SWAN Strategic Planning Update: Two Town Hall Meetings, Aug 1st & Aug 2nd
SWAN is creating a 5-year strategic plan for the organization. The SWAN Board and Membership took formal steps to approve the use of Consulting Within Reach for SWAN's strategic planning consultant. Two membership "town hall" meetings will take place at the following locations and times.
Wednesday, August 1 at Tinley Park Public Library at 1:30 p.m. in the large library meeting room located on the first floor.
Thursday, August 2 at Oak Brook Public Library at 10:00 a.m. in the library meeting room.
Curtis Chang from Consulting Within Reach will facilitate each 90 minute session with questions and discussion. SWAN will provide live streaming for these town hall meetings, but I would encourage library directors to attend in person. If you have questions, please reach out to me directly.
Aaron Skog,
SWAN Executive Director
630-326-7022
aaron@swanlibraries.net
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SWANx18 = SWANstravaganza August 17, 2018
Registration remains open for this year's Annual Conference, SWANx2018! Our event will be held Friday, August 17th, again at Moraine Valley Community College.Please visit our Eventbrite page for more information and to register. You can register solo or as a group. Simply select the number of tickets that you will need, and on the payment page you will be directed to add each attendee’s info separately; you will then be able to pay via credit card or request an invoice for a group purchase. Upon registering, each attendee will receive a survey link in their confirmation email to choose which breakout sessions you are interested in. Completing that survey is important as it will help us complete the final schedule which we will share with registrants in July.
If you have any questions regarding this year's event, please email Brande Overbey at brande@swanlibraries.net for assistance.
Brande Overbey
SWAN Operations Manager
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MobileCirc Logins & Usage Temporarily Suspended
We have suspended the use of MobileCirc due to an unexpected software bug. The SWAN IT staff are working with SirsiDynix software engineers to resolve an issue with MobileCirc impacting our Symphony Integrated Library System (ILS) adversely. We will update this SWAN support site posting as soon as we have additional information.
Steven Schlewitt
SWAN IT Manager
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SWAN will now move forward with Green Hills Public Library District's request for membership. The initial inquiry began in 2016, and we decided to work together after the New 19 project was complete. SWAN libraries were updated at the June 7th SWAN Quarterly meeting that we will move ahead with the request for full Membership. Green Hills Public Library District is located in Palos Hills, and was once a member library in SWAN. The Library borders on several existing SWAN member libraries (Oak Lawn, Bridgeview, Palos Heights, and Palos Park), and is currently a standalone configuration using SirsiDynix Symphony and Enterprise. More information about Green Hills Public Library District and the benefits of considering the library for full SWAN membership will be provided at the September 6, 2018 Quarterly meeting and will be a discussion topic at that meeting.
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We are sad to announce that the Brookfield Zoo has permanently closed its library. SWAN received notice of this closure in early December 2017. A few weeks ago, the Zoo formally notified SWAN that it will terminate its membership. We have no other updates as to any decision by the Chicago Zoological Society for its library collection. The SWAN fiscal year 2019 budget that starts July 1, 2018 did not include any membership fees from Brookfield Zoo, so there will not be any impact for SWAN's upcoming fiscal year or its reserve fund.
Aaron Skog
SWAN Executive Director
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Upcoming Events
For all of the events listed below, please click on the link for the meeting location provided in the Library Learning (L2) site.
Discovery and User Experience Advisory Group Meeting
Wednesday, June 27, 2018 at 1:30 p.m.
Affectionately known as DUX, this group supports SWAN operations by providing input on discovery configuration, including Enterprise discovery, eResource Central, mobile device search, and EBSCO Discovery Service. In our last DUX meeting, we gathered design challenges related to search and discovery. In our upcoming meeting on Wednesday, June 27th, we will prioritize those challenges, selecting the top 2-3 that the group will tackle over the next year through usability testing and other design research activities.
SWAN Audiovisual Materials Pre-Cat Training
Monday, July 16, 2018 at 9:30 a.m.
This workshop will be presented by SWAN Bibliographic Services Team and will cover the basics of creating pre-cats for DVDs, Blu-Rays, CDs, Playaways, Video Games and Audiobooks. Registration required. We have seats available but register now! This workshop is geared for library staff that create pre-cataloging records to help with proper data entry to ensure SWAN's catalog remains optimal for library users.
Circulation Advisory Group Meeting
Wednesday, July 18, 2018 at 9:30 a.m.
The Circulation Advisory Committee is charged with revising the SWAN Circulation Policy as needed, developing Circulation “Best Practices,” evaluating the SWAN software and any circulation enhancements. This 11-member committee may also make recommendations regarding Circulation topics to the SWAN Board upon request. Meetings are held six times a year on the third Wednesday of the month. Committee members are elected to two-year terms on a rotating basis. Open to everyone to attend.
SWAN Board Meeting
Friday, July 20, 2018 at 9:30 a.m.
Topics for they July SWAN Board meeting include the appointment of officers for the next year and setting the governance meeting schedule for the next 12 months. The SWAN Board will continue a discussion on the topic raised at the June SWAN Quarterly meeting for videoconference attendance at membership meetings.
Serials Users Group
Thursday, July 28, 2018 at 9:30 a.m.
This group meets twice annually or more as needed. The Serials Users Group is open to all SWAN library staff – those who currently use Serials as well as those who may be interested in using this Symphony module. It is a forum for all things Serials and an excellent opportunity for networking. Topics planned for the July 28th meeting include deduplication complications, MARC holdings, and a known software issue that is affecting sorting in the control record.
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SWAN Support Tickets for May Sets New Record
 We set a new monthly record for the second highest number support tickets ever submitted! This of course was due to our efforts to bring 19 libraries online May 1, 2018. There were 1,284 tickets opened and SWAN staff closed 1,188 of them. The record that still stands is April 2015 when 1,473 tickets were submitted in a single month, which was the "big migration" SWAN undertook moving from Innovative Interfaces software.
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