Blog post author Allison Wysong is a children's librarian at Tacony Library and a participant in Cohort 6 of the Skills for Community-Centered Libraries trainings.
Although we're headlong into the winter holidays, today we want to discuss a different community celebration that took place this autumn.
As a child, I was very curious, annoying my family with my constant questions. In adulthood, that curiosity led me to librarianship. I am constantly trying to learn new things.
Libraries are key to expanding people’s curiosity, not just about the world, but about each other. For your library to truly be open to all, a place where everyone is welcome to learn about each other, you need to engage all segments of your community — not just those that you are intrinsically a part of.
ALA invites library workers to apply for a new annual grant to support innovative and meaningful community engagement efforts in libraries.
The Libraries Transform Communities Engagement Grant will provide $2,000 for a school, public, academic, tribal or special library to expand its community engagement efforts. Libraries are invited to apply by designing and outlining activities for a library-led community engagement project.Â
ALA has announced a professional development opportunity — including funding to attend an in-person workshop at the 2020 ALA Annual Conference in Chicago — to help small and rural library workers develop the communication skills they need to thrive in the 21st-century library.
The Skills for Community-Centered Libraries initiative — a series of trainings meant to build community engagement capacities among staff — launched on Oct. 2, so it’s a good time for the Free Library of Philadelphia’s community organizing team to share what exactly we mean by community engagement. A common definition is a baseline for discussion at workshops and a way to push people’s thinking.
Conversation Cafés are great for helping community members learn more about themselves, their community or an issue, and the process is easily adaptable and requires minimal resources.
This webinar will emphasize how to organize and facilitate these cafés, shifting from small talk to big talk in conversations that matter. Learn more about the Conversation Café process.
The Future Search process enables large, diverse groups to validate a common mission, take responsibility for action, and develop commitment to implementation through concrete action plans. Libraries will gain an understanding of how Future Search can be used in their internal and community engagement efforts. Learn more about Future Search.
Participants in this session will:
Using NCDD’s Engagement Streams Framework and a variety of dialogue resources, participants will learn about the steps for designing successful dialogues that best fit their circumstances and resources. They will also gain an understanding of approaches to dialogue that can help them achieve their goals.
Librarians have always been seen as great sources for information. So when the quarterly community newspaper of Weare, a small New Hampshire town 70 miles outside Boston, closed in 2016, the residents looked to Weare Public Library Director Mike Sullivan for a solution.Â
Update 1/9/18: This workshop is now open to library professionals from all library types! Space is limited; please register early. The workshop will include breakout sessions for academic and non-academic libraries. Questions? Contact ALA's Public Programs Office at publicprograms@ala.org.
ALA's Public Programs Office, the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) and the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation (NCDD) invite academic library professionals to attend a free learning series that teaches several dialogue facilitation approaches and helps librarians position themselves to foster conversation and lead change on their campuses and beyond.
ALA and The Harwood Institute for Public Innovation have announced their fourth annual training opportunity to help libraries strengthen their role as agents of positive change in their communities.
In this session, librarians who have used dialogue and deliberation models will discuss how the process worked in their community. Presenters will discuss the NCDD network and NCDD's resources available to libraries.
During this two-year (2017-18) professional development project, library professionals will have access to free training in community leadership techniques like coalition-building and dialogue facilitation. Offerings will include free web-based and in-person workshops specially designed for three library types:
This introductory webinar will provide an overview of LTC: Models for Change. Participants will:
The ALA Public Programs Office and the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation (NCDD) invite library professionals to attend a free learning series to explore various dialogue facilitation approaches and position themselves to foster conversation and lead change in their communities.
Session 1: “Beyond Deadlock: A Better Way to Talk about Difficult Issues," explores how to help people work together to talk about public issues and make choices, and how to uncover the deeper concerns of communities.
Also see Session 2, "Tools for Naming and Framing Public Issues."
