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.
The exchange goes something like this:
Librarian: “I wanted to let you know about some great resources that I have available for research with your students.”
Teacher: “I just send my kids to (insert well-known search engine here).”
ALA has released a set of free professional development materials to help library workers in small and rural communities develop the facilitation skills they need to thrive in the 21st-century library.
Wyoming Middle School's Poverty and Philanthropy class was the winner of ALA's 2019 Sara Jaffarian School Library Program Award for Exemplary Humanities Programming.
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.
Do you spend a lot of time scrolling through Facebook or Instagram, admiring all the amazing programs other librarians are putting on, wondering where they get their endless ideas and enthusiasm? Yeah, me too. Except I am also one of those people often approached to deliver webinars and conference talks and write books about my "endless ideas and enthusiasm." Huh? What's going on here? Am I lying? Faking it?
Join the ALA Public Programs Office and the Center for News Literacy at Stony Brook University for a one-day workshop to learn how your library can help adults in your community become eagle-eyed news consumers.
Media Literacy at Your Library Training will be held from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Friday, June 21, as part of the 2019 ALA Annual Conference (June 20 to 25).
In this intensive one-day preconference, participants will:
“We are the leaders we have been waiting for." -Grace Lee Boggs, philosopher and activist
The Free Library of Philadelphia is full of leaders, and so are the neighborhoods in which we are located. To foster collaboration with community members and organizations, we are building staff capacity in two ways:
How do you identify funding sources for your library? What are your biggest obstacles?
A group of ALA Emerging Leaders wants to know. Working with the ALA Public Programs Office, they are developing an online resource compiling strategies and sources that libraries can use to locate funding opportunities.
In fall 2017, ALA and the Center for News Literacy (CNL) at Stony Brook University embarked on Media Literacy at Your Library, a prototype project that sought to address the critical need in the field for adult media literacy education, with a focus on news literacy.
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.
The Aspen Institute’s influential report “Rising to the Challenge: Re-Envisioning Public Libraries” predicts that in the coming years, the most successful public libraries will be the ones with services that prioritize and support local community goals.
Library professionals are invited to apply for ALA’s Great Stories Club series on Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation (TRHT). This thematic reading and discussion program series will engage underserved teens through literature-based library outreach programs and racial healing work.Â
As library professionals, we feel compelled to stay abreast of new publications, award-winning titles and the latest installment in a beloved series. But the reality is that keeping up with so much reading can be overwhelming.
Here are some tips to help library professionals find ways to conquer their ever-growing stack of books to read.
Located in the heart of California’s San Joaquin Valley, the Fresno County Public Library (FCPL) serves nearly 1 million county residents at its Central Library and 34 branches.
The American Library Association (ALA) and The Harwood Institute for Public Innovation announce a three-day training opportunity to help libraries strengthen their role as agents of positive change in their communities.
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.
In this free, 60-minute webinar, presenters will discuss the Great Stories Club program and application process, in advance of the July 9 application deadline. Learn more about the Great Stories Club.
Webinar topics will include:
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:
