On, Monday, February 11, 2013, Carlsbad, California-based EOS International, announced that Google Analytics integration is now available in EOS.Web. “When libraries enable Google Analytics integration with EOS.Web, they can utilize Google Analytics web analysis tools and reporting for their OPAC Discovery.”
Google Analytics Integration with EOS.Web provides an insight to libraries into how visitors use their OPAC, how they arrived, and how they can keep patrons coming back.
Google Analytics is a free web analytics tool that can provide detailed information about how patrons are interacting with your OPAC. Libraries can use this free tool to improve their web resources and view detailed reports to detect trends in how library web pages are being used.
On Monday, February 4, 2013, EOS International announced that they will exhibit at this year’s Computers in Libraries (CIL) and Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) Conference in April of 2013. The CIL Conference will be held from the 8th to the 10th of April, 2013 and will take place at the Hilton Washington in Washington, D.C.
EOS will be in booth #418. In addition to being exhibitors, EOS will also host a Luncheon Seminar and Client Reception on Tuesday, April 9, 2013.
The EOS International Luncheon Seminar will take place from 12:00 – 1:30 p.m. in the Georgetown Room of the Washington Hilton. This event is designed for individuals interested in learning more about EOS International and the products and services it has to offer to special, medical, corporate, law, government, academic, association, and digital libraries.
EOS will also host a Client Reception that includes refreshments and discussions about the latest enhancements to EOS.Web products. The Client Reception will take place from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. in the Georgetown West Room of the Washington Hilton.
EOS International will also exhibit at the Association of College & Research Libraries Conference taking place almost simultaneously from the 10th to the 13th of April, 2013 at the Indiana Convention Center in Indianapolis. EOS will be in booth #1233.
*We Are One Illinois*
On Tuesday, February 5, 2013, the coalition We Are One Illinois released the results of a poll Raleigh, North Carolina-based Public Policy Polling (PPP) conducted of 500 Illinois voters conducted between the 1st and 3rd of February. According to PPP, “Voters oppose cutting pensions by a 58-31 margin. They also oppose cutting COLA, or pension cost of living adjustments, 60-31. By a 50-34 margin, voters say that the pension issue is caused by wealthy people and corporations not paying their share rather than by the size of public employee pay and pensions.”
Voters ascribe the pension debt to politicians skipping pension payments, rather than overly generous pension benefits. By a 64-27 margin voters say politicians skipping payments are to blame. This is true across the political spectrum: Democrats (71-19, Republicans (59-35) and independents (62-30) all agree that overly generous benefits are not the cause of the pension debt.
Voters also overwhelmingly say that public employees and politicians should work together to solve the pension issue rather than just simply cutting pensions by a 78-17 margin. This also holds true for Democrats (83-11), Republicans (71-27) and independents (78-18).
Poll respondents also say they would support a compromise whereby public employees pay an additional 2% out of their paychecks while corporate tax loopholes are closed to balance the pension debt by a 59-23 margin. They would also support refinancing the debt much like homeowners do with a mortgage by a 48-26 margin as a way of easing the crisis.
By a 60-32 margin, voters say they agree more with the idea that ‘a pension is a promise that can’t be broken, and the pension problem can be solved by guaranteeing payments and closing corporate tax loopholes’ rather than ‘Illinois cannot afford the overly generous pensions of public employees and they should be cut.’
Finally, 44% of voters say they would be less likely to support a politician who voted to cut pensions, compared to just 29% who said they would be more likely.
On Wednesday, February 6, 2013, in response to Governor Pat Quinn's 2013 State of the State speech, We Are One Illinois stated, "Governor Pat Quinn presented a false choice today between funding pensions or funding vital services, like education and public safety. We present a different choice. Our plan would generate billions in revenue, share in the sacrifice, and should not be overlooked. Public workers and retirees alone cannot solve decades of the state's pension under-funding”
It would be irresponsible for the state to walk away from the pension debt owed for past services performed by employees. Our Illinois keeps its promises to those workers and retirees who taught our children, protected our families, and paid their fair share for a secure future, even as the state failed to generate sufficient revenue to do so.
We are ready to be part of the solution, and we look to renew this commitment at our summit.
***
If millions of dollars had been set aside every year and invested wisely, as was supposed to be done, we simply would not have had this problem as there would be billions of dollars in the pension funds. Obviously, a generation’s worth of state legislators were a pack of imbeciles for creating one of the most easily foreseen crises in history by failing, year after year, to allocate money for the pension funds, as if a plague would selectively wipe out public servants as they retired, money fairies would start dumping cash on Springfield, or Judgment Day was at hand so they didn’t have to worry about the future.
The problem with the General Assembly trying now to compensate for their own mistakes (or the mistakes or previous legislators) by raising taxes that are already fairly high (as California has done) is that they will drive residents out (as California is doing). A better solution would be to lower taxes to attract new residents to move here to increase the tax base.
The leaders of each taxing body have to keep in mind that they do not exist in a vacuum. Taxpayers are burdened by multiple taxes as anyone spending money – child or adult, rich and poor – pays sales taxes levied by towns and counties (and in some cases state and federal governments; property owners pay property taxes to support towns, townships, counties, and district governments; even destitute people pay income taxes in our state; only very poor people avoid paying federal incomes taxes; and everyone who earns a salary or hourly wage pays social security taxes.
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