Jim Bettinger is the new PTRC representative, succeeding Robin Speigner upon her retirement in April 2014. While Jim is currently in Science & Technology Dept. on the 3rd floor of the Louis Stokes Wing, the PTRC is located in Government Documents Dept. on the 4th floor of LSW. The two staff members in Government Documents are Mona Brown and Erick Walker.
As an urban library trying to recover from one of the hardest-hit communities of the fiscal crisis, the downtown area is experiencing something of a renewal. The downtown arena will host the Republican National Convention in 2016. New hotels, refurbished buildings converting into temporary hotels then re-converting to apartments after 2016, the redevelopment of Public Square, and other public projects have provided many reasons to visit or live downtown.
Through these economic times, the library has maintained various programs even though staffing levels are less than half from pre-recession. We are one of the original 12 PTRCs from 1871, with uninterrupted service.
The Saturday following last year’s seminar the library hosted its 2nd Maker Faire. Photographs captured most of the presenters and some of the 4000 attendees. Staff from Akron Summit County Public Library PTRC drove up in a snow storm to see the event. The 3rd Maker Faire is scheduled for Saturday June 6, 2015.
In May, Jim worked with the library’s IT staff and PTRCP to add PubEAST to our PubWEST station. The library added 4 more stations for the public and one for staff by September. Many thanks are directed to Michael Hydorn for getting us up and running with the FOBs, and to Neil Massong for his expertise and patience in explaining PubEAST.
Over the summer I worked with Tom Turner and Michael Hydorn of PTRCP to promote their IP presentation to the public, with a preview to members of Cleveland Intellectual Property Law Association the evening before the presentation and a staff session open to the 40 libraries of the CLEVNET ® consortium the day after. At the preview, members of CIPLA were enthusiastic, yet they guaranteed better attendance and usage if the library could provide 24” monitors. The monitors arrived in February, on a day when the temperature was minus 14. Minus 14. That afternoon there were 4 attorneys using PubEAST.
Alyson Dill of PTRCP emailed a request in August. She asked if Cleveland could host a stop on the Detroit PTAB Roadshow in November. The weather did not disappoint as the first snow of the season fell. Jennifer Lo, Janet Gongola, and Brigit Baron coordinated the program. The library very much appreciates the judges for presenting: Judge Justin Busch (Detroit), Judge Tina Hulse (Silicon Valley), Judge Grace Oberman (Alexandria), Judge Steve McCarthy (Detroit), and Judge Stacey White (Dallas.)
Jim Bettinger was asked to present 10 minutes about the PTRC to CIPLA’s monthly meeting in December at Cleveland Marriott. The speaker for the meeting was William F. Lee of Wilmer Hale in Boston, who was the lead attorney for Apple ® in one of the Smartphone court cases heard in the Northern District of California of the U.S. District Court.