The Rhode Island Library Report
Jan. 7, 2016
  • Home
  • News Blog
  • About
  • Presidential Libraries
  • Reflections
  • Reports, studies
    • Pew study
  • Contact Us

Boksenbaum to retire as state chief library officer

2/28/2013

 
Picture
HOWARD BOKSENBAUM, chief state library officer, at a meeting of library directors he organized last September. RI Library Report photo
      By Brian C. Jones
      Rhode Island Library Report


        PROVIDENCE, R.I. (Feb. 28, 2013) – Howard Boksenbaum, the state chief library officer who helped shepherd not only the state’s libraries but Rhode Island state government into the digital age, has announced he’ll retire on June 30.
      Boksenbaum has headed the state Office of Library and Information Services (OLIS) since January, 2007, and has been part of state government for 25 years.
      The announcement was posted on the OLIS Website Feb. 20. A voice mail message on Boksenbaum’s telephone extension today said he’ll be away from his office until April 4, and the Library Report was not immediately able to reach him for comment.
      In his Website announcement, Boksenbaum said that he is retiring confident that “….  RI libraries will continue to find for every reader her or his book and for every book its reader, regardless of what it is we will be calling ‘books’ in the future.”

        Boksenbaum noted the enormous changes in information technology that have occurred over the more than three decades  he has worked in both state government  and the library system, seeing the evolution from teletypes to computers and from the Reader’s Guide to the Internet.
      “I depart from the Office of Library and Information Services secure in the knowledge that I am leaving behind an extraordinary staff that will continue to point Rhode Island libraries in the direction of the future and the excitement that waits there,” he wrote.
      Tom Viall, chair of the state Library Board, which advises the state on library policy, said this morning that Boksenbaum will “be greatly missed,” and that he leaves behind a “tremendous staff” at OLIS.
      “He has done a remarkable job at a difficult time for libraries across Rhode Island,” because of tight budgets, Viall said, noting the temporary closing of the Central Falls library when that city entered bankruptcy and other strains on the public library system.
      “He has really been an advocate and worked with the General Assembly in making sure that library services survived,” Viall said in a phone interview.
      Viall said that Boksenbaum has had “a very, very clear vision of what the responsibility of OLIS is – to make sure that everyone in Rhode Island has access to superior library service.”
      The Office of Library and Information Services, which distributes more than $10 million in state and federal aid to libraries annually, is within the Department of Administration, and Viall said the Library Board will ask DOA Director Richard Licht to allow the panel to have a role in selecting Boksenbaum’s successor.
      Viall said he believes there will be a national search to fill the post.
      When Boksenbaum was named chief library officer, a state announcement at the time said he was then assistant director for central information management services at the state Division of Information Technology.
      “Mr. Boksenbaum had a major role in bringing state government online, including the creation of RI.gov and in establishing the statewide interoperable public safety communication network,” that announcement said.
      He has a linguistics degree from Washington University in St. Louis and Waseda University in Tokyo, according to that earlier announcement. He has a master’s degree from the University of Pittsburgh.
      In last week's Web posting, Boksenbaum said that “I am retiring to bloom in some other areas of life that my work in the library and information world has let me neglect.  I suspect my departure will be less of a removal from the library world than a transition to library user and advocate.  Thanks to all who have made my life in libraries a pleasure.”

The Force seems to be with libraries as they hold annual State House "awareness day"

2/6/2013

 
Picture
REP. LARRY VALENCIA chats with librarians at Awareness Day
Some supporters Tweet, e-mail and post encouragement

By Brian C. Jones
Rhode Island Library Report

     

   PROVIDENCE, R.I. (Feb. 6, 2013)     If you are going to have a Legislative Awareness Day, you can’t do any better than have state Rep. Larry Valencia, D-Richmond, Exeter and Hopkinton,  stop by your table.
    “I’m on the Finance Committee and I’m an ally,” Valencia told a trio of librarians manning a display of the Rhode Island Library Association, which organized today’s annual event.
    Good news just as the General Assembly takes up the budget submitted by Gov. Lincoln D. Chafee, who has proposed to keep state support for libraries at current levels in the next fiscal year, which begins in July – as opposed to cutting the allocation, as some had feared might happen this year.
    Valencia spent 10 minutes or so chatting with the three librarians overseeing the RILA’s table, Emily Grace Mehrer, of the state-sponsored ASK RI information service and North Scituate Public Library; Chelsea Dodd, who works at Newport’s Redwood Library and Athenaeum, and the Greenville Public Library; and Miranda Nero, of Ocean State Libraries and the Cranston Public Library.
    He told the Library Report afterwards that he believes that not only should the state maintain its funding for libraries, but ideally, it should increase its support, along with beefing up higher education spending.
    Even at a time when books and other resources are available in digital form on the Internet, libraries remain important resources for information, said Valencia, whose legislative biography lists him as a “freelance medical and technical writer.”
    More importantly, he said, librarians are valuable guides to someone trying navigating the vast rivers of information available in print and digital form: “They can point you in the right direction.”


Many groups; one theme
    RILA was one of the exhibitors at the two-hour event that was scheduled to end at 4 p.m., when the House was to convene. Tables were set up by various organizations in the second-floor corridor outside the entrances to the State Library and the House chamber.
    The idea was to display the many facets of the Rhode Island library community – and engage legislators as they passed by on their way to committee meetings and other State House business, said Eileen Dyer, RILA president and coordinator of youth services at the Cranston Public Library.   
Picture
THERE'S FACT. And there's candy. Both were available at the Rhode Island Library Association's table
And a word from Obi-Wan Kenobi
Picture
ASK RI's Shane Sher says the information service put support for libraries in "Star Wars" terms for its young (and older) Facebook followers
        Among other exhibitors were HELIN, the Higher Education Library Information Network consortium, through which college, university and other libraries share resources; the state Office of Library and Information Services, RILINK, a resource-sharing program for Rhode Island school libraries.
      Dyer said she thinks administration and legislative officials respect the way libraries are providing new services, such as hosting computers from the   
state Department of Labor and Training, after that department downsized, and running programs like English-as-a-second-language classes.
        The Library Association this year asked library supporters who couldn’t attend the State House session to phone in comments, or post them on Facebook and e-mail and Tweet them, so they could be copied onto a poster board with color marker pens – a blend of old and new technologies.
      Among the comments:
      Sarah - Innovative programing gives me the ‘Warm-fuzzies’ when I walk through the door.
      Janet - People don’t always realize that not everyone has a computer, printer, or internet at home, and the library provides that.

      ASK RI regularly encourages young readers to use its reference and information services through postings on its Facebook page based on popular culture. As a lead-up to Library Legislative Awareness Day, it displayed this proposition, put in “Star Wars” terms:
      Cutting Library Funding During a Recession Is Literally Like Letting Society Attack the Death Star Before Han Solo Even Had a Chance to Disable the Shield Generator on the Forest Moon of Endor!
      Judging by today’s reception, the Force seems to be with the libraries.

_______
CORRECTION: The original version of this story misspelled the name of Obi-Wan Kenobi. Sorry, we are. (And thanks to ASK RI for pointing out the correct spelling). bcj/ 2/12/13

    The LIBRARY LINE

    This blog is a principal news outlet of the Library Report.

    Archives

    January 2016
    June 2015
    April 2015
    August 2014
    January 2014
    November 2013
    October 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    March 2012

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

The text and photographs on this site are the product of The Library Report, unless otherwise noted, and they are protected by copyright laws of the United States.  We allow - and encourage - others to republish our articles, unless otherwise noted, as long as they are not altered and are attributed to the Rhode Island Library Report. The Presidential Library series is copyrighted by its author, Linda Lotridge Levin, and can only be used with her permission. The display of our photographs of libraries on this site and on our social media does not mean those libraries support or are affiliated with the Library Report.
Copyright © The Library Report