Events

Carmencita Mitchell, 2019 KLAS Users' Conference Keynote Speaker

Carmencita, originally from New York, has made Palm Beach County her home for the past 16 years. She holds a baccalaureate degree in Humanities from New York University, an MA in English from St. John’s University, and an M. Ed in Higher Education Leadership from Lynn University. She has taught English Composition, Literature, Business Writing, and Public Speaking at several universities. She was a former faculty member of the American University of Nigeria where she held rank as full-time faculty, Director of the Writing Center, and teacher at the university high school.

Among her many research interests include: alternative modalities and composition pedagogy, including metaphysics and metacognition, medical humanities, yoga, and somatic studies, the philosophical constructs of the 18th century French Salon, and cultural studies.

She volunteers at and is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Lighthouse for the Blind of the Palm Beaches. Carmencita was also appointed by the Palm Beach Board of County commissioners to the Palm Tran Service Board (PTSB)--and its two standing subcommittees--where she represents the disabled community at public meetings on issues of transportation. She has recently been elected Chair of that Board. Carmencita is also a member of the president’s advisory panel for the Hadley Institute for the Blind, where she offers advice on pedagogical improvements for the blind and visually impaired.Carmencita is presently an adjunct professor in the departments of communications, and developmental studies respectively at Palm Beach State College where she holds the distinction as the college’s first, visually impaired faculty member.

Finally, in addition to her academic pursuits and civic duties, Carmencita is also an approved Silver Sneakers Fitness and dance instructor and holds various certifications in yoga and group fitness as well as certifications in CPR, AED, and First Aid from the American Heart Association.
In her spare time, Carmencita enjoys yoga and reading Talking Books. She is devoted to the cause of helping the Blind and Visually Impaired community enjoy the “greatest quality of Life”.

Helene Kaufman Lundstrom, Welcome Reception Entertainment

Helene grew up in Bara, Sweden. Singing, dancing, and acting have been a big part of Helene’s life since childhood. She started singing in the church choir at age 11, the choir traveled around the country to perform. Around the same age, she joined a local acting group that worked on acting technique and improv when they had their classes. Helene got her first leading role in one of their musicals at the age of 14.

At age 14 Helene started taking voice lessons at the University of Music in Malmo where she studied for 3 years. She kept taking voice lessons, studying with 8 different teachers through her years of studying. Her real passion for dance started at age 11 when she started taking classes on a weekly basis, taking as many classes as time would allow :)

After finishing her performing arts-based high school Helene auditioned for the Ballet Academy in Gothenburg (Musical theater program) and she got in. Shortly after moving back home to Malmo she got the lead role as the Narrator in “Joseph and the amazing technicolor dreamboat”, she played the role for 2 years to sold-out houses.

Helene got her big break as a singer/actress in 1995 when she was hired to do the voice over for Walt Disney’s movie, Pocahontas, in her native language, Swedish. In 1998 Helene was hired for Pocahontas II as well. Helene has also appeared in several episodes of TV's Disney’s Little Mermaid.

Helene’s passion for all 3 art forms, singing, dancing, and acting brought a clear path to musical theatre.
Helene’s favorite voice teacher, Jack Abraham, was the one, alongside with acting coach David Brunetti, the ones that started Helene’s journey to the US and the way into the USA was through AMDA in NYC.

In 2003 Helene met her husband while singing at the Flagler Museum in Palm Beach, FL and the following year made the move from NYC to Palm Beach.

After moving to FL Helene was working in musicals mainly but then moved into more of the band scene and corporate events, some of the places Helene has been seen at is The Breakers, Brazilian Court, The Colony, The Ritz, Hard Rock Casino, Isle Casino, The Addison, Club 21 in NYC and many more places.In 2007 Helene had the opportunity to open for Andrea Bocelli at a private birthday party in Fort Lauderdale.

Though classically trained, she is truly authentic and comfortable in any genre, pop, jazz, R&B, Broadway and classical. She has been able to be apart of musicals, corporate bands, voice over’s and being a studio session singer. In 2012 Helene was accepted into the Palm Beach Opera Chorus, she spent 5 years with the opera and did 8 operas at the beautiful Kravis center in West Palm Beach.

Early in her career, the following has been written in the Swedish press about Helene during her run in “Joseph” as the Narrator. “The Narrator, Helene Lundstrom, is blessed with a tremendously beautiful voice. The text is delivered in such a crystal clear fashion that not a single syllable is lost. She commands the stage with a natural, friendly presence.” “The Narrator, Helene Lundstrom, gives a flawless performance with regard to both acting and singing”

Helene got the Jullan Kindahl Grant in 1995. “Helene Lundstrom, the narrator in “Joseph” received SEK 5000, the reason for choosing her is as follows: An amateur who became a professional through her humble presence and strong charisma”

Praised by Disney; “Disney translator, Monica Forsberg was looking for new talent for the new Walt Disney movie Pocahontas. Helene was the perfect match. Disney in the U.S heaps praise on the young Swede, and say that she is the best foreign Pocahontas they have heard.”

Thank you for attending the 2021 Online KLAS Users' Conference. Whether you were a speaker and / or attended sessions, this event was a success because of your presence. Now the KLAS Users' Group Officers' and Planning Committees ask you to please take some time to share your thoughts and feedback about the event including the content, the platform, etc. Your responses will help shape future conferences and other ongoing KLAS Users' content.

Response Deadline = Friday, July 9

Upcoming Webinars & Roundtables

New Webinar & Roundtable Platform: In an effort to provide a better experience for online training, webinar, and roundtable participants we are moving from join.me to Google Meet. You will NOT need a Google account to join a Keystone hosted Google Meet. We hope this change will address some of the bandwidth and other issues we know some attendees have experienced with join.me. As an additional bonus, Google Meet offers auto closed captioning.

2/18/2021 KLAS New Features with Katy

3 PM ET / Noon Pacific Thursday, Feburary 18

During this session, she will describe and demonstrate new features and functionality added to KLAS. If there's something specific you wish her to discuss or demonstrate, feel free to email your question to  

Google Meet Link: https://meet.google.com/rwk-bpmz-oco
Join by phone: +1 314-226-1417‬ PIN: ‪769 402 631‬#‪

Previously Held Webinars & Roundtables

Recordings and / or PowerPoints from the below previously held webinars and KLAS Users' Roundtables are available. You must be logged into klasusers.com to access any of these articles.

• 12/15/2020 KLAS Users' Roundtable: Duplication on Demand Updates
• 11/19/2020 Keystone Webinar: Reports
• 10/22/2020 KLAS IRC Users' Roundtable
• 09/17/2020 KLAS Users' Roundtable: Virtual Programming
• 8/12/2020 KLAS New Features Update
• 05/19/2020 KLAS Online KLAS Users' Group Meetings
• 4/23/2020 KLAS IRC Users' Roundtable
• 03/19/2020 KLAS Users' Roundtable: Duplication on Demand
• 02/20/2020 KLAS Q&A with Katy

The Julie Klauber Award Committee and Keystone Systems are excited to announce Nancy Reese, Idaho Commission for Libraries, Talking Books Service, as our 2018 Julie Klauber Award Honoree. Congratulations Nancy! Your dedicated service to your patrons, staff, and community are an example of leadership and make you an incredible asset to your library. We look forward to honoring you and your work at the 2018 KLAS Users' Conference in Boise! On Tuesday, May 8, Nancy will be presented with the award during the Opening General Session of the conference. An official press release will be published prior to the conference on www.klas.com.

Sue Walker, Library Consultant, Idaho Commission for Libraries, Talking Books Service, nominated Nancy. This is the nomination Sue submitted:

Reason for Nomination

Nancy has been the KLAS administrator for almost ten years. During that time she has helped to implement several new KLAS services such as DOD and the PIMMS transition. Most recently, she was instrumental in implementing the most recent iteration of Patron Centric Cartridge (PCC) that allows staff to assign multiple titles to users' cartridges remotely. Nancy worked intensively with Keystone staff to troubleshoot the software and with staff to train them to successfully use it. As a result, Idaho is one of the few libraries who are using this version of PCC. During the summer of 2017, three of Idaho's four Reader's Advisors retired. Nancy provided training to the new staff as well as ongoing support to maintain quality customer service during the transition period. She routinely provides reader's advisory as a backup to staff. Nancy has been an active member of the KLAS conference planning committee and readily shares her knowledge at annual conferences and individually as requested. Recognizing the importance of having the conference available regionally Nancy advocated to host the conference in Boise for several years and is working on the logistics committee to make the 2018 conference a success.

Effect on Library

Quality customer service is one of the Idaho Talking Book Service’s highest priorities. As a result, remaining on the cutting edge of technology that will improve user access to resources is very important. Nancy’s willingness to learn the capabilities of new technology and work to successfully implement it ensures Idaho residents’ access to resources will increase. In addition, helping Keystone successfully pilot new technology in one library makes it easier to implement in other libraries.

Job Responsibilities

As the KLAS administrator, Nancy works daily with KLAS to troubleshoot any issues, train staff, maintain quality customer service, and access to resources.

For many years, Keystone offered regular Administrator’s Training sessions at our office in Raleigh. Not only did that allow us to give admins in-depth training on their own systems, but it also gave them the opportunity to get to know us and network with a few of their peers as they learned together.

However, travel costs are a barrier to some, and others are banned from business travel to North Carolina for political reasons. Then on top of that, we have a pandemic situation. Even Keystone staff isn’t going into the office right now, and we certainly aren't going to ask you to do so. The answer was clear...as much as we loved having you in person, it was time to offer admin training virtually.

We want to make sure attendees get just as much benefit from the online version as they did from attending in person. That means the online version needs to have just as hands-on, personalized, and interactive an approach as the in-person version did, including opportunities for discussion with the other attendees and introduction to several Keystone staff members.

Training Structure & Content

We took this opportunity to revamp and re-evaluate the structure of the training. Because the in-person version required attendees to stay here in Raleigh, it was kept to two (very busy, intense, somewhat demanding) days. To make it a little easier to absorb all of the information without eating too much into your schedules, we spread out the online version to four half-days running from 1:00-4:30 PM Eastern time each day. The lesson plan itself has been updated from a progressive tour of the admin menu to a more module and task-oriented approach.

Finally, to help attendees orient themselves to each topic and come prepared to discuss their own settings and needs, we developed pre-class worksheets for each session. These worksheets are not checked or graded, it’s fine if attendees don’t have time to get through them all, but they will help ensure you get the most out of the training.

For more information about what is covered, please see the Administrator’s Training – What to Expect article.

Upcoming Sessions

2024 Library for the Blind and Print Disabled KLAS Administrator Training

• Monday, March 25 - Thursday, March 28
  • Registration Deadline = May 16
• Monday, September 9 - Thursday, September 12
  • Registration Deadline = August 30

2024 Instructional Resource Center KLAS Administrator Training

• TBD by participants after individuals from at least 2 organizations commit to attending a session

Prerequisites for attendance:

• Attendee must have a KLAS Administrator role in their local system
• Attendee has authority to change records and policies for their KLAS system

Training Cost

The training still costs $600 per attendee, which covers the staff time needed to prepare for and run the training session. It comes with an Administrator’s Reference manual, which will be mailed to you (or provided electronically if that’s more accessible for you), the pre-class worksheets, and recordings of each session.

We hope this will allow more of you than ever before to benefit from admin training, as well as letting us continue to offer it safely. Be sure to let us know if you’re interested in joining in!

Registration Form

To register for an upcoming session or express interest in another date, please fill out the following form:

• KLAS Administrator's Training Registration Form

If you have any trouble accessing the form or if you have questions, please let us know! We hope to see you soon.

Now that we have several confirmed attendees, we have scheduled the first online IRC / IMC Administrator's Training!

Upcoming Session

We're exited to announce to announce our first KLAS Administrator Training for Instructional Resource / Instructional Materials Center users in quite some time will be held Monday, November 28 - Thursday, December 1, 2022.

Prerequisites for attendance:

• Attendee must have a KLAS Administrator role in their local system
• Attendee has authority to change records and policies for their KLAS system

Training Structure & Content

The training is scheduled across the afternoon's of four days, allowing users from various time zones to comfortably attend, and allowing time for you to absorb and practice in-between sessions. Exact session topics and order is subject to change, but the current schedule is as follows:

Monday
1:00-2:30 PM ET: Catalog-focused Settings
3:00-4:30 PM ET: Patron-focused Settings / APH Census

Tuesday
1:00-2:30 PM ET: Materials Requests
3:00-4:30 PM ET: Acquisitions

Wednesday
1:00-2:30 PM ET: WebOPAC / WebOrder
3:00-4:30 PM ET: Other Administrator Controls

Thursday
1:00-2:30 PM ET: Security Control / User Permissions
3:00-4:30 PM ET: Reports / Query / Excel

For more information, please see the Administrator’s Training – What to Expect article.

Training Cost

The training still costs $600 per attendee, which covers the staff time needed to prepare for and run the training sessions. It comes with an Administrator’s Reference manual, which will be mailed to you (or provided electronically if that’s more accessible for you), pre-class worksheets, and recordings of each session.

Registration Form

To register for the upcoming session or express interest in another date, please fill out the following form:

• KLAS Administrator's Training Registration Form

If you have any trouble accessing the form or if you have questions, please let us know! We hope to see you soon.

Mark your calendar and start making your plans for March 17-20, 2025 to join us as Keystone and the Indiana State Library, Talking Book and Braille Library come together to bring the KLAS Users' Conference to Indianapolis, IN!! More info will be coming soon, so be on the lookout.

We welcome all 2018 KLAS Users' Conference attendees to join us for the Welcome Reception hosted by Keystone Systems on Tuesday, May 8 from 5:30-8:30 PM at the Boise Depot. A buffet dinner will be provided followed by a special program.

Boise Depot, Reception Location

The Welcome Reception will be held at the Boise Depot a short .4 mile walk from our conference hotels. Dinner and our program will occur in the Depot's Great Hall. The Bell Tower will be accessible from 5:30-8:30 for those who may wish to ride the elevator up for an exceptional view of downtown Boise and the surrounding mountains.

From the City of Boise Parks & Recreation Department:

The Boise Depot is a beautiful historic Spanish-style structure operated by the Boise Parks and Recreation Department as a public ceremonial or meeting space and historic site. Designed by New York architects, the building opened in 1925 to elaborate fanfare in the capital city.

With a splendid panoramic view of the Boise Front, the building grounds include Platt Gardens, a lovely park with pathways, a gazebo and a koi pond.

Great Hall

Depot amenities include The Great Hall, a soaring 77 ft by 46 ft totalling 3,542-square-foot multi-story atrium that once served as the building's waiting room. Ten original benches line the walls of the Great Hall.

The original 1925 Barkalow Brothers Newsstand is featured on the west wall. The newsstand has been slightly restored but remains in its' original form. The Great Halls' ceiling is lined with Spanish trusses, each imprinted with antique locomotives.

Buffet Dinner Menu

Catering provided by Big Sky Catering

• Carved Brisket
• Breast of BBQ Chicken
• Big Sky's Awesome Baked Beans
• Build Your Own Baked Potatoes with Butter, Sour Cream, Cheese, Bacon and Chives
• Green Beans with Sea Salt & Butter
• Field Greens with Dressing Assortment
• Rolls and Butter
• Strawberry Shortcake
• Pink Lemonade and Water
• Vegetarian / Vegan Dinners will be provided as needed

Gary Eller, Reception Musician / Speaker

Gary Eller has played American roots music since childhood. He was born and raised in West Virginia but has lived most of his life in the American West. After a thirty year career in nuclear science and engineering at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, he retired to Pickles Butte near Nampa, Idaho in 2004.

Eller is the director of the Idaho Songs Project, whose primary mission is to find, document, interpret and preserve songs written before the radio era (before 1923) about early Idaho's people, places, and events. To date, he has documented over two hundred forgotten early Idaho songs. These songs form the basis for a dozen topically arranged interpretive booklets with audio CDs, including Ballads of the Owyhee Country, that he has published since 2006. As a member of the Idaho Humanities Council Speakers Bureau, he performs programs of songs based on the culture of early Idaho over all of Idaho.

Eller also is a board member of the National Old Time Fiddler's Contest and a member of three bands: Chicken Dinner Road, The Storytellers and Boise River

Why do you attend the annual KLAS Users' Conference? Here is what some our of conference attendees had to say:

• "I attend because it's my one opportunity to share face-to-face my issues and triumphs with others in a way that email and online just can't." - Craig, NC
• "I attend the KLAS Users' Conference to network with other Talking Books Libraries, which provides me with new ideas to serve the visually impaired." - Sarah, FL
• "Through collaboration with colleagues and Keystone staff, I learn new, better, and more efficient ways to utilize KLAS that I can bring back to my co-workers." - Teresa, CO
• "Learn about new features in KLAS. Network with other users and discover functions you have not tried before." - Edith, CA
• "I go to talk to the other attendees and see what's going on at their libraries." - Erin, OK
• "I like to attend the conference because I like to hear about the different ways other libraries handle their workflow. Always come back with some good ideas to shake things up." - Sharon, IL
• "As the only staff librarian in Oregon, I often feel like I work in isolation. The work LBPH libraries do doesn’t translate very well to other library work and relating to my in-state colleagues leaves me unfulfilled. The KLAS Users’ Conference is a great way for me to recharge my batteries and other professionals who can relate to the joys and challenges of LBPH work." - Elke, OR
• "Attending the KLAS Users' Conferences provides me the opportunity to encounter awesome ideas and tips...tangible ideas I can take home to improve my library's services...from Keystone staff and personnel from other libraries for the blind." - Andrew, OK
• "The KUC is a chance to get together. We gather to discuss issues technical, and mundane. We laugh, we confer, and we hear from the staff at Keystone. Moreover we are exposed to new places (new to some), new ideas, and new ways to do things." - James, MA
• "The KLAS Users group gives us an opportunity to learn more about our ILS. We can do a better job for our library patrons if we can make the best use of the catalog." - Pat, GA

We hope you join us for June 3-6 for the 2019 KLAS Users' Conference hosted by the Palm Beach County Library Talking Book Service in West Palm Beach, FL!