A c t i o n f o r L i b r a r i e s — J u l y 2 0 0 3

DuPage Teleconferences:
A BCR Success Story

At the BCR Board meeting on May 16, the BCR Board of Trustees and staff reviewed their partnership to bring the College of DuPage teleconferences to BCR member libraries. The conclusion: the joint effort was a great success.

Sponsoring the teleconference downlinks has been a very cost-effective way to provide distance-learning opportunities for thousands of library staff at locations close to their home libraries. Evaluations submitted by site coordinators indicated that a great majority of those who attended liked the teleconferences and said they had learned something of value from the programs.

BCR and the state libraries in BCR's 12 member states — Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming — joined together to purchase unlimited site licenses for the live satellite teleconferences broadcast by the College of DuPage during the 2002-03 academic year. The site licenses enabled interested BCR member libraries to downlink, usually at no charge to the library, four library-related series with a total of eight programs: "Soaring to Excellence;" "Designing Web Pages for Your Library;" "Reference Services: Virtual, Digital and In-Library;" and "Virtual Reference: A Leadership View." ( The final program in the "Virtual Reference: A Leadership View" series has been postponed to a yet-to-be-announced date in the fall of 2003.)

A total of 187 BCR member libraries — from BCR's 12 member states plus several individual member libraries in Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota — registered to downlink one or more of the programs. An estimated 5,828 staff from BCR member libraries participated in the live satellite programs, while another 5,600 more were estimated to have viewed the programs later via videotapes loaned by the downlinking libraries. Many of the libraries downlinked all of the programs broadcast.

BCR staff will talk with state librarians in our member states and representatives of the College of DuPage about sponsoring the teleconferences again next year. Please watch for an announcement in Action for Libraries, on BCR's Web site (www.bcr.org) and BCR-L.

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DuPage Teleconferences: A BCR Success Story

DuPage Teleconferences:
A BCR Success Story