PCPL continues with ongoing improvements

The Putnam County Public Library Board once again discussed many of the improvements going on throughout the library during its monthly meeting Wednesday evening.

Library Director Grier Carson came before the board with an update on the status of the youth services area, which is currently undergoing a major renovation. Carson noted that work has officially begun in the new area, which will be renamed the Imagination Portal and is currently on track to be completed by Sept. 25.

"It's basically a gut job at this point," Carson said. "It has the scaffolding in place for some of the new bench seats, false walls scaffolding in place. It's basically gutted and primed for painting."

As of now, the space has been completely cleared with the floors having been sanded down as well as two walls being demolished. In the coming weeks, workers will begin painting the space, adding new flooring and reassembling the bookshelves.

The library hopes to hold more of a soft opening for children once the new area is completed along with a grand opening ceremony/fundraiser, which will be geared toward adults. The library will be partnering with the Putnam County Community Foundation and Friends of the Library for the grand opening event, which will be conducted in November.

"This (the grand opening ceremony) is our chance to tell the public why a space like this is essential to a 21st-century library," Carson said. "Why it signals what else we might do with this space and how it ties into the idea of 21st-century literacy."

Carson also noted that the new Teacher Cards are starting to gain some traction through on-site visits as more than 120 people have already registered for one.

"The start of the 2014-15 school year has seen a dramatic increase in teacher interaction with PCPL resources and services thanks to the Teacher Card program and related technology support services for educators, students and parents of Putnam County," Carson explained. "The point of the Teacher Card program is to say, we want to work with the schools, we want to support the educators and get those kids thinking of the library as an extension of school resources because that will be meaningful and long-lasting."

It was also noted that with the recent hiring of Technology Integrator Michael Acsbok, the library will soon be holding free workshops for both teachers and the community for such things as Google Drive, iPad tutorials and more. The library is also hoping to set up a technology help desk where people could come at any time to seek help with any issues they may have.

"They're all very excited about it (the Teacher Card), but also a lot of schools are going one-to-one with iPads and invariably all schools are integrating technology," Carson added. "We are going to be supporting technology in a number of ways. If you're confused or concerned about the iPad or some other tool, you can come to the library for free."

The board also heard from Tony Barger of the Local History and Genealogy Department as the library will soon begin transitioning into a new archive program, Archive Space.

The new platform will also soon be used by the DePauw University library as well and has become sort of the standard for archival management.

"My main goal is to make our resources and our collection available to our patrons," Barger said. "We get a great response from our patrons, we do a lot better than a lot of local history departments, but it's not enough to get the information to our patrons the way I think we need to. This is the main tool. It's sort of like having a carpenter without a hammer and a saw. You just really need to have some kind of management tool."

The new program will describe items or collections in depth as well as help manage digital objects such as photographs, blogs, emails and more.

"Right now as we speak, our writings, our correspondence, our music, everything is created digitally," Barger said. "Digital objects are really quite fragile and hard to handle. Very soon our patrons will be donating digital objects that are no longer physical. You need something that can manage that."

The library board agreed to purchase the new platform. However, it will be some time before it is launched live to the public as the staff will have to go through extensive training as well as needing time to transfer its collections over.

Carson also added that the new e-book platform, Overdrive, will officially be going live to the public beginning next month as staff continues to receive vital training on the new program in hopes of having a smooth launch in September.

"It's up, but it's not live to the public," Carson noted. "Right now, we're working on internally training staff and building the collection up before we turn it on for people."

In keeping with updating the technology, Carson also touched on the library switching over to Google Apps for Business, which will be streamlining the library's email services.

"In our case, we are migrating our email service to Google," Carson said. "That's been the first step is getting staff new email addresses, figuring out how to launch Google and check their email as well as setting it up so that all old PCPL email gets forwarded to the new account."

The library staff is also receiving training on Google Drive, the program in which staff will be creating and sharing documents. Staff will also being using it for creating spreadsheets, department notes and more.

"My hope is by the beginning of next year all staff will be comfortable and somewhat fluent in using Google Docs," Carson said. "I've said repeatedly that it's not something we expect overnight assimilation with our staff. It takes time."

The next Putnam County Public Library Board meeting will take place on Wednesday, Sept. 24 at 7 p.m.