Service Improvement of the Month for 2007

December 2007

New Right Navigational Bar

Broward County Library's Web site features a new right navigational bar highlighting an array of exceptional services. Customers can easily find best-selling books, book clubs, computer classes, literacy classes, and teen volunteer orientations directly from the homepage.

To access these pages, visit the library's homepage at www.broward.org/library and view the right navigational bar. All of these pages are listed above the image of the library's monthly magazine, Bookings.

November 2007

The new West Regional Library



On Friday, October 26, the much-anticipated new West Regional Library hosted an official ribbon-cutting ceremony that marked the grand opening of BCL's newest facility. Almost 500 people attended this ceremony featuring guest speakers, the City of Plantation Color Guard, and music by the Gold Coast Jazz Society with prominent coverage in local newspapers.

The new library is located at 8601 West Broward Boulevard in Plantation. It is just east of the intersection of Pine Island Road and Broward Boulevard. Parking is available around the building and in an adjacent two-story parking garage.

Hours of Operation:
Monday through Thursday:  9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.

Friday and Saturday:           10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.

Sunday:                             1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Facility Information:

• Two-story, 72,000 square foot facility
• 100 public use computers
• Multipurpose room with a capacity for 250 people
• Three group study rooms
• Five tutoring rooms
• Youth Services room
• Large conference room to seat 30 people and a comfortable smaller conference
  room to hold 15 people
• Wireless hotspot
  

October 2007

Broward County Library's 2006-2007 Annual Report

Broward County Library's 2006-2007 Annual Report is an interactive web page highlighting the accomplishments and accolades our library system. To view this year's report, click here. Each section is separated by clickable headings on the left side and the text and images appear embedded in the right side of the screen.


September 2007

Miramar Branch Library-Education Center      
  
Images of the new building under construction

Opening in mid-2008, the new Miramar Branch Library-Education Center will be located at 2050 Civic Center Place in Miramar. The concrete for the third floor has been poured and the roof is being completed. The 30,000 square foot library, the first County Library branch in the City of Miramar will host two partners, each occupying 20,000 square feet on two upper floors: Broward Community College and Nova Southeastern University and will feature: 

• Collection Size - 100,000 items
• Multipurpose Room - 100 people capacity
• Tutoring rooms
• Quiet Study room
• Conference room
• Computers: 64
• Wireless Hotspot
• Storytelling/Program room
• A drive-up book return
• Friends of the Library Space

The managing general contractor is Centex Rooney and the architect is Cartaya & Associates. Public Art will also be by Robert Calvo. The budget for the new Miramar Branch Library-Education Center is $21,601,738.


August 2007

Tyrone Bryant Branch Library Project

Construction for the replacement for the 10,000 square foot Tyrone Bryant Branch Library began in April, 2007. The new facility, designed to accommodate a growing, diverse community, will replace the current 5,450 square foot facility, which will stay open during construction.

  

Features of the new Tyrone Bryant Branch include:

• 40,000 books, CDs, DVDs and other materials
• Multi-purpose Room - 75 person capacity
• Conference Room - 10 to 12 person capacity
• Seating Capacity (excluding meeting space) - 80 to 85 people
• Tutoring Room
• 23 Public Computers
• Wireless Access
• 11 Staff Members
• Friend of the Library Space/Meeting Room

July 2007

Broward County Library will soon begin testing a new program to notify customers via e-mail of library items on hold. This test project will inform customers who have provided their e-mail address when items that have been placed on hold arrive at the library location they selected. More information about this new project will be announced later in 2007.     


June 2007

New Visual Catalog

Broward County Library introduces its newest service improvement this month - the Visual Catalog, an exciting online tool that makes finding materials in the library easy and, yes, fun.

The Visual Catalog is a search tool that generates information about your desired subject as well as subject associations that appear in a "word cloud."

For example, type in the word library and you'll get a list of books on libraries (complete with book covers so you can actually see what you're getting) in the center of the page.

To the left, you'll get a word cluster with terms related to libraries such as "reference," "Congress," "school," and "literacy." The word clouds have terms that have something to do with the term you used, spelling variations of the term you used, translations of your search term into a variety of languages you can find in your library, and thesaurus terms with both synonyms and antonyms of your search term. Click on any of these to get listings on those topics as well. On the right side of the page, Visual Catalog provides a list of external sources - credible databases BCL customers can access to get online information about their topic.

Customers can place holds on items via the Visual Catalog, the same as you would on the Traditional Catalog; after reviewing the title you want, just click on the blue "Place Hold" above it and enter your library card information.

The new Visual Catalog offers an enormous range of categories, and there are over 30 different ways to customize your search to get exactly what you want. After you've searched your terms, use the menu to pick the exact format, author, subject, language, and series. To ensure no dead-end paths, there is a number next to each category that tells you exactly how many items are available.

Click here to check out this exceptional new feature.


May 2007

The 2007 National Association of County Information Officer (NACIO) Awards were more competitive than ever, with hundreds of entries throughout the United States.  This year, Broward County Library received the following:

• Superior (Best in Class) - Broward County Library's E-Newsletter
• Excellent - LEED Preview Meeting and Luncheon at South Regional/BCC Library
• Excellent - Audiovisual productions for Blues School Web Commercial
• Excellent - Photography - Photo of South Regional/BCC Library 
• Merit - Online How to Guide Brochure (.pdf)

April 2007

1st Annual Florida Book Awards
The Florida Book Awards is a new annual program that recognizes, honors, and celebrates the best Florida literature published in the previous year. The winners have been chosen representing seven categories of books published in 2006.

Florida Center for the Book, a section of the Broward County Libraries Division, is a charter member of the committee that established the Florida Book Awards. "We researched other state book award programs, worked on the program design, nominated jury members and promoted the competition to authors and publishers," explained Eileen McNally, Executive Director of Florida Center for the Book. "Three jury members have a Broward County Library connection: Susan Hodos, Margate Library Manager; Gina Moon, Teen Services Coordinator; and Marlene Lee, retired Youth Services Coordinator. Now that the winners and finalists have been announced, Florida Center for the Book will promote those authors here in Broward County and statewide to accomplish our mission - To bring readers and writers together."

The winners are:

Popular Fiction: Gold: James O. Born, Escape Clause; Silver: Ward Larsen, The Perfect Assassin; Bronze: M.D. Abrams, Murder and Wakulla Springs; Randy Wayne White, Dark Light; Brad Meltzer, The Book of Fate

General Fiction: Gold Medal Winner: Tony D'Souza, Whiteman; Silver Medal Winner: Carl Hiaasen, Nature Girl; Bronze Medal Winner: Elizabeth Dewberry, His Lovely Wife

Nonfiction: Gold: Michael Grunwald, The Swamp: The Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise; Silver: Daniel S. Murphree, Constructing Floridians: Natives and Europeans in the Colonial Floridas, 1513-1783; Bronze: Bill Belleville, Losing It All to Sprawl; Martin A. Dyckman, Floridian of His Century; J. Stanley Marshall, The Tumultuous Sixties: Campus Unrest and Student Life at a Southern University

Spanish Language: Gold: Daina Chaviano, La Isla De Los Amores Infinitos

Poetry: Gold: James Kimbrell, My Psychic; Silver: Jay Hopler, Green Squall; Bronze: Kelle Groom, Luckily; Peter Meinke, The Contracted World

Young Adult: Gold: Adrian Fogelin, The Real Question; Silver: Joyce Sweeney, Headlock; Bronze: Caridad Ferrer, Adios to My Old Life; Tracy A. Akers, The Fire and the Light

Children's: Gold: N.E. Bode, The Somebodies; Silver: Laurie Friedman, In the Business of Mallory; illustrator Barbara Pollak

Winners will be recognized in Tallahassee on March 23. The Gold Medal Winners will receive additional recognition from the Governor and the Secretary of State on March 28 at the Florida Heritage Gala, also in Tallahassee.

The Florida Book Awards is coordinated by The Florida State University Program in American and Florida Studies, and co-sponsored by the Florida Center for the Book, State Library and Archives of Florida, Florida Historical Society, Florida Humanities Council, Florida Literary Arts Coalition, Florida Library Association, "Just Read, Florida!," Governor's Family Literacy Initiative, Florida Association for Media In Education, Florida Center for the Literary Arts, and Florida Chapter of the Mystery Writers of America.

For more information, call Florida Center for the Book at 954-357-7404 or visit the Florida Book Awards website:  www.fsu.edu/~ams/.

Feature Films Now Renewable

Effective April 1, 2007, Broward County Library customers will be able to renew feature films in DVD or VHS format twice, for two days each time the title is renewed.  If a feature film title in DVD or VHS format has a hold pending for another customer, the item will not be renewed and needs to be returned by the original due date.  This is the same policy as for best-selling books.

Customers can renew materials at any Broward County Library, via telephone at 954-357-RENU, or through the Broward County Library website. For step-by-step instructions on how to renew online, visit www.broward.org/library and click on Renew/Hold Materials, the second item in the left navigational bar.

Riverland Branch Library Re-Opens

After being damaged in Hurricane Wilma, the Riverland Branch Library re-opened to the public on April 2 at 10 a.m. Below are photos from the event:

  


March 2007

Go Wireless at Your Broward County Library

Broward County Library now provides free wireless internet access at library locations throughout the County. The wireless broadband service - commonly known as "WiFi" - offers the public the opportunity to surf the web, check e-mail, access online databases and more without being connected to a network.

"Offering wireless service to our customers is yet another way to offer them more opportunities for information access quickly and easily," says Robert E. Cannon, Broward County Library Director. "We are constantly looking for methods to improve and add to the services we already provide, and we feel that WiFi is something our customers want and need."

The initiative to provide wireless internet access at Broward County Library's is part of a countywide effort to provide opportunities to boost technical advancement for Broward County residents. Wireless access is available both inside and outside of library locations so that customers can more fully utilize the resources they need.

"I like to bring my laptop to the library because I can study the books and go online at the same time, wherever I want to," says Ann Helmers, a regular at downtown Fort Lauderdale's Main Library. "This way I'm not tied down to the computer, and I can sit in a comfortable chair and study, go from floor to floor or even outside."

The project currently includes most Broward County library locations; new ones are regularly added, so please contact your local branch for more information.


February 2007

  

In April of 2004, a site for the new South Regional Library was selected, and plans were immediately made to build the new library as a "green" building in accordance with the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System -- an environmentally sound, energy-efficient structure for both private and public use. More and more are being built in America as issues such as global warming and energy conservation take center stage. In Florida, a handful of green buildings exist, including MTV Latin America's headquarters in South Beach, among others.  Broward County Library's South Regional/BCC Library will be the first "green" building in Broward County.

LEED buildings are the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of high-performance buildings, promotes a whole building approach by recognizing five key areas of human and environmental health: sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality.

The two-story high building was designed in a box shape that is extremely efficient in terms of both library functions and energy efficiency, Windows are placed in strategic places for maximizing natural light and minimizing glare, while the roof is "green," painted white to reflect heat from the sun. Additionally, the building's structural system and mechanical system were both designed to preserve energy and keep operating costs low and a special construction method that places insulation closer to the buildings' outside face keeps even more moisture and humidity out.

In addition to structural features that adhere to the LEED's guidelines, South Regional Library also features Other sustainable features of South Regional Library include bicycle storage and changing rooms; carpooling spaces adjacent to the building; on-site storm water retention; light pollution reduction and landscaping that uses only native, drought-tolerant plants. Inside, only low-emitting adhesives, sealants, paints and carpet were used in the construction, and there is carbon monoxide monitoring inside the building.