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Members Get A Discount
Join or renew your membership in CALTAC, and pay the lower price for the workshop you are attending. Send the application with your registration information. You may include the cost of membership in your check for workshop registration.
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We are proud of the initiative and support
Thank you to State librarians Ethel Crockett, Gary Strong, and Kevin Starr and to the outstanding consultants who nurtured and facilitated these publications, Virginia Hughes, John Amend, and Barbara Will.
Special Thanks
For CALTAC, it's important to recognize and salute the many members of the three editorial committees whose blood, sweat and tears over these twenty years produced these three publications. It is clear the that Tool Kits continue to stand, along with our Regional Workshops, as the mainsprings of CALTAC's primary purpose: to educate individual trustees and library boards to become better informed and more effective advocates for California libraries.
The manual may also be obtained by contacting Carla Lehn at the California State Library
1976 - CALTAC was formed in December, 1976. By December of 1978, the first draft of a manual for trustees and commissioners was ready, formed by the first committee called the "Writer's Team".
1981 - In the Spring of 1981, the orange-colored Public Library Trustees and Commissioners Tool Kit: Orientation Guidelines was published and widely distributed. Then State Librarian, Gary Strong, noted in its introduction that this was more than a manual, it was really a compendium of tools and equipment, covering a wide variety of informational materials. The very month the Tool Kit appeared, CALTAC announced that a Review Committee was being formed to examine its use and study needed revisions.
1985 - By early 1985, when the Tool Kit was out of print, CALTAC formed a committee to update, edit and expand the publication. Two and a half years later, after a tremendous amount of work, the committee produced, not merely a revised edition, but a major new work. In the Fall of 1987, the blue-covered document, Tool Kit for Library Leadership came off the presses and was distributed to all libraries, trustees, commissioners and system advisory board members. A work of 425 pages, it provided information, ideas and advice.
1990 - In early 1990, an Evaluation Committee was formed which sent out questionnaires to CALTAC members and library directors. The Committee's 1991 report noted overwhelmingly positive responses but one fairly common complaint concerned the book's size, as being unwieldy, too long, and somewhat confusing to boards that were advisory, rather than administrative.
1993 - In 1993, a new effort was launched to review, analyze and rewrite the Tool Kit. Again, the State Library endorsed the idea of a new edition, as the 1987 issue was again out of print. Now, after many months of revising, rewriting, and republishing, the 1998 edition has been published and distributed. The Introduction and Acknowledgments give the names of the committees involved in these efforts.