librarian.net

I was following the Louisville Free Public Library disaster/flooding yesterday via Greg Schwartz’s tweeting and twitpics but I was travelling home. Today, there’s been time for more recapping and reflection from the online community including this very good and succinct post from Rachel Walden: How You Can Help the Louisville Free Public Library Recover from Disaster. Upshot: don’t send books, consider contributing to the LSW fundraising drive. Send Greg and the other employees your best wishes

The Tattooed Ladies of TLA (the Texas Library Association) An 18 Month Calendar beginning with January 2010, a fundraiser for the TLA Library Disaster Relief Fund. So neat!

So forget those predictable calendars with cute puppies and nature photographs. Your purchase helps secure the future of Texas libraries and allows you to spend 18 months getting better acquainted with these fascinating and dedicated women of Texas libraries.

[thanks meg]

The Joint Library of Fanwood and Scotch Plains received a grant from INFOLINK to make a video and website/resource center for information about serving patrons with autism. The twenty minute video is viewable online on their website and also as a two parter on YouTube (1, 2). If you have a hundred people within your library building, there is a high statistical liklihood that one of them will have Autistic Spectrum Disorder.

Guidelines for Donating to Libraries Affected by Katrina and Rita from the State library of Louisiana. [text version]

The Geaux Library Project [see blog here] has been making great strides providing relief assistance to Katrina victims and the displaced all over the South. They are looking for volunteers, mostly onsite but some remotely. Got some library geek skills that you’d like to use to do some good? Here is the call for volunteers that went out to listservs. Rochelle has been ably follwing this project and others since the diaster, keep tabs on her that bitch Katrina category for more updates.

The State Library of Lousiana has increased its hours so that people can use its computers. They could use even more computers and printers. If you can donate, please help. You may remember that Rebecca Hamilton the Louisiana State Librarian has been at her job only a month or two, though she was Associate State Librarian for a few years previously.

“To all-we are in desperate need of computers/printers. We are being inundated with evacuees needing to file FEMA applications, unemployment, search for loved ones, etc. and are coming into our public libraries to use the computers. Our libraries have greatly extended their hours to accommodate the people but they need additional computers and printers. If you can please put the word out that if anyone wants to help immediately, this is our greatest need.”

This just came on the Council list. There is a Yahoo group for librarians who want to help with the Katrina Recovery Effort.