Libraries offer online IT courses through Microsoft partnership By Tim Kelly, Editor Got IT? Your local library does, and it’s free. Kitsap Regional Library (KRL)branches and public libraries across the state are offering patrons access to the Microsoft IT Academy at no charge. The online technology curriculum provides opportunities for people to become proficient in using a wide spectrum of Microsoft software programs, and for advanced learners to prepare for certification as IT professionals qualified to maintain software networks. “We can provide this access to people who could never afford it on their own,” said Sharon Grant, KRL’s digital branch manager. “It’s about economic development and how to help people really at grass-roots level.” The Wasington State Library’s partnership with Microsoft is supported by $1.25 million in funding from the legislature, and Microsoft has discounted the cost of its training courses by about 90 percent so more than 400 public, community college and tribal libraries throughout the state can offer free access to the IT Academy during the current
biennium, which runs through July 2015. Access to the program started in midNovember, and according to a KRL news release, “the official Microsoft E-Learning Curriculum has more than 1,500 online, multimedia courses to choose from including games, simulations and videos to provide students with a hands-on learning experience.” The training covers everything from basic digital literacy and instruction in programs such as Word and Excel, which are valuable skills for people looking for jobs, to high-level training that can lead to career advancement in IT. “It gets quite advanced,” Grant said of the Microsoft IT curriculum. “Kitsap is very diverse and has very diverse needs. There are people keeping up with high-level technical skills, and people just looking to get started learning technology.” She noted that the online training geared toward certifications in Microsoft administration and applications does not include the required tests for obtaining certification. There is a cost for the tests, which are offered at Certiport centers around the Seattle area, although none are in Kitsap County.
“Libraries now, to a great extent, are a resource not just for materials, they’re also a resource for technology.” — Sharon Grant, Kitsap Regional Library digital branch manager For library cardholders, registration and access to the training will be available through the library system’s website at krl.org/Microsoft. Patrons who don’t have a computer will be able to use terminals at library branches in Bremerton (downtown and Sylvan Way), Port Orchard and Bainbridge Island. Grant said KRL hopes to have the service available at all branches by next spring, as some locations are upgrading computers or completing scheduled replacement of computers to provide reliable video for the Microsoft tutorials.
Microsoft has provided training for librarians who will be helping patrons utilize the training. “Several of our staff went to the Microsoft campus, and also right now we’re getting extra help from them to make sure our computers are optimized,” Grant said. Some Microsoft computer classes have been offered previously through state-run WorkSource centers that primarily help unemployed people, but the new partnership with libraries expands both the scope of training offered and the audience it’s likely to reach. “For people looking for jobs, it’s great that they’re getting this training, but even people in the workforce need to stay competitive and stay up on technology,” Grant said. Libraries continue to evolve to help meet that need in their communities, she added. “Libraries now, to a great extent, are a resource not just for materials, they’re also a resource for technology,” she said. “It’s not really a change of mission, but just a new area of knowledge we need to help people keep up on.”
32 • Kitsap Peninsula Business Journal • KPBJ.com December 2013
Indie bookstores endure in communities that support them By Tim Kelly, Editor Suzanne Droppert sells an e-reader that starts with 'K' at her bookstore ... but it's not that one. The owner of Liberty Bay Books in downtown Poulsbo has embraced e-books, especially when customers purchase them for a Kobo e-reader. The store started carrying Kobo products last year, and has new versions of the Canadian company’s Glo and Aura e-readers and Arc 7 tablet in stock for this Suzanne holiday season. Droppert “Or you can download the Kobo app for free” to any mobile device, Droppert said, “and you can link that to us.” That way when customers use their app to purchase ebooks from Kobo, Liberty Bay receives a small commission on each digital transaction. A similar offer was recently extended to independent bookstores like hers if they’d sell e-readers from another company, one Droppert identifies only with a humorous Harry Potter reference — “the Voldemort of the book world,” aka the-world’s-largestonline-retailer-who-must-not-be-named. “We don’t want anything to do with them,” she said, because the e-commerce Voldemort is anathema to those who preach the “shop local” mantra. Droppert and her staff have dealt with showrooming, the practice of shoppers going to a store to look over a retailer’s goods and then ordering products online at a lower price. In her shop, some browsers would
On Small Business Saturday — the antidote to Black Friday’s inescapable corporate hype — Liberty Bay had a lineup of nine authors visiting throughout the day. It was part of Indies First, a grass-roots effort to support local independent bookstores organized by Seattle author Sherman Alexie, who wrote to other authors encouraging them to take part. “There’s a wonderful group of authors who live Tim Kelly photo in this area,” Droppert Kobo e-readers are displayed at Liberty Bay Books in Poulsbo. said. A Liberty Bay favorite who visited for find a book they wanted, “and they used to Indies First is Kristin Hannah of Bainbridge say ‘oh, I'll get it at Costco or I'll get it at a Island, author of the New York Times discount store,’ and now they say ‘oh, I'll bestseller Home Front, set in Poulsbo. just download it on my device.’ Even with the emergence of e-readers “So that's our opportunity to say we sell and downloadable books and the e-books too, and e-readers,” Droppert said. domination of a certain online behemoth, “We really try to promote that they can independent booksellers are enduring. shop locally with us, and it's really (about) Membership in the American Booksellers supporting an independent bookstore Association has increased over the past four versus a large conglomerate that's not in years, from 1,401 in 2009 to 1,632 this year. your community.” “We're still having a good year,” Droppert Reading is a solitary activity, but books are said. “Is it back to the Harry Potter years? No, a shared experience and bookstores promote and I don’t know if we'll ever get there again that in many ways. Liberty Bay hosts book ... for us as a small independent bookstore to clubs and frequent author events, offers staff sell that many copies of a book again.” recommendations of books for customers, She said publishers try to help boost and does outreach to underserved areas of sales through promotions such as sending a the community by distributing free books on case of autographed copies of certain books World Book Night.
for a store to feature. Shops can’t survive just on book revenue, so they carry sidelines, such as puzzles, games, greeting cards, T-shirts, socks ... and this year at Liberty Bay, one item that might seem out of place in a bookstore. “We're selling Coobie bras,” Droppert said. “People are like ‘you're selling bras?’ Yeah, and they sell well.” Twenty-two on a single Saturday, as a matter of fact. The colorful, relatively inexpensive undergarments were highly recommended by another indie proprietor. Whether shopping for a book, bra or a zillion other items, consumers can find them online at a lower price, but a community pays a price, in Droppert’s view, if local businesses can’t survive because of … Voldemort. “To me, they are not a community member,” she said. “They're not here supporting the local charities; they're not here planting the plants ... they're not doing that in any community.” Even in a town like Poulsbo that draws a lot of tourists, the patronage of local residents is crucial to the success of businesses. Droppert said she’s grateful that “many people support us downtown, myself and the other stores.” Another appeal of local shops that youknow-who can’t match is traditions like the one Droppert and her 28-year-old son enjoy. He’s in his first year as a junior high school English teacher in Jackson, Wyo., but he will return to the town where he grew up and work with his mother at Liberty Bay Books on Christmas Eve, so her employees can have the day off.