Foreclosure assistance

From the East Valley Resource Coalition listserv. Added these to the http://chandlerlibrary.org/internet/homes.htm page (on the left)

Foreclosure assistance is also available through:
AZ Foreclosure Prevention hotline.
http: www.azgovernor.gov/MortgageHelp.asp
1-877-448-1211

Homeownership Preservation Foundation (national organization)
http://www.995hope.org
1-888-995-HOPE(4673)

GED test dates through March

Adult ed gave me the GED Test dates for next year, but Donna wants to post the next few months, just in case something changes:
http://www.chandlerlibrary.org/core.htm#GED%20Testing
Update: will keep a rolling 3-4 months out of GED test dates on the Adult Ed page.

I Qor (Call center/collections agency in Boyer Building)

We've had a couple of people recently needing the phone number for the collections agency at the top of the Boyer Building. It was kind of a pain to track down, as a search for "Iqor" in Chandler gets job ads but no address/phone number. A search in Reference USA found this company at that address:

Allied Interstate Inc 55 N Arizona Pl # 505, Chandler AZ 85225
phone (480)610-3000
fax (480)782-7007
toll free (800)469-9091
Branch of I Qor Inc [according to their website, it's really iQor]

English classes at Chandler Christian Community Center

They're still offering English classes at the CCCC, but they won't be having any more until the beginning of the year. They're expanding their offerings and said they'd send us a flier when they have one. They do not require any documentation to participate in their classes, something to keep in mind for folks who don't qualify for ours.

Chandler Holiday Assistance Programs

[A copy of the flier is on Lucy's and Desi's desktop - from Lilia Gonzalez from Chandler Housing & Redevelopment Division]
The following is a flyer meant to assist you in knowing where to refer families who are in need of holiday assistance and for the Chandler community to provide donations and assistance:

Chandler Christian Community Center: (480) 963-1423
345 S California St, Chandler 2008 Operation Santa Registration
Limited to Chandler children 17 and under. Cannot register at another location also. Must bring birth certificates, proof of address and proof of income for all members of the household. Although people are very generous, not ALL families will be adopted, but ALL THE MINOR CHILDREN will receive gifts. Sign up dates are as follows..
October 29, 1pm-3pm, October 30, 1pm-3pm November 5, 9-11am, November 6, 9-11am, November 12, 1-3pm, November 13, 1-3pm, November 18, 9-11am, November 19, 9-11am, November 20, 1-3pm

Kyrene Family Resource Center: (480) 783-3172
1330 East Dava Drive, Tempe AZ
Assist families whose children attend schools in the Kyrene School District. Adopt a Family program available. Contact Roxanne Richardson: rricha@kyrene.org
Donations accepted and registration for assistance now until December 18th.

Salvation Army Chandler Corps: (480) 963-2041
Christmas Assistance Registration-85 E. Saragosa St., Chandler
Christmas 2008 Applicants must be residents of Chandler, Gilbert, Higley, Queen Creek, or Sun Lakes sign up dates are as follows: November 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 20, & 21 9:00am -1:00p.m. Applicants must bring a birth certificate for each child in household, picture ID for all adults, proof of current address, proof of income and proof of expenses. Donation needed for the holiday season include hygiene kits, food for the food bank, diapers, Thanksgiving Dinner needs. Contact for additional donation items needed and a variety of volunteer opportunities!

St. Vincent De Paul, St Mary’s Church: (480) 814-7778 Call for specific program dates and criteria. They are interviewing existing families to determine eligibility.
Boys and Girls Club: (480) 899-8302 Will assist 30 families that have children that are current boys and girls club members. Families have already been registered.

Chandler Cap Office: (480) 963-4321 Registration ended on October 22nd, 2008. Families who attend workshops will be able to earn tickets to purchase gifts for their children for Christmas.

Community Information and Referral: (602) 263-8856 Call 7 days a week 24 hours a day. Information and referral line to various social service agencies including holiday assistance programs.

St. Andrews Church- Assisting headstart families this year. Families must have children attending Headstart program.

A & A Cottages: (480) 792-0265
Assists young moms, teenage girls, and foster families. Donations help foster children in group homes, transitional homes and teenage mothers with infants in transitional housing. Donations needed for the holidays are gift cards (retail), sheets and towels, Adopt a Group Home, infant items. Donations accepted until December 12th. Contact Dorothy Corey at 480-792-0265

Advocates for the Disabled: (602) 212-2600
Assists individuals with disabilities and homeless. Donations needed for the holiday season include food (for the Emergency food pantry), cases of bottled water, new socks. Donations are accepted November through January. Contact Sherry Whitener.

Center for Prevention of Abuse and Violence (CASA): (602) 254-6400
CASA “Adopt a classroom” Holiday Gift…
For as little as $100 ($8.34 per month) you can prevent sexual abuse before it happens and STOP the abuse from continuing by funding a Casa abuse prevention program to an entire classroom of nearly 30 children. Statistically, there are as many as 7 children in each classroom who will be molested an average of 8 years. Your donation means Casa can save hundreds, hopefully thousands of children in the next year. Last school year, as a result of Casa’s prevention programs in schools, 18 children disclosed to Casa they were being sexually abused, and these cases were turned over to police. Help Casa identify and help many more children this Holiday!

A New Leaf: (480) 792-0265 A New Leaf provides homeless families with children temporary shelter. Donations needed for the holiday season include grocery store gift-cards for the Holiday Meals program, retail gift cards for families to purchase clothes, necessities, underwear & socks, full size hygiene items, new towel sets, twin size sheets and blankets, sweatshirts & bottoms, jackets, board games, books, diapers, baby wipes, umbrella strollers, high chairs, portable cribs and learning activity toys. Contact Heidi Anderson for a complete list. All items need to unwrapped and delivered by 4 p.m., December 8th to 845 E. University Dr. Mesa, AZ 85203.

Chandler Fire Department Christmas Program
This program is for Christmas time only and not ongoing through the year. The CFD assists families whose names come via Chandler School District (Susan Horan). The CFD assists approximately 100 families each year. The CFD does not do sign up via phone calls or walk-ins.

Hamilton High School: (480) 883-5182
Hamilton High School adopts needy families with children that attend the school. Donations needed this holiday season include clothing, grocery gift cards, toys for younger siblings and teenage items. Contact Dia Mundle for more information. Donations accepted until December 12th.

Hartford Sylvia Encinas Elementary: (480) 812-6723
The Friends in Need program at the school helps families throughout the year with emergency needs. Currently, this program has 19 families needing assistance this holiday season. Donations needed include basic needs such as food, clothing, towels, cleaning supplies and toys. Families can also be adopted or donations are accepted. Please contact one of the following staff for further information: Eileen Carey (480) 812-6723 carey.Eileen@chandler.k12.az.us, Maria Doom (480) 812-6767 doom.maria@chandler.k12.az.us, Juanita Vasquez (480) 812-6751 vasquez.Juanita@chandler.k12.az.us.

Save the Family: (480) 898-0228
Save the Family provides assistance for homeless families. Families can be adopted for the Thanksgiving and/or Christmas season. Please contact Tim Lidster (480) 898-0228 ext 245 for more information and deadlines.

Neighbors Who Care: (480) 895-7133
Neighbors Who Care offers assistance to the elderly and homebound with meals and transportation assistance. Donations needed this holiday season are gas cards from Safeway. All donations will go towards the grocery van, which transports clients to the grocery store for food.

My Sister’s Place: (480) 821-1024
My Sister’s Place provides domestic violence victims and their children with safe shelter, meals and basic needs for 30 – 45 days. The Christmas program relies solely on donations. A list of specific needs is available by contacting Peggy Dudinyak at 480-821-1024.

*Please let families know they can only sign up at one location since Chandler agencies will be sharing client names on one central list to avoid duplication of efforts.

Dealing with Reorders

Ginger reminded me to clear out my reorders from Sirsi, and I had to get help remembering the steps. This is mostly for me. . .

1. Shift F12 to Edit Item
2. Change Search field to General
3. Click Set Options for Item Search button on top left of that window
4. Enter your criteria (e.g. Item type, language)
5. Choose Reorder as location
6. Click Enter
7. Click Enter
8. Click item you want to deal with
9. Click Modify Copy
10. Click on the copy that says Reorder if more than one copy comes up and then Modify Copy again.
11. Change Home Location to Delete
12. Click Ok
13. Click Return to search list.

The same thing will work for Discards, just choose Discard as the location, instead of Reorder. This information is also (pretty much) found here: https://chanwik.wikispaces.com/Discarding+Procedures+and+Practices

Morningstar Trial - reminder

This from Lynne -
We seem to have renewed interest in getting online information from Morningstar. Currently we have a trial going on (see notes at Lucy and Desi) which gives free access to the full content of Morningstar. When that goes away, however, our customers can still have remote access to the print version of Morningstar by going to http://mfb.morningstar.com . Subscriber ID is the ref desk email address and password is library. Perhaps because the ICMA rep was here recently, city staffers have asked for this info. You may have to remind them that Morningstar's specialty is mutual funds (they won't find anything about financial services such as ICMA). They also include stock info, but not in the same depth as our print version of Value Line.

Computer card to regular card - glitch

David just shared with me something I didn't know. When you switch a person's card from computer card to a regular (e.g. Adult) card, you must Renew Privilege (Alt F11) for the user, before they will be able to check items out, even if the date on their card appears fine. It's this glitch that is the reason why sometimes when we've turned a computer card into a regular card, they still get the message that no more charges are allowed.
After you've renewed their privilege, you can remove the date if they're a Chandler resident.

Historical directories

For the record, the Chandler Museum has a few OLD city directories (from the 1930s, the staff person told me). Mesa Library has quite a few (later ones should include Chandler), and they are in the Mesa Room, which is open limited hours. Anna is the person who is in charge of this room, and it's best that people make reservations in advance. It's open approximately 10:30 - 4. Telephone is 480-644-2207.

Addendum from Lynne:
Note that this info is included in the Wiki, too.

GED testing changes updated online

I updated the GED testing info online according to what Donna gave me. I put the updated date and tried to draw attention to the changes on the homepage in the lefthand blue navigation bar. When Donna gives me the final version, I'll be adding the pdf brochure to easily print out. Please let me know if you see any errors or anything that might be confusing. Thanks!

Christmas Tree permit change - no lottery!

They're doing things pretty differently this year. Starting October 10, you can purchase a Christmas tree-cutting tag at selected (none in Chandler) Big 5 Sporting Goods stores. More info: http://www.fs.fed.us/r3/tonto/news/2008/080902.shtml
I'll post to the More Than Books blog. . .

Court-ordered community service

Today I stumbled across this great page on the city of Tempe's site, listing options for those seeking to do court-ordered community service hours:
http://www.tempe.gov/volunteer/court-ordered%20community%20service.htm
I printed off a page with East Valley agencies and am putting it in the volunteering file. I'll probably link to it from our volunteering page, in case we need to refer to it in the future. Might be a good job for a volunteer, to update this list. . .

I was hoping to get a list from Maricopa County, but the woman at the Community Restitution Program said that they only work with Adult Probationers, and that if we get one of them, have them call 602-619-1914 to speak with John, who can assign them to a community service job.

I think mostly what we get are lesser offenses, like DUIs, which don't involve probation. I spoke with someone at the Chandler Municipal Court, and she says they don't have a list (non since she's been there). They are told to go to "any nonprofit." This is probably where most of the people we get are coming from.

Queen Creek residents/Queen Creek library

Just found out that people who live in Queen Creek but are Pinal County residents must pay for a Maricopa County Library District card, even though they have a branch in Queen Creek. At the moment the fee is $40/yr, but it goes up to $50/yr in September.

Volunteer Orientation Dates

Tara gave me the next few months' volunteer orientation dates here at the Downtown Library, if people ask:

• Wednesday, August 27, 4-6pm
• Wednesday, September 24, 4-6pm
• Wednesday, October 22, 4-6pm
• None in November or December

People should let her know if they plan to attend and may bring their application to the orientation or send it to her ahead of time.

GIMP - new photo editing program

Jeff mentioned that we're going to have the (unfortunately-named) program GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) on our public computers with the forthcoming image. Jeff says it will probably be a while till it is installed, and that Sunset will get it first. I thought we might want to familiarize ourselves with it, because it's certain we'll be getting questions about how to use it as soon as we make it available to the public. It's installed on Lucy and Desi, and there is a shortcut on the desktop to it.
From Wikipedia:

Typical uses include creating graphics and logos, resizing and cropping
photos, altering colours, combining multiple images, removing unwanted image
features, and converting between different image formats.
It is often used as a free software replacement for Adobe Photoshop, the
most widely used bitmap editor in the printing and graphics industries; however,
it is not designed to be a Photoshop clone.

Here's the User Manual for the current release, if you're needing help.

Valley Metro, anyone?

I just have a dickens of a time using the Valley Metro site to find routes. I can never seem to find the right cross streets to put in, and am constantly being given a list of streets and landmarks that have nothing to do with what I put in. Does anyone feel confident in their skills at finding bus routes? Please, if you understand the site, will you help me? I am tired of cringing when people ask me about bus routes, and if things keep going the way they're going (viz. gas prices & the economy), we're probably going to be seeing more and more folks taking the bus. Wonder if we can get someone from Valley Metro to come help us? Or maybe I just need to get my brain to engage. . .

Remote Authentication Troubleshooting

I keep calling Jeff for help about remote authentication problems and finding out that there isn't a problem (sorry, Jeff!). This is for me, more than anyone (thanks, Jeff!):

Patron can't log into databases remotely. . .

• Of course, check their card number and PIN.
• Card or PIN wrong? If the card or PIN have to be fixed, keep in mind that the card will still not work until 15 minutes after (probably) the (next) hour, when the Unicorn Server syncs with the EZProxy database. (If you made the update at 1:10, it should be available after 1:15, but if you made the update at 1:20, it will not be until after 2:15.)
  
• Card number and PIN were Ok to begin with?
  

• Try to duplicate their problem using our PCReservation computer.
• See the instructions taped onto the base of the monitor about using the Remote Desktop to do this.
• Try their card and PIN to access one of the remotely accessible databases (e.g. Masterfile), and if that isn't working, try your own card and PIN or one of the guest cards in the drawer.
  
• If none of the cards works, it could be an issue of the server having problems. Report this to Jeff.
  
• If your card works, but theirs still does not, you might let them try a guest card and PIN (test it first).
  
• If the guest card that worked for you does not work for them, you could try having them clear their cookies and temporary Internet files in the browser settings (in IE 6.0, it's under Tools/Internet Options).
• If that doesn't work, it could mean that it's an issue of the port's being blocked on their end [see following].

If you didn't make any changes to their card or PIN, ask them if they are at work and if there's a possibility that Port 2048 may be blocked. This is a port that most serious firewalls will block (not usually home computer firewalls) and would have to be specifically unblocked. They will need to ask their IT folks about this. It has also happened that someone has had a hardware firewall at home. They will need to disable it or figure out on their own (we cannot do this for them) how to unblock port 2048 to use our databases.

If all else fails, you can contact Jeff. . . :-)

Meebo Tips from their Troubleshooting Guide

I keep getting logged out of my IM account
<snip> Try clearing your cache and refreshing your page. If you don’t know how to clear your cache [see Clearing your cache below]
Once you've cleared your cache, go to http://www.meebo.com/ and hold down the ctrl key and F5 function key simultaneously. This will force the browser to load the most current meebo source with the latest updates.

I can’t sign into meebo
If you're unable to sign in to meebo it can mean a number of different things. Please check the following:
1. Check your network connection. [this probably won't be the case]
2. Make sure your username and password for the particular network you’re accessing are correct and match. [we have it saved, so this probably won't be the case]
3. You may have logged into a network and not been properly logged out…wait about 5-10 minutes and try again. [this might affect us, unfortunately - we probably need to make sure to log out before signing in at the other machine]
4. Try using another browser.[i think this means closing that window and opening a new browser window]
If you've checked the above mentioned possibilities, send an email to comments@meebo.com

I can’t get the meebo web site to load properly
1. You may be behind a firewall that’s interfering with your access to meebo.Try https://www.meebo.com/. [?]

Clearing Your Cache/Cookies
Many issues can be alleviated by clearing your browser's Cache and cookies. Before you clear your cache and cookies for the first time, close all of your browsers, then open up a new one.

For Internet Explorer users:

1. Click on “Tools”
2. Select “Internet Options” from the drop-down menu
3. Click on the “Delete” button in the section for Browsing History
4. Click the buttons to “Delete files…” and “Delete cookies…” or click on the
“Delete all” button
5. Click “Yes” in the confirmation dialog box

[and this is interesting]
You should also every now and then force your browser to load the most current meebo source with the latest updates. To do this, go to www.meebo.com, hold down the ctrl key and f5 function key simultaneously.

BBB Phoenix change

BBB Phoenix is now The Better Business Bureau of Central, Northern & Western Arizona. I'll change the consumer pages to reflect this.

FT Library-related journals in Masterfile

American Libraries 01/01/1975 to present
Book Links 01/01/2002 to present .5 mo. embargo
Booklist 01/01/2002 to present .5 mo. embargo
Computers in Libraries 07/01/1993 to present
Feliciter (Canadian Library Association) 06/01/2001 to present
Library Journal 01/01/1975 to present
Library Media Connection 01/01/2003 to present
Library Technology Reports 05/01/2002 to present
Library Trends 01/01/1997 to present
School Library Journal 01/01/1975 to present
South African Journal of Library and Information Science 01/01/1995 to present