The Adult Summer Reading Program Survey is live! If you are reporting for a library with multiple branches, please submit ONE form for your library system and include the total participation numbers for all branches. If you held an adult summer reading program, please share your stats before Monday, September 11. We appreciate the time you will take to fill this out - it will help OLIS better support summer reading programs next year and will help you better learn from each other!

A fantastic opportunity for adult services librarians! Make sure you learn more about how to apply:

ALA, in collaboration with the Center for News Literacy at Stony Brook University, invites public libraries to apply for Media Literacy @ Your Library, a pilot program that will train library workers to help their adult patrons become better news consumers.

Read the guidelines for Media Literacy @ Your Library or apply online to be part of the cohort. Applications must be received by Sept. 11, 2017.

This session includes open meetings of OLIS’s new roundtables, Special Collections and Digital Innovation, programs on coding, seasonal programming hosted at the Tomaquag Museum, supporting families and children affected by incarceration, a report back from the Research Institute for Public Libraries and so much more!

Each month, we will shine a spotlight on a different member of the Adult Services Roundtable to celebrate our vibrant community.

Robin Nyzio, Assistant Director of the Lincoln Public Library will be hosting our first Adult Services Roundtable CE workshop on September 26 at Lincoln Public Library on the subject of Working with Local Authors. She has also graciously shared some thoughts on programming, her workshop and the RI library professional community.

On hosting Working with Local Authors and the RI Library Community:
When I offered to host and facilitate the September CE back in April, it was because we’ve all touched on the topic of working with local authors and I’d love to hear more about programming ideas. This Adult Programming Roundtable has been a great chance to meet other librarians who do programming for adults. After working as the Teen Librarian at Pawtucket PL, I grew to enjoy the professional camaraderie of the other YA librarians I met through the Young Adult Round Table and at the children’s services CEs. During that time, I developed an interest for graphic novels, especially non-fiction. I co-presented at YART and at NELA with Ed Fuqua, YA Librarian at Woonsocket Harris. I spent many years on the RI Teen Book Award committee too. When I worked in Middleboro, MA for a few years, I really missed everyone and was happy to get back to those meetings and my RI library friends.

When I became assistant director at Jesse Smith, I was pleased that Chaichin was trying to keep the adult services CE going. Now that I work in Lincoln, I’m still eager to learn about programs.

On programs in her library:
My favorite program that I’ve implemented here is the Cookbook Book Club which I learned about at RILA in 2016. My first meeting was in October 2016 and the group has met monthly since then utilizing the tips I learned from Jessica D’Avanza, BAR; Megan Weeden, COV, and Nancy Nadeau, SKK. We average 12 each meeting and it’s a lot of fun. Talking about food and cooking is a great way to spend time.

My other successful program is a monthly craft lesson. I started doing crafts at Pawtucket when I was Teen Librarian and it was easy for me to use some of these same lessons for adults. I’ve also found projects via the Programming Librarians group on Facebook and using some library books, of course! My favorite is Playing with Books: the art of upcycling, deconstructing, and reimagining the book by Jason Thompson. We’ve done book page wreaths and flowers from that book. I’m an amateur crafter myself, all self-taught so I enjoy the challenge of locating and trying new projects.

You can follow Robin on Twitter @ReadingRobin or enjoy her blog, Reading Robin!

Supporting small businesses in your community can be as easy as reaching out to the Small Business Association, or its partner organizations like SCORE and the Center for Women in Enterprise. These groups have ready-to-deliver workshops on valuable skills like writing a business plan, sorting out finances, and social media and marketing that can be delivered in your library at no cost to you. They will also advertise the workshops to their business audience, on top of your usual outreach and marketing.

After you peruse some of the workshop selections below, you can directly email Economic Development Specialist Matt Spoehr to schedule a workshop or take a look at the many other resources for small businesses at the SBA has to offer.

October will be here before you know it, and you may want to celebrate National Reading Group Month with a little extra attention and love for your reading groups! Here are a few links to get you thinking about different types of and current trends in book clubs:

Read, Discuss Meet and Act: the Power of Words (Free Webinar 9/7/2017 @ 2pm)
Pardon my Youth Book Club for Adults who Love YA
African American Literature Book Club
Food for Thought: Start a Cookbook Book Club
Reading the Resistance: A Post-Election surge in book clubs
Celebrity Book Clubs Create Virtual Reading Community
Book-to-Movie Clubs @ the Library!

Our September CE Workshop will be Working with Local Authors, but have you thought about helping to create local authors in your library? Self-publishing is a rich potential area for library programming as well as community outreach.

James LaRue, head of the ALA Office of Intellectual Freedom, spoke at this year's RILA conference and discussed the ways in which developing local authors within your community can help your library better represent your unique and diverse population when traditional publishing fails to do so. He has written many articles on self-publishing in libraries for Library Journal which are well worth exploring.

For more information about developing self-publishing in your community:

Library Journal's SELF-E
Self Publishing, Indie Authors and Libraries
Leading Self-publishing Efforts in Communities
National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo): Community Outreach Guide

• Webinar: IFLA's Global Vision: An Interactive Discussion (for Rural and Small Libraries) (August 24)
• Futures Conference (Atlantic City, NJ, September 25 -26)
  
• NELA Conference (South Burlington, VT, October 22 - October 24)

IMLS National Leadership Grants for Libraries (September 1)
Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program (September 1)
Media Literacy @ Your Library (September 11)
Bank of America Foundation Grants (varies)
Rhode Island Foundation Grants (varies)
Library Pipeline: Awesome Foundation Innovation in Libraries Grant (due between the 1 - 15 each month)
Walmart Community Grant (December 31)

September
National Hispanic Heritage Month
Library Card Sign-up Month
Banned Books Week (September 24 - 30)
National Voter Registration Day (September 26)

October
Information Literacy Awareness Month
National Breast Cancer Awareness Month
National Domestic Violence Awareness Month
National Reading Group Month
National Friends of the Libraries Week (October 15 - 21)

November
National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)
International Games Week (October 29 - November 4)
Miami Book Fair (November 12 - 19)

Please contact me to share questions, comments or ideas for next month's newsletter!

Email: nicolette.baffoni@olis.ri.gov
Website: www.olis.ri.gov
Location: One Capitol Hill Providence RI
Phone: 401-574-9316
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/olisri/
Twitter: @libraffoni