And we are especially thankful for those of you who volunteer on the NEFLIN Board, the NEFLIN Continuing Education Committee, and as Interest Group Facilitators. What would we do without you? Thank you for taking the time to give back to the library profession and the Northeast Florida region.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Jenny Eason

[email protected]

Member Services Coordinator

For the next year, we will be celebrating 30 Years of NEFLIN...but did you know that our roots go back even further than that?

NEFLIN traces its start to May 1985, when the Northeast Florida Librarians' Interest Group, or NEFLIG, began meeting. NEFLIG's loosely organized gatherings were held over lunch and took place four times a year at different area libraries. Out of these meetings, a committee was formed to discuss creating what we now know as NEFLIN.

And if the establishment of NEFLIG didn't create enough of a cultural splash for one year, 1985 also introduced us to "We Are the World", The Breakfast Club, New Coke, Nick at Nite, Back to the Future, and Calvin and Hobbes.

What a year!!!

NEFLIN invites you to submit a proposal to present a breakout session at the 2024 Hot Topics Conference!

This year's theme is "Other Duties as Required":



Remember reading the job description when you originally applied for your job?

Was there some line like “Other duties as required” among the different tasks and responsibilities?

Fast forward to now. Does it seem like most of your job falls into that category?

We would love to hear how you have overcome challenging circumstances and forged your own trail to success! We are especially interested in presentations about the unexpected responsibilities that you have embraced and transformed into successful library services and programs.



This is the forum for sharing your story! Come to the University of Florida Hilton Conference Center in Gainesville on April 26th and join your colleagues in celebration of blazing new trails.

The deadline to submit a proposal is 5:00 pm on

December 15, 2023.

One of our greatest assets in planning workshops and events is our Continuing Education Committee. Please help us welcome these new members to the CE Committee, and when you have feedback or suggestions for NEFLIN's CE program, reach out to one of these advocates!

Heather Blair

Columbia County Public Library

(Returning Member)

Chelsea Gentry

Jacksonville University

Emily Gideon

Duval County Public Schools

Kay Hogan

Florida Gateway College

See all your

CE Committee representatives at https://neflin.org/

training/continuing-education-committee/.

Katie Jackson

Clay County Public Library

We are always pleased when the Jim Morris Continuing Education Fund can help members pursue professional development opportunities. These six members are the most recent JMCEF scholarship recipients:

• Brittnee Fisher, St. Johns River State College
• Emily Grosskopf, Suwannee River Public Library
• Amy Jones, St. Johns County Public Schools
• Julie Miller, Clay County Public Schools
• Constandina Tutten, St. Johns County Public Schools
• Beryl White-Bing, University of North Florida

There's still time to apply for a scholarship for events happening in 2024!



Go to http://www.neflin.org/jmcef to apply by the December 31st deadline.

Wednesday, December 6, 2023

2:00 - 3:00 PM

Online

Does RED really make people angry? 

Will BLUE help people trust your library’s brand more?

Each year, we enjoy reading your responses to this question on the NEFLIN Annual Survey: "What service or program at your library are you most proud of?"

This year, we thought you might enjoy reading a selection of responses, too.

• "We collect things for the community via County Departments - pet supplies for the Pet Center; food for HHS, flags for Veterans, etc. Being a community center is important!" 

• "We recently instituted one on one tech help to make things more streamlined and patron specific. Staff feel that they are making better use of their time which helps patrons more than general group lessons."

• "I'm very proud of our new game shelf. It's been gratifying to see students sitting down to play Scrabble together between classes, or have new faces come in to join the game night we hosted last semester. We also have a faculty member who has been teaching courses on representation in gaming, so he has been helping us to grow the collection both for the needs of his courses and for students to use during their leisure time."

• "I am actually most proud of my Teen Movie and Craft Night. The teens are able to express themselves through their artwork. The children also pick the movies we watch during teen brainstorming sessions. I absolutely love the involvement of our Library teens."



• "After hours Nerf blaster battles brings in a new demographic that does not come into the library much."

• "The service of going beyond books. Our offerings of storytime kits, sensory kits, citizen science kits, and printing from home."

At the end of each fiscal year NEFLIN provides their member libraries with a personalized Return on Investment report.

The average return for a member library this year was $5,547.

This is several times what the average member library pays in dues ($1,000).



Hats off to our libraries who continue to take advantage of the wide variety of NEFLIN services and have such a good return on their investment!

For FY2023-24, the total state and federal budgets for NEFLIN's programs are $694,693. 42% of the total costs ($294,693) are supported by federal funds, and 58% of this program ($400,000) is supported by state funds.