Dear Librarians, Information Professionals and other Friends,

The Geaux Library Project http://www.geauxlibrary.org/ will attempt to meet
the information needs at hurricane evacuee shelters around Louisiana and beyond. Using computers and networking equipment donated to the Red Cross and others by large commercial and local IT companies, we will be setting up small computer labs at Red Cross shelters and staffing them with librarians and other trained volunteers.

Our pilot locations in Louisiana will include the Gonzales, Baton Rouge, and Acadiana (Lafayette) areas. *We need your help!*

Specifically, we have openings for the following volunteer positions:

On-site positions

• Geaux Getters
  You will do an initial needs assessment on the shelter(s) in your area. You
  will be provided with a questionnaire to determine the information necessary
  for the project. This will require you to visit the shelter physically and
  in put your findings into a web-based form.
• Geaux Coordinators
  You will be responsible for determining and assigning the necessary amount
  of volunteers for shelter(s) that they oversee. Communications will take
  place over the phone, online, and possibly in person. Coordinators may need
  to periodically visit the shelter site to determine adequacy of
  resources. Coordinators can also double as Geaux Librarians.
• Geaux Librarians
  You will be asked to supervise a small network of computers and volunteers
  in a shelter. This may include: reference, referring in-depth questions to
  our searcher network, data entry, instruction on computer use to a
  population with very limited computer skills, coordinating computer usage
  times among patrons, opening and/or closing the computer area, basic
  technical support i.e. turning on computer and maintaining a printer and/or
  fax machine, other duties as they arise. Shifts are flexible.
• Geauxfers
  You will need to be available to do anything the Geaux Librarians or Geaux
  Coordinators need you to do.
• Geaux Techs
  Hardware and network techs will be needed to troubleshoot any issues that
  may come up at the various sites, and setup new shelter computers. Some of
  the work may be done remotely depending on the issue.
• Geaux Couriers
  You will drive equipment and supplies from a pickup point to the shelters.
  This can be a one time job or you can volunteer to do it more often. We will
  specify the locations as they come up.
  *We have an immediate need for a Geaux Courier to bring equipment from
  Lafayette to Gonzales or Baton Rouge!***

Remote positions

• Geaux Speed Searcher
  You will be issued a login ID and password that will give you access to
  questions posted by onsite librarians. You may work on these answers and
  view other answers until a notice has been posted that no more are needed. This
  may be done anytime, anywhere, and our only request is, in accordance with
  the ALA Code of Ethics, to respect the confidentiality of these questions.
• Geaux Writer
  You will write content for the website as needed such as policies,
  volunteer position descriptions, link descriptions, etc.. Experience in
  writing clear, easy to read information in a must.
• Geaux Webmaster
  You will maintain the geauxlibrary.org http://geauxlibrary.org website. You
  must have experience in using a variety of web programming languages and
  using database driven websites.

Everything is completely voluntary at this time, but the satisfaction you receive will be helping hurricane Katrina victims by doing what you know how to do better than anyone else!
For more information and further description of volunteer opportunities, please see our website at http://www.geauxlibrary.org/.
*Go there to fill out the volunteer signup form* to become part of this much needed project.

We are also accepting *Donations* through the website. Click on the For Donors section to see what items we need and how to donate. We will be putting out instructions on how to start your own Geaux Library in your area soon, so keep watching the website for more information. The
website is just now functional to get more volunteers and donations. We will add more information when we get some help.

*For our sanity, please use the website to communicate with us.***

Geaux Library Project (shelter) Organizers,
Becky Hebert and Addie Fletcher