VLA Blogs

Please excuse cross-postings:

The 2008 Virginia Library Association Membership Survey is now available. Current members, please help your Virginia Library Association by completing this brief membership survey. Results will be used to increase the quality of VLA’s efforts, increase the organization’s value to its members, and to improve recruitment and retention.

The survey has been sent to the email addresses of all active VLA members. It’s likely that some spam filters will prevent delivery of the survey in the more massive email. If you have not received it, please email Karim Khan (rustlibrary@loudoun.gov) for a link to the survey. The survey will be available for VLA Members to complete until August 31, 2008.

Please let me know if there are questions/problems, and thank you for participating in the 2008 Virginia Library Association Membership Survey!

Karim Khan
Chair, VLA Membership Committee

The 2008 VLA Annual Conference Program to be held Oct. 23 and 24, 2008 in Williamsburg, VA is now available as a PDF. Hotel and Registration Forms (PDF) Please visit the Conference page for additional information.

VLA’s Membership Committee will be releasing a survey to all VLA members this week. Results of this survey will be used to increase the quality of VLA’s efforts, increase the organization’s value to its members, and to improve recruitment and retention. Watch for it in your email!

Thanks to the members of the VLA Membership Committee, as well as Cindy Church from the Library of Virginia, for all the work developing and implementing this survey.

The FBI removed computer records from the C. Burr Artz Library this week, a library official confirmed Saturday.

Darrell Batson, director of Frederick County Public Libraries, said two FBI employees came to the downtown Frederick library either Wednesday or Thursday. The agents removed two public computers from the library’s second floor. They told him they were taking the units back to their office in Washington, D.C., Batson said.

Batson expected the computers would be returned early this week, he said.

Debbie Weierman, spokeswoman for the FBI’s Washington field office, would not comment Saturday on whether the agency had removed records from the library.

This was the third time in his 10 years with FCPL that the FBI has come to the library seeking records, Batson said. It was the first time they came without a court order.

The library’s procedure for such requests usually requires a court order, however after the agent described the case and the situation, he was persuaded to give them access, Batson said.

“They had an awful lot of information,” he said, but he was not allowed to discuss specifics.

“It was a decision I made on my experience and the information given to me,” he said.

C. Burr Artz Library has several dozen public computers. The agents seemed to know which ones they needed access to, he said.

Anyone with a library card and a PIN number can use FCPL computers. Without a library card, a person can get a temporary pass to go online.

Batson said the agents made no mention of Bruce Ivins, anthrax or Fort Detrick.

“Obviously it coincided with the events everyone is talking about,” he said.

The Frederick News-Post.

The Virginia Genealogical Society and the Tidewater Genealogical Society will be presenting a conference entitled, “Hampton Roads: Gateway to Virginia at Christopher Newport University on Saturday November 1, 2008 from 8:45 to 4:00pm.  For more information go to http://www.vgs.org