Adult Services Newsletter

Starting this month, I will be sending out a monthly newsletter to share information about upcoming events and opportunities, highlight big-picture ideas from the world of adult services and celebrate the successes from within our community. My hope is that this will not be a one-way information blast, but that you will feel welcome to share ideas, events and stories as well. I will use this space to share about programming, readers' advisory, community engagement and other relevant topics and I'm looking forward to hearing from you about these topics and more. As with the Youth Services newsletter, these will be archived on the OLIS site. Finally, if you have Twitter*, you can follow OLIS (@OLISRI) and me (@libraffoni) for more news and updates between newsletters!

Best wishes,
Nicolette

*In unrelated but important news, Malala Yousafzai joined Twitter recently on the day she graduated from High School (!) so you might want to follow her (@malala) too.

This year OLIS will be collecting statistics for your Adult Summer Reading Programs in addition to those for children/teens. Watch for a survey to come out at the end of the season so that we can have a clear picture of what adult SRPs look like across the state to inform our plans for next year!

If you are thinking of starting or already run an Adult Coloring Club, you may want to read this recent study out of Drexel University, which touts the benefits of coloring, doodling and free drawing for the brain. It's not brand new news for most of us, but it's always good to affirm what we already know! Speaking of which, check out the amazing press coverage for Mohr Library's adult coloring group below!

A research study from the Pew Research Center shows that Millennials (ages 18 - 35) were the most likely generation of adults to have visited a library or bookmobile in the past year. You can click here to read more about the study, and then explore some of the resources below to get some new ideas for potential programming aimed at Millennials.

Books:

A Year of Programs for Millennials and More by Amy J. Alessio, Kate LaMantia and Emily Vinci; published by ALA Editions in 2015.

Websites:

Library Bonanza: Millennial Programming

The Alt Library by Sacramento Public Library

Alt Library Meetup

Urban Libraries Council: Alt Library Initiative

Programming for Millennials, Gen X & Y and Young Adults

Adulting 101 @The North Bend Library, North Bend, OR

A total solar eclipse will happen across America on August 21, and though not in the path of totality, RI will still witness a partial eclipse. In case you missed it, Whitney from Pawtucket received some free eclipse glasses to share with other libraries; she's given away quite a few, but still has some left. Interested parties should email wpape@pawtucketlibrary.org with the subject "Eclipse Glasses." Here are some more resources for the eclipse, as well as other astronomy/STEAM links!

Eclipse:

Discounted eclipse glasses (in case the free ones are all taken)
STAR_Net Eclipse Resource Center
Webinar: Safe Eclipse Viewing (August 2)_

Other Astronomy/STEM resources:

International Observe the Moon Night (October 28)
Ladd Observatory @ Brown University Resource Page
RI Solar System Ambassadors
Astronomy Week: STEM for Everyone
Archived Webinar: Not Just for Kids: STEM Programs Your Adult Patrons Will Love

From ALA "CHICAGO – The American Library Association (ALA) is creating Book Club Central, a new online platform of reading resources, including recommendations, expert book lists and other content for book clubs and their readers. Award-winning television and film actor, producer, designer, library supporter and avid reader Sarah Jessica Parker is partnering with the ALA to serve as the Honorary Chair of Book Club Central."

Book Club Central could be a great additional resource for reader's advisory or for help choosing book club titles. I'm particularly excited to dig into the "Making Sense of a New America" reading list. What do you think?

(image credit: © 2017 ALA Book Club Central. All Rights Reserved.)

"Designed to help bring people together, Meetup.com can be a useful tool to market your programs and develop a micro-community."

Check out the Programming Librarian blog post Meet-huh? The Whats, Hows, and Whys of Meetup.com. Although it is not free to run groups on Meetup, it seems this site can be a powerful way of connecting to community members who are actively seeking out the kinds of activities and programs that libraries already offer. Some local RI Meetups have even approached libraries to act as hosts for their groups; perhaps libraries might consider doing the reverse and approaching existing groups to bring them into the library fold? The latter option does not require any paid subscription, but still allows libraries to take advantage of this potentially very effective tool.

"Long Island’s first library card program for homeless launches in Riverhead" This arcticle explains how one library took their support of the homeless community to the next level. Well worth your time to read and a great jumping off point to think about the ways in which we can all better serve our most vulnerable populations.

• NELA Diversity Summit (July 26)
• Webinar: Safe Eclipse Viewing (August 2)
  
• Webinar: IFLA's Global Vision: An Interactive Discussion (for Rural and Small Libraries) (August 24)
  
• NELA Conference (October 22 - October 24)

Vietnam War Programming Kit (August 1)
RI Council for the Humanities Mini Grant (August 1)
Bank of America Foundation Grants (varies)
Library Pipeline: Awesome Foundation Innovation in Libraries Grant (due between the 1st - 15th of each month)
Walmart Community Grant (December 31)

August
National Book Lovers Day - August 9

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

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

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