Complete 2012 Journal - 2012 NC Conference Journal

282 The North Carolina Annual Conference – 2012 Journal
NC Conference Media Center
The Media Center has added over 250 new resources in the last year including new Bible
studies, curricula, videos, and books. Resources by Adam Hamilton, Rob Bell, Mickey Efird,
and Steve Skelton are among the most popular items borrowed. The Spiritual Life Team
donated a collection of spiritual formation resources in December 2011 that are on display.
To gain a little revenue, the Media Center partnered with Cokesbury to open a virtual
Cokesbury store. Any products purchased through our virtual store will earn the Media
Center a 5% rebate. The link is on the Media Center’s website.
In 2011, the Media Center received 817 requests for resources averaging 3.9 requests every
day. Most of these requests were received online via email, chat, the catalog shopping cart,
the website, or Twitter. However, walk-in and phone requests each accounted for 30% of all
requests. There are many ways to contact the Media Center and all of them are being utilized.
At Annual Conference, the Media Center had a display table and an additional table packed
with over 100 VHS tapes to give away for free. Almost all of them were gone by the end of
Conference. The Media Center is weeding VHS tapes as less churches are able to use them
and attempting to replace them with DVD versions or updated material on the same topic.
Look for another VHS giveaway at Annual Conference this year and every year until all of
them are gone!
In August, the Media Center introduced a pilot program to loan e-books using the Amazon
Kindle policy that allows owners of Kindle e-books to loan their copies once to one person
for two weeks. The Media Center began collecting Kindle e-books that were available for
free for a limited time. Twelve of these books have been loaned, but the collection now stands
at over 100 e-books.
October was National Church Library Month and the Media Center celebrated by adding
new features to the website including church librarian training, a guide to e-books, a wish
list, and new reviews and electronic resources. Several participating churches received free
resources to keep for completing the website scavenger hunt or posting what they were
reading. As part of National Library Week in April, the Media Center posted a Guide to
NC LIVE to help churches make use of the wealth of free online resources offered by North
Carolina Public Libraries.
Looking ahead, the Media Center is in the process of moving the library management
software to an open-source program called Evergreen. Evergreen will allow our resources
to be barcoded and shelved according to the Dewey Decimal System to make for a much
better browsing experience. In addition, the software that will greatly improve the online
catalog by providing online user accounts, the availability and due dates of resources, website
links, Library of Congress subject headings, advanced sorting of search results, book covers,
and more. Patrons will find the online catalog much more informative and easy to use with
the added benefit of eliminating the cost of a software maintenance contract allowing more
money to be directed to the purchase of new resources.
By Laura Dallas, Media Center Associate