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No Appointment Necessary for MLSC!

A reminder that appointments are no longer necessary to visit the Middletown Library Service Center (MLSC) at 786 South Main Street in Middletown. You can browse the collection and pick up/drop off materials any time between 8:00 am and 4:30 pm, Monday through Friday. 

Please contact MLSC staff at (860) 704-2200 with any questions about the service center or its collections.  

Digital Equity Articles

What’s New in Digital Equity: FCC Explores Broadband, Maternal Health Connection (govtech.com)

Theme boxes can be reserved in the Story Time Props category in our equipment catalog and have a 45-day loan period.

Themes include:

Cultures of the World

Families

Farms

Five Senses

Health & Safety

Life Cycles

Reporting documents and the Excel sheet will be available in mid-July to all library directors. Please refer to our Library Statistics LibGuide for more information about the report and past years’ data. Many thanks in advance for your work!

This training will discuss the tasks needed to start using Northstar effectively and efficiently, how to run reports, resources available to Northstar subscribers, and first steps. Topics covered will include creating Learner Accounts; proctoring, both in-person and remote; running reports; accessing and using curricula; and resources.

This workshop covers how to present assessments and self-directed online learning to students, as well as going through the Northstar curricula with participants as learners.

Topics covered will include guiding learners through assessments; proctoring review; explaining the student dashboard to learners; how to use Northstar self-directed Online Learning from a learner perspective; and an example of using the instructor led curricula remotely.

As part of this possible funding, libraries may be considered for grants for digital inclusion activities carried out in collaboration with other libraries, with your towns, and/or with community partners. To prepare libraries for this opportunity, DLD will be offering Community Conversation workshops using a variety of proven tools from the Aspen Re-Envisioning Public Libraries Workbook, the EXCITE Empathy Mapping Exercises, Ladders of Inference Mapping, and much more.

Well-facilitated community conversations with organizations and agencies that connect with clients who might need digital navigation or devices will be key to qualifying for grant funding. Please join DLD for this workshop to learn community conversation facilitation skills.

Would you like to keep that out-of-print book in circulation to meet your library patron's needs?

Would you like to quickly repair simple problems rather than purchasing a replacement? 

Many repairs that can extend the life of your library collection are fast and simple and can be done with easy-to-obtain, inexpensive materials. This hands-on workshop is appropriate for library staff or volunteers who will be doing book repair.

Emphasis will be on simple repairs for the everyday public or school library collection, rather than on archival or long-term preservation techniques.

Supplies needed for the hands-on portion of the workshop will be provided; you may choose to bring your own book repair tools to work with, such as scissors, box cutter or X-ACTO knife, bone folder, and/or glue brush.

Join the State E-Rate Coordinator, Chris Gauvreau to see a demonstration filing and stick around to ask questions.

Have you already done all the easy repairs and have a shelf left over of difficult broken spines on hardcover books?

Do you have staff time to do repair work, rather than budget money to replace or rebind books?

This workshop is appropriate for library staff or volunteers who have done basic book repair or taken a basic book repair workshop and are ready to try some advanced repair techniques.

Emphasis will be on spine repairs for hardcover books, where professional rebinding is not an option due to brittle paper, or lack of access to a bindery or the funds to pay for rebinding.

The purpose is to get books back into circulation, rather than on archival or long-term preservation techniques, although conservation-friendly reversible repair techniques will be the focus.

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The eGO Program and Palace App now have a Virtual Card Option Available!

We currently have 133 public libraries that are participating in eGO CT program and using the Palace App. Now it’s even easier for patrons to access our eBook collections, even if their library doesn’t participate in the program. Patrons can get a Virtual Card and use the Connecticut State Library as their home library and gain access to over 26,800 items for free. Use the link above to access the instructions for creating a virtual card.

DLD continues to purchase new content to coincide with the launch of the Palace app. Since we launched the Palace app in April 2022, we have added over 6,220 new items. We also provide access to the Palace bookshelf which is available to all participating libraries and adds another 16,665 open access titles. Circulation of items from the eGO Collection has more than doubled in FY23.

Don’t forget, you’ll find over 200 titles that support Summer Reading Programs. We aim to provide titles in eBook and eAudio format and in Spanish language when available. We also purchase multiple copies of titles, and many classics are available without loan restrictions. We have purchased the Nutmegs, Kid Governor titles, and lots of other titles from various Summer Reading lists.