Total Quality Service

With the support and encouragement of Governor Stephen Merrill, your Talking Book Library staff has been learning how to provide Total Quality Service to our readers. Total Quality principles include: soliciting readers' needs and suggestions; using the knowledge and skills of a trained staff; continuously improving our procedures and processes; using all available information and expertise to make decisions; using feedback from our readers to measure our success.

As we all looked at our activities here, we discovered that our children's collection was not easy to use. So we have completely recataloged it. Now we can retrieve books by topic and by grade level combined, making it much faster to locate appropriate books for, say, a ninth-grader who wants to read a horror story.

We reviewed and reorganized our rewinding, check-in and shelving procedures to eliminate the need to have one person review the work of others. We now do a better job of teaching our many part-time volunteers, who, in turn, are working more effectively.

Now it's your turn to provide us with Feedback. Included with this newsletter is a Reader Response Survey. You may mail it back postage-free, of course. If you cannot complete the survey form (sorry, not included in the Internet version) but would like to participate, you may call us at 1-800-491-4200 and we'll write down your responses.

Thank you!

Internet

Granite State Empower & Light changed its telephone number not long after we originally publicized this "electronic meeting place." Their new toll-free access number uses Infopath and offers faster connections and Internet e-mail capability.

From telephones in the Concord dialing area, set your modem to dial 229-0979. From other telephones use 950-5048. This is still a toll-free call. When the call rings through, you will see

Welcome to Infopath Packet Switching Network

At the prompt type .gsel and press Enter. That dot is an essential part of the command. When you log off, you will see the Infopath banner again. Type exit and wait for the NOCARRIERprompt. You can speak with GSE&L Sysop (system operator) Gil Vickery by calling 1-800-826-3700.

The number of Internet suppliers available to New Hampshire residents is growing rapidly. If you'd like to explore the choices, a listing is available through the State Library's Webster at http://www.state.nh.us/subject/computer.html.

Electronic Texts Through Your Computer

Readers with computers and speech output devices often ask when the National Library Service is going to start making books available on computer diskette. Believe it or not, many full-text books are already available through your modem! The most famous collection is "Project Gutenberg", at dircompg@sunee.uwaterloo.ca but a new search tool is available, ALEX (A List of Electronic teXts on the Internet).

You can connect to ALEX via:

gopher://rsl.ox.ac.uk:70/11/lib-corn/hunter
gopher://gopher.lib.ncsu.edu/11/library/stacks/Alex
http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/alex-index.html
I found ALEX - and a great deal more - through The English Server at http://english.hss.cmu.edu/ .

Web Sites of Interest

• There is an Internet Public Library, developed by the University of Michigan's School of Library & Information Studies, available at http://ipl.sils.umich.edu. Opening page options include Reference, Reading Room, Youth, Classroom and Exhibit Hall. It's available both in graphical and text-only versions.
• Government Printing Office documents in ASCII text are available at http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs
  
• Consumer Information Center publications are available for downloading in .zip or .txt formats at http://www.gsa.gov/staff/pa/cic/cic.htm
  
• The National MS Society Online has a homepage at http://www.nmss.org
  
• The National Rehabilitation Information Center (NARIC), a library and information center on disability and rehabilitation, is available at http://www.naric.com/naric . The NARIC database includes ABLEDATA, with information on assistive technology.

STUDENT (and Parent ) SPECIAL ALERT

Did you know that you can shop for college money on the 'net? Yes! Surf to Finaid: The Financial Aid Information Page. The address is a whopper: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/mkant/Public/FinAid/finaid.html (Watch those capital letters!) Mark Kantrowitz, author of The Prentice Hall Guide to Scholarships and Fellowships, maintains this site, and even has a section on financial-aid scam artists.

Another site is the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Postsecondary Education at http://www.ed.gov/offices/OPE/index.html. This site includes an electronic Free Application for Federal Student Aid which you can complete and submit via modem. You'll need to download their special software, but it's all free. Get the details at http://www.ed.gov/offices/OPE/express.html
A third stop should be the FastWeb Financial Aid Locator at http://web.studentservices.com/fastweb/ . FastWeb has sources for 180,000 scholarships - fill out the on-line questionnaire and the service matches you with appropriate sources of money. No cost to you - this commercial site makes its money selling cyber-ads, which you are invited to read while the computer digests your answers and sends back results.

This information came from David Farrell's wonderful column, "Roadside Attractions Along the Information Highway" (copyright 1996 Universal Press Syndicate). I read it faithfully in the Concord Monitor Sunday edition. You can contact Mr. Farrell at roadside@cris.com.

Video News

Wow! Our announcement that we will mail videos directly to your homes set the phones ringing off the hook! We noticed that the videos move back and forth more quickly now, so we expect that you'll get your requests filled more quickly. One video has been lost, due to a broken mailing container. We've started adding rubber bands to the plastic mailing cases, and ask you to rubberband the cases before you mail them back to us. So far, four of the 25 expensive plastic cases have broken in use. We're buying some cardboard mailing boxes to test.

Friends of Omer Desfosses, late of Manchester, have presented the Library with six DVS videos as a lasting tribute to his spirit. Now available for your enjoyment are

Staff News

We've had a busy winter with a number of changes, so it's time to say goodbye to some staffers and hello to our new people.

Mary's back, with her new stainless steel knee! Her doctors were delighted with her speedy recovery, and we're equally pleased to have her back with us and walking without cane or pain.

Lynda is now the mother of two! Rachel Naomi was born on March 21. Lynda will now be working at home as a full-time mother, taking care of almost-three Joshua and his new baby sister. We'll miss her, but we do understand how she could choose THEM over US.

Aline, the person who pulled the books off the shelves and mailed them - then checked them in and put them back on the shelves for the next use - was offered a full-time position in another part of the State Library. It's a step up, and we're happy for her.

Replacing Aline, although with fewer hours, is Mindy. She's doing very well at a heavy job, and we're glad she joined our team.

New as a Reader's Advisor is Sherry. She's busy learning the ropes and working with readers who call for information or for assistance with material. Her snowboarding this winter was cut short by a torn ligament, but she's looking forward to golf.

Pam handles both machines and mailings to new readers. We've had several months with more than 50 new applicants, so she's been hard at work explaining the cassette equipment and talking new readers through difficulties - not to mention helping with a wide variety of reader services during Mary's absence!

A Word from the "Loan Shark"

We have the longest regular loan period of any Talking Book Library in the nation - three months. Still, we must spend time every year sending out Overdue Notices to remind people to return books we mailed to them at least a year earlier, but never got back.

We know that many things can go wrong between this library and readers' homes. If you receive an Overdue Notice and cannot find the books, or if you're sure you returned them, please call us. That way, we can clean up our files and continue to send you new books to read.