Adult Services News

Each year, the Public Library Association (PLA), in partnership with AT&T, offers financial support to public libraries through digital literacy incentive programs. These competitive programs provide the funding and resources necessary for libraries to teach basic digital literacy skills using PLA's DigitalLearn courses and training materials. Since 2022, PLA has helped nearly 400 public libraries conduct more than 3,800 workshops, training more than 19,000 learners across the country.

Applications are now open for this year's incentive opportunities:

• PLA Digital Literacy Workshop Incentive, supported by AT&T—This program will award $10,000 to large public libraries and $5,000 to small public libraries, as well as provide the necessary training resources, to conduct workshops that teach basic digital literacy skills using PLA's DigitalLearn courses and training materials.

• PLA Digital Navigator Workshop Incentive, supported by AT&T—This new pilot program will award $4,000 to public libraries with digital navigators to utilize DigitalLearn materials and resources. Libraries must already have a digital navigator to apply.

Learn more and apply online now through October 18, 2024

Partnering for Stronger Programming: A Toolkit for Libraries provides five tools for library workers with actionable steps to help partnerships grow sustainably, meet goals, expand organizational capacity, thoughtfully engage with partner audiences, and more. The five different tools can be used individually or in combination.

Consider the big-picture goals of library programming — helping to create communities that are connected, knowledgeable, creative, civically engaged, healthy, economically vital, welcoming, joyful and caring (or all of the above!).

Creating and sharing digital collections is an important way that libraries can share and preserve unique local history, culture, stories, and artifacts. Digital collections offer an opportunity to represent a diversity of experiences and voices in your community that may be missing from your physical collection.

Planning, creating, managing, and preserving digital collections, however, can be resource-intensive work that requires technology, new skills, and an ongoing commitment to maintain them. Understanding the full lifecycle of digital stewardship is critical to successful digital collections.

These courses, designed specifically with the needs of small cultural institutions in mind, will guide you through the lifecycle of digital stewardship. This lifecycle describes the entire ongoing range of tasks and activities necessary to successfully share digital collections. As you proceed through these courses, you will complete activities using the Digital Collections Stewardship Workbook, creating an action plan for your digital collections implementation. If you are new to digital collections, we encourage you to take these courses sequentially; if not, feel free to choose the courses that fit your needs.

Learn more and register for this free series.

Thursday, August 22, 10:30 am

Virtual

Join Talking Books Library staff to find out how your library can become an institutional member to provide FREE books, magazines and music materials for the print disabled.

Register for this Zoom session.

Communication skills are some of the most important skills that you need to develop to be successful in the workplace and in life. We are constantly communicating! We talk to people face to face, and we listen when people talk to us. We write emails and reports, and we read the documents that are sent to us.

Communication, therefore, is a process that involves at least two people – a sender and a receiver. For it to be successful, the receiver must understand the message in the way that the sender intended. Join Andrew Sanderbeck for this interactive and informative program and leave with takeaway tips and techniques you can use at work, at home or wherever you go!

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Civic literacy is one of IMLS's 21st Century Skills and is correlated with civic engagement. As a branch of information literacy, civic literacy could help increase critical thinking skills and combat mis/disinformation. But what, exactly, is civic literacy and how can public libraries develop engaging programming around this topic?

In this webinar, Laura Saunders will define civic literacy and explore some of the research on the topic before diving into specific ideas and examples for public library programming.

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Effective library policies are essential for setting clear expectations, defining responsibilities, and establishing boundaries for both patrons and staff. This session will cover the ten most common patron-facing policies and offer guidance on selecting and tailoring them to meet your library and community needs for safe and effective operation. Using a Code of Conduct policy as an example, we’ll discuss how to avoid policies driven by trauma or drama, ensuring they are clear, accessible, and enforceable. Additionally, we’ll explore best practices for policy management, including the importance of regular reviews by directors, boards, and staff, to maintain accountability and relevance.

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Lois Lenski, children’s book author and 1946 Newbery medalist for Strawberry Girl, had a life-long concern that all children have access to good books. Toward that end, the Lois Lenski Covey Foundation provides grants to organizations that operate a lending bookmobile that travels into neighborhoods populated by underserved youth. The grants are for purchasing books published for preschoolers through grade 8. Bookmobiles operated by charitable 501(c)(3) and other non-taxable agencies, including public libraries or schools, are eligible.

The Foundation awards grants to organizations that serve economically or socially at-risk children, have limited book budgets, and demonstrate real need. Grants range from $500 to $3000 and are specifically for purchasing books to be checked out, and cannot be used for administrative or operational purposes.

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The Jerry Kline Community Impact Prize, developed in partnership between the Gerald M. Kline Family Foundation and Library Journal, was created in 2019 to recognize the public library as a vital community asset. "When libraries, civic entities, organizations, and the people they serve become close partners, their communities thrive."

One winning library will receive $250,000 in unfettered grant monies from the Gerald M. Kline Family Foundation and be profiled in the November issue of Library Journal and online. Honorable mentions may also be named. All U.S. Public Libraries are eligible for the prize.

Learn more