Welcome to the Michigan Library Association

Library directors, trustees and staff from Jackson, Albion and Woodlands Library Cooperative met with Senator Nofs, the primary PPT elimination bill sponsor on January 13.  The impact of cuts are drastic with Jackson slated to close 6 branches, Albion considering closing significant hours and Litchfield losing over 50% of their budget.  Residents would face reduced services to people most in need, reduced access to online information and technology and opportunities for children and youth.  View the impact of proposed cuts.

Joshua Bernstein works as a Teen Services Librarian for the Grandville branch of the Kent District Library.  He has been in this position for about 4 years and worked in a variety of positions at the Capital Area District library for about 3 years before that, while working on his MLIS from Wayne State. 

In his current position he loves being able to establish relationships with the youth in the community, be it over books, video games, or something else.  He has been fortunate enough to establish strong ties within the local school system and have been able to really use that to help make local teens aware of the library and all it have to offer.  One current project that he is rather passionate about is a Guys Read initiative that he recently helped develop for his library system.  You can check it out at www.kdl.org/teens/go/GuysRead.

He has been volunteering at MLA for 4 or 5 years now.  In that time he has been on the Spring Institute committee 3 times.  This will be his 4th year and he will be chair.  He also spent a year on the Thumbs Up committee and a year on the Fran Pletz award committee.

Join us at a one day workshop on February 16, 2012, focusing on the fundamental skills of project management: outcomes-based planning, implementation, and data-driven evaluation.

Workshop participants will understand the basics of project management. 

• Participants will develop various tools for their project management toolbox. 
• Participants will analyze their and others' project management case studies for lessons learned.

View the schedule and speakers.

The Michigan Library Association is seeking nominations for the Twentieth Annual Michigan Author Award. The award recognizes an outstanding published body of literary work by an author who is either from Michigan or has substantial ties to Michigan.

Nominations are due February 29, 2012. 

See the Criteria.

Download the Nomination Form.

Beth Johns is the E-Resources Librarian at Saginaw Valley State University, Zahnow Library. She began working at Zahnow in 2006, shortly after receiving her MLIS from Wayne State. As an electronic resources librarian, Beth manages access to the library’s online journals and administers the library’s link resolver software. She troubleshoots access problems with these resources and is called upon almost daily about some sort issue—there is never a dull moment where e-resources are concerned! Beth has also recently initiated a “roving reference” service at SVSU, which is currently in a pilot stage. She hopes to extend that service outside of the library in the future, perhaps as far as the housing areas of the campus. As is expected of most academic librarians, Beth does a significant amount of bibliographic instruction, which she finds very satisfying personally and professionally. Beth’s history with MLA goes back to her student days starting in 2002 when she joined MLA. She volunteered as a student during Annual Conference a few times and then began serving on committees and work groups once she received her degree. She has served on the MLA Awards twice, Michigan Author Award, and most recently Academic Libraries 2010 (member) and 2011 (co-chair).