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Lights, Camera, and an Idea Worth Spreading

Student presenting his Ted-ED Club presentation

Most of us are familiar with TED Talks, a nonprofit devoted to spreading ideas through short, often powerful, talks. As librarians, we can use the format of a TED Talk to engage students and teachers with research and encourage them to spread their ideas.

We chose to incorporate TED-ED into our ninth-grade programming — with excellent results. In fact, we are now hoping to spread it to eighth and fifth grades as culminating projects during those capstone years in our district.

Research Your Local Newspaper’s Holocaust Coverage

Photograph of two people looking at old newspapers on a computer. (On December 7, 2015, participants in History Unfolded gather at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in Washington, DC, to search local newspaper archives.) Photograph courtesy of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum

History Unfolded: US Newspapers and the Holocaust is a citizen history project of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The project is inviting libraries to research local newspaper coverage on Holocaust-era events between 1933 and 1946 and submit relevant findings to the project’s database.

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USHMM
History Unfolded
United States Holocaust Memorial and Museum
newspaper
research
archives
program
history program
archives program
Holocaust Remembrance

ALA's Sara Jaffarian Award Presents - Teaching the Tulsa Race Massacre with Guided Inquiry Design

Shawnee Middle School was the winner of ALA's 2020-2021 Sara Jaffarian School Library Program Award for Exemplary Humanities Programming.

In their program, they first taught students about how assumptions create conflict in society using the Tulsa Race Massacre as an example. Using Guided Inquiry Design, they then encouraged students to think about where they see assumptions causing conflict in the world today or in their own experience. Students chose a topic to research further.

ALA Releases Findings from National Study of Library Public Programming

Collage of images surrounding NILPPA logo, including a boy coloring, a woman in a space suit, a man playing guitar and harmonica, and a woman listening on headphones

The ALA Public Programs Office has released a report outlining the findings of an intensive research study that explored the characteristics, audiences, outcomes and value of U.S. library programming, as well as the competencies required to succeed in the field.

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NILPPA
National Impact of Library Public Programs Assessment
research

What Is a Program, Anyway? Findings from NILPPA, ALA's National Study of Library Public Programs

As U.S. libraries transform to meet the needs of a changing nation, public programming is rising to the forefront of daily operations. While libraries have always had a broad educational mission and an esteemed role as collection holders and lenders, the 21st century is witnessing their rapid transformation into centers for lifelong experiential learning, hubs for civic and cultural gatherings, and partners in community-wide innovation.

The Nine Competencies of Programming Librarians: Findings from NILPPA, ALA's National Study of Library Public Programs

As U.S. libraries transform to meet the needs of a changing nation, public programming is rising to the forefront of daily operations. While libraries have always had a broad educational mission and an esteemed role as collection holders and lenders, the 21st century is witnessing their rapid transformation into centers for lifelong experiential learning, hubs for civic and cultural gatherings, and partners in community-wide innovation.

NILPPA Update: The Programming Pulse: Notes from ALA Annual 2018

A street banner that reads "New Orleans - ALA Annual Conference, June 21-26-2018"

Our National Impact of Library Public Programs Assessment (NILPPA) team is back from ALA Annual in New Orleans, where we presented some of our findings, conducted more research, and learned more about some of the awesome things happening in programs that occur across all types of libraries.

Here are a few of the sessions we attended relevant to program design, development, and facilitation in libraries.

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NILPPA
National Impact of Library Public Programs Assessment
research
study
program
programming
public
academic
school

NILPPA Update: What Do Academic Degree Programs Teach about Public Programming?

Woman writing on a whiteboard

Planning public programs is a skill that’s more and more important to library work, and we wanted to know: is that reflected in the curriculum? As part of our comprehensive review of the library programming landscape, we explored requirements in library degree programs across the US.

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NILPPA
research
assessment
library programming
program
study

NILPPA Update: How Do We Learn to Run Library Programs?

Hands raised in the air, as in a classroom

“My event planning, volunteering for 16 years doing cultural events for my school district, and my theater/musician training helped a lot.”

“These are basic life skills learned by parents (e.g. doing homework in grade school, planning a birthday party, etc.).”

“Working in a very high-scale restaurant as a server and working in a public museum on the visitor services side of things helped me gain skills in good customer services and event planning.”

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NILPPA
research
library programming

NILPPA Update: What Skills Make for Good Library Programming?

Hand checking off a to-do list in a notebook

"What skills or abilities do you think are necessary to successfully run public programs at libraries?”

More than 1,200 library professionals from all around the country and from all types of libraries weighed in on this question last fall as part of ALA's National Impact of Library Public Programs Assessment (NILPPA) research. As we read their responses, we found nine categories of skills that came up time and again.

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NILPPA
research
IMLS
programming
survey
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