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This year, OPLIN has made arrangements with eTech Ohio to answer individual questions from public libraries about E-rate issues. You may contact Lorrie Germann, eTech Educational Technology Consultant, at 614-485-6050 or Lorrie.Germann@etech.ohio.gov.

Did you know that every public library is eligible to receive E-rate money? At the very least, by filling out a few forms you can get as much as a 90% discount on your telephone bills! The telephone companies and the federal government collect this money from every telephone customer, but unless you ask for it, it sits in Washington. PLEASE TAKE THE MONEY!

Overnight this Thursday (September 25, 2008)  World Book will be launching World Book Student, the upgrade/replacement for World Book Online Reference Center, their middle school site. You can see the preview or the announcement (.PDF).

OPLIN is legally required to make funds available to public libraries "...to help local libraries purchase or maintain filters to screen out obscene and illegal internet materials." (HB119, 2007) The amount of this earmark currently stands at $85,725; any portion of this earmark not granted to libraries gets returned to the state treasury. (The earmark can't be used for any other OPLIN budget needs.)

The OPLIN Report to Stakeholders reveals what we have known all along - money is tight everywhere.  Unfortunately, because of even more recent state-level cuts, the OPLIN budget is CRITICAL.

Take a look at the report to see what we have accomplished this last fiscal year and to get a glimpse of what may be coming down the road.

At the OPLIN Stakeholders Meeting on September 12, we regretfully announced that the statewide OPLIN subscription to EBSCO NoveList will be canceled when our current contract ends on June 30, 2009.

EBSCO has announced their new Customer Success Center (http://www.ebscohost.com/customerSuccess/).  Features for public libraries include:

OPLIN and the State Library will be hosting two workshops on E-rate for public libraries this fall, on November 4 and December 12. At this point we have not worked out all the details of time and place (except that the live presenters from eTech Ohio will be at the State Library), but we wanted to let you know about this in time for you to get it on your calendars.

Workshop participants are generally expected to sign up for both sessions.

WorldBook is now providing webinar-based training for the various facets of WorldBook that are included in the Ohio Web Library.  There are two sets of webinars; general ones being offered to U.S. customers at large (the schedule includes the Discover product, which OWL does not get, so take note when registering), and ones geared specifically to Ohio libraries. 

(Yes, you are an OPLIN stakeholder.  If you work in an Ohio public library, you're one of us.) The Ohio Public Library Information Network's (OPLIN) Stakeholders meeting will be held on Friday, September 12th from 9:00 am - 10:00 am at the Lausche Building.