In anticipation of the Library’s maker fair happening later this month, our staff have been hard at work getting together an arsenal of tools to unveil. While a few of them will stay complete surprises, we can’t contain our excitement over our newest tool. It is currently living in the IT department, getting polished and prepped so it can be wheeled out into the community on April 25th.
Here are a few clues about this new piece of our technology collection. Read the clues below to try and figure out what we’ll be introducing,
The ink for this machine is known as filament
The creation of a raft is a necessary step before your project really begins with this tool
The first commercially available model of this tool was called Cupcake
File format .STL is the most compatible format with this tool
Different tools vary slightly on the process for utilization, PPL’s new tool uses fused deposition modeling
If you think you correctly guessed the new tool using these facts, email: soucy@portlandpubliclibrary.org to verify, and then come to the maker fair on 4/25 to claim your prize!
The Portland Public Library announced today that Sarah I. Campbell has been selected by the Library’s Board of Trustees to serve as the Library’s new Executive Director, effective July 11, 2015. Ms. Campbell, who is currently PPL’s Associate Director, will succeed Stephen Podgajny, who announced in June 2014 his decision to retire after nine years of service as Executive Director.
“Sarah is a thoughtful and articulate leader whose passion for public libraries, and Portland Public Library in particular, is infectious,” said Eric Altholz, PPL’s Board President. “Sarah has a compelling vision for the future of the Library, and the Board is thrilled about this appointment.”
Selected after a nine-month national search, Ms. Campbell holds a BA from Swarthmore College and an MLS from the University of Michigan’s School of Information. She has served as PPL’s Associate Director since April 2013, and prior to that served as PPL’s Department Head for Lending Services, Technical Services, and Systems for 12 years. Ms. Campbell was the founding Director of Library and Learning Resources at York County Technical College (now York County Community College) for 3 years before coming to PPL. She also worked at the University of New England in Biddeford in its College of Professional and Continuing Studies. Ms. Campbell currently serves on the NetworkMaine Council which manages MSLN, the internet service network for Maine’s schools and libraries, and serves as a delegate from the Americas Region on the OCLC Global Council which advises the largest non-profit library services cooperative in the world.
“Sarah is tremendously skilled at building partnerships, which is a critical focus at PPL,” said Beth Bordowitz, the PPL Trustee who chaired the search committee. “Her national status in the library field and her grasp of emerging trends will ensure that the Library will remain at the forefront of how to best serve patrons in an increasingly digitized world. She also brings a commitment and passion to traditional library services and to preserving critical parts of Portland’s history.”
“I am very excited to work with PPL’s talented staff to expand the Library’s forward-looking programs and services and its growing number of partnerships with authors, leaders, businesses, and other non-profits,” said Ms. Campbell. “We are dedicated to strengthening the community, to serving as a critical educational resource for our fellow citizens, and to telling Portland’s amazing story. Portland is on the move – and PPL is on the move with it.”
Ms. Campbell takes the helm as PPL prepares to celebrate its 150th birthday in 2017. Chartered in 1867, PPL is Maine’s oldest and largest public library system and is the most visited cultural institution in Maine, serving 675,000 visitors annually at four branch locations and a mobile library. PPL serves as the Southern Maine Area Research and Resource Center, providing critical services to numerous other Maine libraries and their patrons. The Library has been recognized nationally for service innovation and has recently been selected to host a visit from Shakespeare’s First Folio in 2016.
Back in November, the Library upgraded its public printing system to include a slew of services… never before seen at PPL. By way of late introduction, we would like to share a little more about what that looks like for our patrons.Where we once offered a simple black and white printer, and a single-function copier, we’ve installed something a little snazzier, higher functioning, and of the twenty-first century. It’s the Lexmark X790, it’s here to help, and we are here to help to you use it.
Never fear, the new machine is capable of the same basic tasks as our old ones. We’re assisting patrons who need to print and copy everything from asylum applications and résumés, to guitar tabs and holiday cookie recipes—not much has changed in that department. The main features that are newly available are: color printing, faxing, wireless printing, and scanning.
First up, at twenty-five cents a pop, you can now print and copy in color at the library. Whether you want to print out your favorite digital photos or spruce up your event poster to catch a few more eyes, you can graduate from gray scale for half the price of a postage stamp. We are also pleased to be able to provide faxing capabilities to library users. You can print your document and fax it out in one fell swoop. The first page costs a dollar, and each page after that is an additional twenty-five cents. It’s a quick and user-friendly process that the staff on desk are glad to walk you through.
Wireless printing is also a newcomer on the Public Computing scene. As more and more people are hooked up to their own tablets, laptops, and smartphones, it can be a hassle to print documents from one of the library’s public desktops. It is now possible to cut out the middleman by sending files from your personal device right to the printer.
Finally, behold: the power of scanning! The world is increasingly turning to scanning over faxing, and with good reason. Scanning is an efficient way to digitize and store important documents in one convenient, portable location that makes sharing easy, and best of all, it’s free. Our new machine allows you to scan directly to—and also print directly from—your own flash drive. Don’t have one? We have some for sale ($7) at the Public Computing desk, as well as a few for patrons to borrow in house.
And if all this new equipment is just a little too flashy for your taste, the old black and white copier is safe and well upstairs in the Portland Room, while its twin still reigns supreme in the Reference area on the Lower Level. To learn more about any of these options, check out this page for more information.
