Special Report...
Trustee Job Description Available
The Nebraska Trustee Handbook on the Nebraska Library Commission Web site now includes a new resource for librarians and library boards. See nlc.nebraska.gov, search on Nebraska Trustee Handbook Table of Contents or click on Commission Services and select the letter "T" from the Index list to access the Nebraska Trustee Handbook. Find the following:
 | A listing in the Table of Contents under Chapter Two, "Sample Job Description: Library Trustee" |
| In Chapter Two itself, under the question, "What Makes a Good Trustee?" an indented phrase, "Sample Job Description: Library Trustee." |
We placed links to this new sample job description in two places in the Trustee Handbook to help increase the likelihood that everyone will be able to find it. Trustees, librarians, and local appointing officials all need to know what library trustees do in their capacity as trustees. A typical exchange between prospective trustees when asked to serve by local village or town boards can go something like this:
| Prospect: "What do I have to do as a member of the library board?" |
| Local Official: "You just have to attend monthly meetings and approve the bills." |
Actually library board members have a lot more responsibility than that. They and local appointing officials need to know this. In order to address the paucity of information on this topic, the Nebraska Library Association appointed several members to write a more detailed job description for library board members. Becky Baker, Seward Public Library; Richard Miller, Nebraska Library Commission; Carol Speicher, Northeast Library System; and Myrna Tewes, Lincoln City Libraries worked to develop this job description.
Library directors are encouraged to take advantage of the work of this group and increase the chances that your library has the kind of people you need on the library board. Take a look at the job description and do yourself and your community a favor. For more information contact Richard Miller, Library Development Director, 402-471-3175, 800-307-2665, e-mail: Richard Miller.
Richard Miller
Summer PSA Campaign Planned
This summer the Nebraska Library Commission's Talking Book and Braille Service will distribute radio and television public service announcements (PSAs) to Nebraska stations, as part of an effort to raise public awareness about services provided to individuals with visual or physical impairment. These PSAs, provided by the Library of Congress/National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, feature the Talking Book and Braille Service name and toll-free phone number.
From October 2001 through March 2002, the Talking Book and Braille Service conducted a statewide, multi-media outreach campaign that focused on seniors, entitled "Take a Talking Book." Librarians and community volunteers across Nebraska played a key role in delivering PSAs to local stations. During the six months of the campaign, the Talking Book and Braille Service received approximately one hundred more applications for service, compared with that same period in 2000-2001. The Talking Book and Braille Service is looking for volunteers for this summer's campaign. If you would like to volunteer to deliver radio or television PSAs to local stations, please contact Annette Hall, Volunteer Services Coordinator, or Dave Oertli, Taking Book and Braille Service Director, 800-742-7691, e-mail: Annette Hall or Dave Oertli.
Jane Pope Geske
continued . . .
nlc.nebraska.gov/centennial/1900s/; to transform the Commission's traditional role of statewide collection building into facilitation of local collection development; to increase funding for libraries; and to improve communication between libraries and the Commission.
Jane Pope Geske was a founding member and president of the Friends of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries and the Nebraska Heritage Association. She was a founding member of the Nebraska Center for the Book, and served as president of the Nebraska Library Association and the Nebraska Art Association. The Nebraska Center for the Book created the Jane Geske Award to give annual recognition to an organization that has made an exceptional contribution to literacy, books, reading, libraries, or Nebraska literature and to honor her as a founding member, bookseller, and life-long book lover. Jane Geske died September 8, 1999, at the age of eighty-one. In Summer 2000 the Heritage Room of Nebraska Authors at Lincoln's Bennett Martin Public Library was renamed the Jane Pope Geske Heritage Room of Nebraska Authors to honor her lifetime of service to books and readers. For more information about the Nebraska Library Commission during the 1960s and 1970s, see the Library Commission home page, nlc.nebraska.gov, click on Centennial.
