McClure Makes Presentation at Texas Library Association

Charles R. McClure, Francis Eppes Professor and Director of the Information Institute, spoke at the Texas Library Association April 17, 2010 in San Antonio. The presentation offered a tutorial on how to best use the website at

http://hurricanes.ii.fsu.edu/

The presentation also discussed the applicability of the website's content for hurricane preparedness and response in the state of Texas and other gulf coast states. There was considerable interest in expanding the coverage of the website to have content specific to other gulf coast states.

A number of the participants had been in recent hurricanes that have struck Texas and the fulf coast and offered suggestions and ideas for additional content and resources for the website.

- Information Institute

2010 Hurricane Season Predicted to be Busy With as Many as 15 Storms

USA Today states, "The Atlantic basin is facing a busier-than-usual" hurricane season, in part because of record warm water in the ocean, according to the latest hurricane forecast."

Read the USA Today story here.

Director Charles R. McClure notes, "Individual Florida public libraries have played important roles in helping their communities to better prepare and recover from hurricanes. The Hurricane Preparedness & Response for Florida Public Libraries project will increase the capacity of all Florida public libraries to better help their communities respond to hurricanes."

- Information Use Management & Policy Institute

Hurricane Season is in Full Swing!

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Hurricane Season is in Full Swing!

The peak period of hurricane season is now here. Are you prepared? One resource can be of benefit to public librarians is the Hurricane Preparedness & Response for Florida Public Libraries web portal, available at:

http://www.hurricanes.ii.fsu.edu/

We encourage you to take a moment to become familiar with this new website that helps librarians work with local communities to better prepare for and recover from a hurricane disaster by providing the following information and tools:

· Service roles and how to implement them;

· URLs to an extensive set of resources;

· Planning guides and basic actions; and

· Evacuee assistance information.

Plus: This site offers you a searchable database of the best available resources to meet the information needs of library professionals and patrons as they face the challenges presented during this hurricane season. The website includes a short tutorial that introduces you to the various parts of the website and how to best use these resources. For more information, please visit: http://www.hurricanes.ii.fsu.edu/

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Hurricane Flyer Now Available!

Now that hurricane season is here, allow us to introduce a few of the new products and services that have been developed for public libraries by the Information Use Management & Policy Institute (Information Institute) at Florida State University. These new services were developed from a project designed to help public libraries to better assist their communities during hurricane disasters.

WEB PORTAL: The Information Institute’s new web portal captures many best practices to help you better prepare for hurricane season. This web portal also includes access to a comprehensive collection of hurricane information resources. Please visit the homepage of the web portal located at:

http://hurricanes.ii.fsu.edu/

HURRICANE FLYER: A color flyer has been provided to all Florida public libraries for display and is available from the homepage of the web portal. The downloadable flyer is available from the homepage of the web portal or you may click on the image below.

INSTRUCTIONAL VIDEO: We have also created a short instructional video about this web portal that demonstrates its most useful features, including a quick how to session on accessing a broad range of hurricane-related information. That video is available at our web portal or from YouTube at:

• From web portal: http://hurricanes.ii.fsu.edu/instructionalVideos.html
• From YouTube: Hurricane Web Training Video