SerialsUniversity of Mississippi

— ◆ —

Herndon, Ernest and Williams, B.

Scott. Paddling the Pascagoula. Jackson,MS: University Press of Mississippi,2005. [196 pp.] $20.00 paperback.

I live in Petal, Mississippi and drive overthe Leaf River daily. This book revealedthe beauties and wonders of the river andhow often we take for granted somethingthat we cross every day. Now when I drive


over the bridge, I look down and payattention to the boaters and the river. Pad-dling the Pascagoula gives a glimpse intothe lives of people that live around the riverand into a little known Mississippi treasure,the Pascagoula River.

Three rivers are covered in the book.The two authors present different perspec-tives of tributaries of the Pascagoula River.The first part by Herndon covers the LeafRiver, part two is the Chickasawhay Riverby Williams, and then both Herndon andWilliams take different parts of thePascagoula River. The upper Pascagoulais covered by Herndon and the lowerPascagoula by Williams. The narrative ofthis work is very descriptive and givesinteresting viewpoints of two narrators:Ernest Herndon and Scott B. Williams.Herndon is a traditional adventurer whouses a canoe and Williams a kayaker whois more unconventional. Both perspectivesadd a richness and added dimension to aremarkable account of floating down thePascagoula. I especially enjoyed theaccounts of meals that the adventurersenjoyed.

When I began to read the book, I wassurprised when I realized that it was not atrail guide but a narrative diary. I was dis-appointed that the illustrations were not incolor, but the authors explain they wereunable to have color photographs due tobudgetary constraints. The pictures in thebook were taken by the authors and con-vey the beauty and wonders of the riversuch as a picturesque scene of dawn onthe Chickasawhay River; a waterfall on theLeaf tributary and lagoons and cypressswamps. One weak point of this work isthat it lacks a map of the Pascagoula River.

Paddling the Pascagoula is recommendedfor all Mississippi libraries.

Tracy Englert

Media LibrarianUniversity of Southern Mississippi

— ◆ —

Fraiser, Jim; photography by Rick

Guy. Vanished Mississippi Gulf Coast.Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing Co.,2006. [104 pp.] $22.95 hardcover.

Jim Fraiser, Tupelo lawyer and authorof ten books, had a premonition in 2003after finishing his novel titled, Camille. Hestated, “Upon observing predictions thatwe were mired in a thirty-year-cycle ofmore frequent and destructive hurricanes,I became concerned that my beloved Mis-sissippi coast was due another Camille-likehurricane that would devastate the region.”In 2004 his own brother-in-law sustainedthree separate hurricanes in Punta Gorda,Florida.

Fraiser urgently approached his pub-lisher with an idea to preserve the coast’shistory, architecture, and culture throughtext and photography. They agreed and heagain teamed with award-winning photog-rapher, Rick Guy. Guy provided the cam-era work in their 2004 Pelican release,The Majesty of Eastern Mississippi andthe Coast. He currently works for TheClarion-Ledger, but his talent also appearsin numerous news magazines such asNewsweek, People Weekly, and Time. It iswith great luck Guy clicked his last framedays before Katrina struck.

Fraiser literally, and with clear, colorphotos by Guy, leads us down the coastalroad of Katrina’s destruction. Using Van-ished Mississippi Gulf Coast as ourguide, we begin the journey in the eastern-most town of Ocean Springs. As if travel-ing on U.S. Highway 90, we pass throughPascagoula, Biloxi, Gulfport, Pass Christ-ian, and terminate in Bay St. Louis.

Each coastal community is a chapterwith three main sections: history, architec-ture, and culture. In the history section, wemarvel at the Civil War “Bedsheet Surren-der” in Pass Christian and the use of “Cas-sette Girls” to transport gentility into fron-tier Biloxi. My favorite section, architec-ture, surrounds the reader with Greekrevival structures, French colonial houses,and Creole cottages. One will be exposedto terms such as “second-story accordionrailing” on the Tullis-Toledano House ofBiloxi and “three-bay façade” as exempli-

fied by the Widmer House of OceanSprings. The terms, given without descrip-tion, are easily recognizable throughGuy’s Edward Hopper-like photography.The culture section reads like a modernday chamber of commerce brochure.Museums, artist colonies, restaurants,Krewe events, and festivals were amongthe many activities one might have partici-pated in prior to Katrina. Unfortunately,these events may find themselves in thehistory section if conditions remain harshfor inhabitants. Time will tell, as the LynnMeadows Discovery Center in Gulfportand the Bay St. Louis Little Theater slow-ly rebuild, repair, and reopen.

Readers will enjoy Fraiser’s narrative,non-fiction style and Guy’s 142 colorphotographs. With every page turned, weread fun trivia such as, Long Beach onceheld the title of Radish Capital of the NewSouth and Barq’s Root Beer is an 1898Biloxi original. Guy’s before and after pho-tographs are intriguing, especially Gulf-port’s The Chimneys; one glances backand forth trying to distinguish recognizablelandmarks from the famous restaurant.Readers may also question, “What kind ofanimal is perched atop the Dantzler-Fabacher House roof on page 65?”

As a librarian, I feel this book lacksone necessity: an index. It is chock full ofinformation well-informed researchersmight pass over. In addition, when reprint-ing, I suggest the publisher fix minor, typo-graphical errors, and include a map of thecoast.

During William Faulkner’s NobelPrize acceptance speech, he said, “Ibelieve that man will not merely endure:he will prevail.” With this profound quote,Jim Fraiser ends his most recent book withhope. Vanished Mississippi Gulf Coast isa tour-de-force of coastal communitiesdevastated by hurricane Katrina.

I recommend Vanish to public andacademic libraries in Mississippi. Itappeals to many readers, especially historybuffs and Mississippi collectors.

Maggie Moran

Public Service & Reference LibrarianNorthwest MS Community College �


People in the NewsGabriel Morley has been named

director of the Pike-Amite-Walthall LibrarySystem headquartered in McComb, effec-tive Jan. 1, 2007. Prior to coming toPAWLS, Morley served as director of theWashington Parish Library System inFranklinton, Louisiana. He was a dailynewspaper reporter for eight years beforeearning his MLIS from the University ofSouthern Mississippi.

Morley replaces long-time PAWLSdirector Toni James, who had been withthe library for more than thirty-one years.James joined the PAWLS staff in 1975and was named director in 1981. In2000, she oversaw the construction of astate-of-the-art $3.2 million, 21,410square foot main library and headquarters.

— ◆ —

Melissa Moak, a former elementaryschool librarian in the McComb PublicSchool System, has joined the PAWLSstaff as the new reference librarian. Sheearned an MLIS and a bachelor’s of sci-ence degree from the University of South-ern Mississippi.

— ◆ —

Nan Moak has accepted a job offer asLibrarian at McMorrough Library on theGoodman campus of Holmes CommunityCollege. Ms. Moak, who has alreadyassumed the position, received her BA inInternational Studies from the University ofSouthern Mississippi in 2003 and MLISdegree from Louisiana State University in2005. Immediately before her newappointment, Ms. Moak worked as a cata-loger with the Mississippi Department ofArchives and History in the Archives andLibrary Division. At her new station atHolmes Community College, Ms. Moakwill work primarily with students in refer-ence and on faculty outreach.

— ◆ —

Josie Roberts,Purvis ElementarySchool Library-Media Specialist,received the 2006Carroon AppleAward, sponsored bythe MississippiLibrary Association.The MLA SchoolLibraries Sectionselects and presents the Carroon AppleAward for the purpose of recognizing out-standing accomplishment in the field ofschool library media services. Mrs.Roberts was one of three from Mississippito be added to the American Library Asso-ciation and the Association for LibraryTrustees and Advocates 2005 NationalAdvocacy Honor Roll that is awarded onceevery five years. With the leadership of for-mer Senator Jim Bean, Mrs. Roberts leada statewide effort to secure legislation forevery child in Mississippi to receive theservices of a certified public school librari-an. Mrs. Roberts became a National BoardCertified Teacher in Early Childhoodthrough Young Adulthood/Library Mediain 2003.

— ◆ —

Maggie Moran, Public Service andReference Librarian at Northwest Missis-sippi Community College, has accepted atwo-year term on the American LibraryAssociation’s Outstanding Books for theCollege Bound and Lifelong LearnersCommittee. Sponsored through theYoung Adult Library Services Association(YALSA), the fifteen members will meet ateach ALA conference to compile lists. Abook will result from their work.

— ◆ —

Hired in 1982 as Director at BlackmurMemorial Library in Water Valley and asBranch Head at Jesse Yancy MemorialLibrary in Bruce in 1984, Ann Ivy King

has spent more than half her life in serviceto the library community of northeast Mis-sissippi. She will be retiring March 31,2007, with no concrete plans for herretirement.

“We never know what life will bring; Ialways said that if you had told me in 1981(with my fresh BA in Biological Science)that I would spend the next twenty-fiveyears as a librarian, I’d have laughed inyour face! But God had plans for me, andI hope He still does,” said King. Those plans may include more time at herantique/gift store, Artifacts, on the townsquare, storytelling at local libraries andfestivals, or graphic design and Web pagedesign, all jobs she has juggled while serv-ing as librarian.

— ◆ —

Prima Plauche

has retired as Direc-tor of the HancockCounty Library Sys-tem after thirty-oneyears of service. Dur-ing Plauche’s tenure,library services inHancock Countygrew from a singlelibrary to a system of facilities, programsand services that won numerous awardsincluding the National Award for LibraryServices in 2001. The Board of Trusteeshas bestowed on Plauche the title of Direc-tor Emeritus, and she will continue toserve on the Library Foundation of Han-cock County Board of Directors. She hasserved on numerous state and regionalcommittees and organizations, includingthe Mississippi Statewide Telecommunica-tions Taskforce and the Mississippi

Prima Plauche

Josie Roberts


Statewide Information Network Taskforce.She also served as President of the Missis-sippi Library Association in 2003.

— ◆ —

David Woodburn

has been promotedto Executive Directorof the HancockCounty Library Sys-tem (HCLS). Hereplaces retired direc-tor Prima Plauche.Woodburn has beenwith HCLS for tenyears, serving as Public Services Coordi-nator, and Assistant/Deputy Director. Priorto coming to HCLS, he served as Execu-tive Director of the Mississippi LibraryCommission and Director of the JeffersonParish (Louisiana) Library Department.Woodburn has also been Director atlibraries in Yazoo City and Greenville, Mis-sissippi. “The Library Board of Trustees ispleased to have someone with his level ofexperience,” said Mary Sinders-Boutar,Board Chairman, “and we feel David is areal asset to the Library System.”

— ◆ —

Candace Vance has joined the Row-land Medical Library faculty at the Univer-sity of Mississippi Medical Center in Jack-son in the capacity of Head of LendingServices. Prior to joining the Rowland fac-ulty, Vance served as a reference librarianand ILL coordinator at Murray Sate inMurray, Kentucky. Vance has also workedat Aquinas College Library and at Vander-bilt’s Eskind Biomedical Library, both inNashville, Tennessee. �

David Woodburn

News BriefsGuild Gives Check for Hurricane Relief

The Bay Oaks Quilt Guild presents a check to the Kiln Public Library for Hurri-cane Katrina relief. The Guild created a quilt from Katrina remnants and other fabricto be auctioned off for the benefit of the library. Dream World One, Inc. in SantaRosa, California, auctioned the quilt off at a fundraiser. Pictured presenting the checkare, from left, Quilt Guild members Kay Buccola, Mary Hanson, Gloria Burlette;Sandra Ladner, Kiln Public Library Branch Manager; and Guild members LouAdaHanson, Therese Springer and Xochitt Piper.

MLA Poster Shown to Bruce Rotary Club

Bruce Branch Librarian, Ann Ivy King, and Purvis Branch Manager, DonnaPhelps Fite, were invited to present their 2006 MLA poster session, “Silence SpeaksVolumes: Adoption Adds Atmosphere” in December for the Bruce Rotary Club,Bruce, Mississippi. The poster session displayed the cause and effect of the BruceFriends’ adoption of the Purvis Public Library following the damage caused by Hur-ricane Katrina. With a silent auction the friends raised and donated $1,000 to therestoration and/or replacement of lost materials. Several members of the Friends ofthe Bruce Library were present for the presentation. Pictured from left to right areFran Russell, President of Friends; Jo Ann Denley, Treasurer; Donna Phelps Fite;Ann Ivy King; Penny Nelson, Secretary; Tina Bennett, Vice President. �

Quilt Guild members present check to Lander. Photo by Mary Perkins.

Silence Speaks Volumes: Adoption Adds Atmosphere poster presentation.Photo by Joel McNeece of the Calhoun County Journal.


December 15, 200610:00 A.M.

The meeting was called to order at 10:05 A.M. bySusan Cassagne with the following present:

Susan Cassagne, PresidentTracy Carr, Special Library SectionDeb Mitchell, Legislative CommitteeJennifer Smith, Outgoing Public Library ChairRandy Sherard, TrusteeOtha Keys, Incoming SecretaryCatherine Nathan, VP/President-electJackie Quinn, Secretary Black Caucus Round TableRob Lipscomb, ALA CounselorJohn Whitlock, Special Library SectionMary Julia Anderson, MLAMarsha Case, JHLSJeff Slagell, VP-ElectCarol Green, TreasurerMargaret A. Bell, Vice Chair Elect Black CaucusDiane B. Willard, School Section Chair

A quorum was declared and the minutes from the lastmeeting were handed out, read, and it was movedand seconded that the oral report of minutes beaccepted.

There was also a recommendation of the bylawscommittee which was set.

� Carol Green orally presented the treasuryreport and stated that copies will be given outlater, because all expenses were not in. Thereforethe report was not a complete and full account-ing of 2006 and the total income amount listedwas off. Catherine Nathan stated that as of Thurs-day, December 14, 2006, the budget was bal-anced, matched and the issue would be revisitedafter the new year at the next meeting. It wasthen moved and seconded to accept the financialreport. It was approved unanimously.

� Susan Cassagne reported that it was a greatconference and wanted to say thanks to everyonefor the good time had by all. She also stated ithad been a long year and wanted to thank every-one for staying on a second year and stayingtogether.

� Catherine Nathan gave her VP report of theconference evaluation and seconded Susan’s

comments of a great convention. She stated that525 people came through and it was well attend-ed. However, only fifty-seven evaluations werereturned. She handed out an overview of com-ments. A special thanks was given to GlendaSegars and Jan Willis, who made the exhibitshappen. Even though there were restrictionsplaced on us by the casino as far as refresh-ments, hotel rooms, etc. were concerned, overallthings went very well. One hundred forty peopleattended the Presidential Bash and the pre-con-ference was a hit. There were more school librar-ians at this conference than ever before. Susanthen had a conference related question dealingwith the issue of reimbursement for someonewho didn’t attend the conference and wanted toknow if they could get their money back becausethe board was being asked to reimburse them forthe registration fee. It was not from an individualbut from an institution. A vote was taken for theinstitution to get only the registration fee back,because the meals had already been paid for.Catherine said yes and Robert Lipscomb second-ed the motion. The vote was unanimous torefund the money.

� Robert Lipscomb gave his ALA report. Hestated he would be attending ALA’s Midwintermeeting in January, other than that there wasnothing major to report, but will inform us whenhe returns of any late breaking news and items ofinterest.

� Jennifer Smith of the Public Libraries Sectionreported that they had elected new officers, whoare as follows: Marsha Case, Chair; MadonnaMay, Vice-Chair; and Victoria Penny, Secretary.

� Dianne Willard of the School Section had noreport to give.

� Tracy Carr and John Whitlock representedthe Special Library Section and stated they givetours of great programs.

� Randy Sherard, trustee, had no report to give.

� Margaret Bell of the Black Caucus wanted tothank the local arrangements committee for all oftheir help during their luncheon.

� Susan Cassagne stated that Hester Plauchemade a challenge to give $1,000.00 to the

Black Caucus if they raised $3,000.00, whichwill be put on the list serve and she wanted MLAto take a more active role in helping them raisefunds.

� Jennifer Smith from the Fiscal ManagementCommittee said she would present her findingslater.

� Deb Mitchell of the Legislative Committee saidshe would present her report later.

� Otha Keys gave the membership report andpresented the committee with a handout of herfindings.

� Jeff Slagell gave some conference observa-tions. He reiterated how much First Regionalplayed a big part in this conference after bounc-ing back from Hurricane Katrina. He gave a spe-cial thanks to Catherine Nathan and all of herstaff for all they did and she said thanks on behalfof all of her employees and helpers.

There was no old business.

There was no new business.

Susan Cassagne declared the 2006 Board Meetingadjourned at 10:40 a.m. and passed the gavel overto Catherine Nathan.

Susan later emailed me a copy of the 2006 FinalReport of the Black Caucus Round Table from BillyBeal. �

December 15, 200610:45 A.M.

The board meeting began at 10:45 a.m. with Cather-ine Nathan passing out a list of new officers. The fol-lowing individuals were in attendance:

Susan Cassagne, PresidentTracy Carr, Special Library SectionDeb Mitchell, Legislative CommitteeJennifer Smith, Outgoing Public Library ChairRandy Sherard, TrusteeOtha Keys, Incoming SecretaryCatherine Nathan, VP/President-electJackie Quinn, Secretary Black Caucus Round TableRob Lipscomb, ALA Counselor

MLA Executive Board MeetingMinutes


John Whitlock, Special Library SectionMary Julia Anderson, MLAMarsha Case, JHLSJeff Slagell, VP-ElectCarol Green, TreasurerMargaret A. Bell, Vice Chair Elect Black CaucusDiane B. Willard, School Section Chair

The next Executive Board Meeting will be held onTuesday, February 6, 2007 at 2:00 p.m., which isalso MLA’s Annual Legislative Day.

� Deb Mitchell reported that on Legislative Dayall attendees will meet with Sharman Smith,Executive Director of Mississippi Library Com-mission, who will give everyone legislative highpoints at 4:00 p.m., with a reception beginningat 5:30 p.m. She stated that this year the func-tion will be held at MLC instead of The EudoraWelty Library. Also, MAGNOLIA is 10 years oldand they will be hosting a birthday reception forMAGNOLIA. She also brought up informationconcerning personnel grants and asked if wecould have a representative present at the Missis-sippi Municipal Association and MississippiBoard of Supervisors Meetings. Deb presentedthe goals from the Legislative Committee. Thecommittee developed 14 goals with number 14- explore the possibility of obtaining First Respon-der Status for public libraries – being new andrecently added. The goals will be posted on thelist serve. National Library Legislative Day willbe May 1, 2007 and May 2, 2007. Deb will beCo-Chair along with Glenda Segars. The rec-ommendation was made to vote to adopt thelegislative goals and it was unanimously votedupon and adopted. Jeff Slagell wanted to knowhow many went to D.C. last year and was told it was 12.

� Jennifer Smith of the Fiscal ManagementCommittee passed out the 2007 Proposed Bud-get and the recommendations from her commit-tee. She stated that Linda McKay made thespreadsheet that they use and it makes life easier.She then suggested and recommended that wemeet and amend the budget 4 times a year. ForItem 5570 – Convention Grant was addedwhere speaker fees will go, but it is not as accu-rate because not all the expenses are in. We wentdown on membership dues because of Katrinaand other issues. There also was not much donewith the Legacy Club. Item 5520 will changeand be more. Donations will also change and be

more. So for the February meeting we will begiven an amended budget. Item 6700 dealt withprogram printing. Catharine Nathan stated thatprinting was donated for the pre-conference mailout. The question arose as to how convenientwas that mailing? Susan suggested mailing out avery, abbreviated one and put on it for moreinformation to go to the MLA website. For therecommendations to the Board from the FiscalManagement Committee, there was no discus-sion and we took a vote up or down. The votewas unanimous to accept the recommendations.

� The nominating committee, who is chairedby Frances Coleman, with Paul Cartwright

being the Chair of the Election Committee,sent recommendations for upcoming candidates.The candidates are as follows:

VP Candidates – Annie Peyton & Jan WillisSecretary Candidates – Judy Card & Julia

RholesTreasurer – Dee Horn & Amanda PowersALA Counselor – Billy Beal & Sherry LaughlinSELA Counselor – Adrienne McPhaul & 1 per-

son pending

Each candidate has confirmed to have their name innomination and they will take over in December2007. This was voted on in addition to approving thepending name. It was a unanimous vote.

� Reports – none

We will meet again on February 6, 2006 at 2 p.m.

� Jeff Slagell wanted to talk about Vicksburg andthe upcoming conference there. He stated wehave yet to sign a contract and he will meet withconference chairs as well after the new year. Healso suggested we start thinking of a site for the2008 conference. Randy Sherard suggested thatbefore he goes to sign the contract that we meetto discuss the issues that arose in Tunica beforethe meeting with the representatives in Vicksburgto let them know exactly what we will need. Jeffagreed and also gave a big thanks to the MLC forall of their help.

� Old business – none

� New business – none

The meeting was adjourned at 11:15 a.m. �

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2007 Advertising Information

Ad Sizes:Full Page...........................................................................................7 1/2"W x 10"H1/2 Page Horizontal ..........................................................................7 1/2"W x 5"H2/3 Page Vertical ..............................................................................4 3/4"W x 10"H1/3 Page Horizontal ..........................................................................7 1/2"W x 31/3"H1/3 Page Block ................................................................................5"W x 5 3/4"H1/3 Page Vertical ..............................................................................2 3/8"W x 10"H1/6 Page Horizontal ..........................................................................5"W x 2 3/4"H1/6 Page Vertical ..............................................................................2 3/8"W x 5"H

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(All 4 Issues)Full Page ...............................................$175.00 .....................................$650.001/3 Page .............................................. 140.00 ..................................... 525.001/2 Page .............................................. 100.00 ..................................... 375.001/3 Page .............................................. 75.00 ..................................... 275.001/6 Page .............................................. 40.00 ..................................... 150.00

For more information about advertising in Mississippi Libraries, contact:

Missy MurpheyMississippi Libraries, Advertising Editor

J.D. Williams LibraryThe University of Mississippi

University, Mississippi 38677662-915-6627

[email protected]


MISSISSIPPI LIBRARY ASSOCIATION

MEMBERSHIP FORMMembership Year January-December 2007

� New Membership � Renewal

Name _______________________________________Mailing address ____________________________________________________________________________City_____________________ State ___ Zip_________Position ______________________________________Library ______________________________________Home Phone __________________________________Business Phone ________________________________Fax _________________________________________E-mail _______________________________________

One of the primary forms of communication between MLA andits members is the MLA listserv. As a member of the MLA list-serv you will receive important announcements from MLA viaemail and be able to discuss library related issues with yourpeers. If you are not already a MLA listserv member, can we addyour email address to the listserv? � Sign me up! � I decline

A. MEMBERSHIP TYPES

Membership (Any person currently working in a library orinformation center. Mark by salary range.)

$0 to $9,999 $15 per year $________$10,000 to $19,999 $25 per year $________$20,000 to $29,999 $35 per year $________$30,000 to $39,999 $45 per year $________$40,000 to $49,999 $50 per year $________$50,000 to $59,999 $55 per year $________$60,000 or above $60 per year $________Student (2 Year Limit)

Full or Part-time $10 per year $________Retired $15 per year $________Trustee $15 per year $________Friend of Library $15 per year $________Institutional Membership $45 per year $________Vendor $40 per year $________Lifetime membership

One-time Payment $1000 $________Installment Plan

(Payable in increments of a minimum of $200 each

year until paid in full) $________A. MEMBERSHIP TYPES SUBTOTAL $________

http://www.misslib.org/

601.981.4586 • Fax 601.981.4501

B. SECTIONS

Enter “FREE” for one section membership (Enter $6.00 for Additional Sections)Academic (ACRL) $_________Public $_________School $_________Special $_________Trustee $_________B. SECTIONS SUBTOTAL $_________

C. ROUNDTABLES

Join one or more roundtables for opportunities in professionalgrowth $3.00 EACH.

ANRT $_________(Automation and Networking)

BLACK CAUCUS $_________ECTRT $_________

(Educational Communication and Tech)GODORT $_________

(Government Documents)LIRT $_________

(Library Instruction)NMRT $_________

(New Members)SCRT $_________

(Special Collections)TSRT $_________

(Technical Services)2YCRT $_________

(2 Year College)YPSRT $_________

(Young People’s Services)C. ROUNDTABLES SUBTOTAL $_________

D. SCHOLARSHIPS

Donation to Peggy May Scholarship $_________Donation to Virgia Brock-Shedd Scholarship $_________D. SCHOLARSHIP SUBTOTAL $_________

GRAND MLA TOTAL

(DUES GRAND TOTAL (A+B+C) AND

SCHOLARSHIP D) $_________

___ Check enclosed (Make payable to Mississippi LibraryAssociation and mail to MLA, P.O. Box 13687, Jackson MS39236-3687). All dues include subscription to Mississippi

Libraries.

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(Revised 12/06)

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NON-PROFITORGANIZATIONU. S. POSTAGE

P A I D

PERMIT NO. 312HATTIESBURG, MISSISSIPPI