In 2005, the Alabama Virtual Library is celebrating National Library Week
with a contest. This is a GREAT opportunity to to encourage your library
users to explore the wonderful databases that we are so fortunate to have
on the AVL. Users who take the time to answer the questions can nominate
their libraries to win fabulous prizes donated by the AVL partners for
NLW@AVL.

The Alabama Center for the Book is also cosponsoring this year's NLW
celebration and encourages all libraries to promote books and reading
during this important week! In case you are not familiar with the Alabama
Center for the Book, it is an affiliate of the Library of Congress Center
for the Book. It was created to highlight Alabama's literary culture and
heritage and to promote national initiatives on books and reading.

There are five separate contests designed for users of:

Elementary School Libraries
Middle-School Libraries
High School Libraries
College/University Libraries
Public Libraries

These are the great prizes offered by the 2005 NLW contest sponsors:

Alabama Center for the Book
Literary Map of Alabama
EBSCO Information Services
Book Index with Reviews (free access for one year)
Online Reader (free access for one year)
H. W. Wilson Company
Children's Catalog (free access for one year)
Middle and Junior High School Catalog (free access for one year)
McGraw-Hill/AccessScience
$500 gift certificate for McGraw-Hill books
Oxford University Press
Oxford American Dictionary
ProQuest Information and Learning
Culture Grams (free access for one year)
SOLINET/OCLC/FirstSearch
Canvas briefcase
Thomson Gale
Science Resource Center (free access for one year)
Testing and Education Reference Resource Center (free access for
one year)

There will be more information about these prizes when the contest is
posted on the AVL on Monday, April 11.

HOW CAN YOUR LIBRARY BECOME ELIGIBLE TO WIN ONE OF THESE GREAT PRIZES?

First, plan and publicize your library's NLW celebrations.

Encourage visitors to your library to enter the contest while they are
visiting the library.

IMPORTANT: for your library to be an eligible recipient of a prize, your
users must NAME YOUR LIBRARY when they play. When the contest closes at
the end of NLW, only those libraries named by their users will be included
in the pool of eligible recipients of the prizes.

THE CONTEST!

The questions have been selected to encourage use of databases appropriate
for the age group of each contest. For each question, there is a hint of
which database would be the BEST to search. Each question contains
obvious keywords to use for the search, and the answer will be found
easily in the first 1 or 2 results retrieved. Some answers might be
found in other databases, but not necessarily in the first few results.

Please use this contest to encourage your users to explore the range of
databases on the AVL. If you are concerned that your library users will
not have enough time to answer the questions during a library visit, you
can print and distribute the questions in advance. The users can work on
them all week, and then enter their answers any time before the contest
closes on Friday, April 15. PLEASE DO NOT PROVIDE THE ANSWERS - the
object is to encourage use of the databases.

A special appreciation is extended to the AVL Council for sponsoring
NLW@AVL, especially to Council member Bonnie Seymour, who coordinated the
planning group. A great thank you goes to Gina Sullivan at the Alabama
Supercomputer Authority (and AVL HelpDesk guru!) for all of her work to
put the contests online and manage the award of prizes. Jay Lamar,
director of the Alabama Center for the Book, is thanked for creating the
questions to focus on Alabama and the joy of reading. Most of all,
appreciation is expressed for the support of the AVL partners, the
companies who provide such outstanding information content - the databases
that make the AVL an exemplary model for the world! They have been
especially generous in 2005 by offering wonderful prizes to help YOU
celebrate National Library Week.

Have fun! Read a Book, too!