The next Adult Services Roundtable meeting is on May 9 from 9:30 - noon at the Greenville Public Library. Join fellow programming librarians for a sharing session on taking community partnerships to the next level. The more librarians that join, the richer the conversation will be so register to attend! The conversation will be moderated by Cassie Patterson, Assistant Director at Greenville, who is featured in this month's Spotlight.

For further exploration of this topic, WebJunction is offering a free webinar Taking Community Partnerships to the Next Level on May 29.

The Connecticut State Library is hosting a 2nd Cohort of its EXCITE Transformation for Libraries Innovation Grant. This program is an intensive team-based experiential learning program that will teach collaboration and innovation skills, result in programs that respond to community input and demonstrated needs, lead to cultural change at libraries and sustain project impact through extended training.

Teams of 4 from public, academic and special libraries are welcome to apply. Cohort 2 will meet at the Cranston Library's Central Branch several times for training between September 2018 and February 2019. There are no tuition fees, and scholarships will be awarded to cover travel, lodging and staff coverage for accepted teams.

If you have project coming up in your library that you would like to tackle in an innovative, creative way, learn more about how you and your team can apply. Deadline for applications is June 14.

Did you host a Money Smart Week event? If so, the Financial Literacy Roundtable would love to hear from you! Please send the topic, date, and attendance numbers of your programs to flrt@rilibraries.org. The stats that are collected help FLRT to follow patron demand and keep track of all related programs in the state.

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

This month, the spotlight is on Cassie Patterson, Assistant Director at the Greenville Public LIbrary. She serves as the Co-Chair of the RILA Financial Literacy Roundtable and is a member of the OLIS Resource Sharing Working Group. Patterson obtained her MLIS from the University of Rhode Island. She previously worked in the Mansfield Public Library where she was the head of reference and adult services. She was also responsible for programming for teens and adults. She has also worked at the Attleboro Public Library in the reference and circulation departments. Cassie will be hosting the May meeting of the Adult Services Roundtable at the Greenville Public Library; the topic for the meeting is Collaborating with Community Groups for Programming.

Favorite thing about being a librarian?

My favorite part of being a librarian is helping people to discover something new about themselves, a new passion – or developing a skill that they didn’t know they were capable of – and achieving a goal they set for themselves.

Favorite or most successful program?

One of my first big programs here in Greenville was a Downton Abbey themed tea party. We invited a professional milliner to speak about the history of millinery in Rhode Island and to bring some of her hand-crafted pieces. It was a lot of work and some serious hiccups happened, but as far as the patrons were concerned, everything went smoothly. I swore I would never host another tea party again, but it was a lot of fun and we received excellent feedback from attendees.

Any book recommendations?

American Wolf: a true story of survival and obsession in the West by Nate Blakeslee and A Kind of Freedom by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton.

The Adult Reading Roundtable (ARRT) is a group based in the Chicago area that promotes readers' advisory skills, and reading for pleasure through public libraries. They host in-person professional development including genre and book club studies. The ARRT also puts out book lists and a newsletter that are enjoyable and informative even for those outside of Illinois. Convening readers' advisory discussions, genre/book studies or book talk programs for librarians may be something to consider for RI - voice your opinion at the June Adult Services Roundtable planning meeting.

Meanwhile, ARRT's latest newsletter titled Romance is Discussable! shared ideas for romances that might be conducive to using in a book club, urging you to consider adding this genre to your book club offerings.

Great timing, as this year's Route One Reads theme is romance! Route One Reads is a project of the sixteen Centers for the Book from the states that fall on RT 1 between Maine and Florida. Each state is tasked with selecting a book within the years' theme that is either set in or written by an author from that state. RI's 2018 romance pick is Treading Water by Marie Force, which is both set in Newport and written by a local author!

The Cranston Public Library will be hosting this webinar in conjunction with the Dept. of HHS. It will be May 24 from 10a-11a at the Central Library and is open to all RI library staff.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has started mailing newly-designed Medicare cards with a new Medicare Beneficiary Identifier (MBI), or Medicare Number. This step is to protect seniors and those with disabilities on Medicare from fraudulent use of Social Security numbers which can lead to identity theft and illegal use of Medicare benefits. People enrolling in Medicare for the first time will be among the first to get the new cards, no matter where they live. Current Medicare beneficiaries will get their new cards on a rolling basis over the coming months. New cards will be mailed to all Medicare beneficiaries over the next year.

This webinar will help you answer questions Medicare beneficiaries or their caregivers may have. Please register by emailing Ed Garcia (director@cranstonlibrary.org)

If you're looking for grant money to fund a humanities project in your library, try out the Match Your Project to a Grant Program resource from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The site features grants for many different types of projects, several of which would be easy to connect to library services; grant deadlines vary, but many are due in August or October.

• Webinar: Visual Merchandising for Public Libraries: Practical Strategies for Applying Bookstore Insights to Library Collections (Infopeople, May 15, 3:00)

• Webinar: Considering the Census: How Past Questions about Race and Ethnicity Can Help Predict Future Questions about Gender and Sexuality (Federal Depository Library Program, May 16, 2:00)
• Webinar: New Voices in Mystery Fiction (Booklist, May 22, 2:00)
• Webinar: Conversation Cafe: Libraries Transform Communities for Public Libraries serving Small, Mid-Sized and/or Rural Communities (ALA Office of Public Programs, May 23, 2:00)
  
• Health Information for Public Libraries Symposium (Atlanta, May 22 -23; stipends of $500 available on a first come/first-served basis)
• Webinar: Creating Constructive Conversations within our Communities (Colorado State Library, May 24, 2:00)
  
• Webinar: Reducing Workplace Stress with Mindfulness (Infopeople, May 24, 3:00)
  
• Webinar: Taking Community Partnerships to the Next Level (WebJunction, May 29, 3:00)
• ALA Annual Conference (New Orleans, June 21 - 26)
• NELA Verbal Judo Training Program (Shrewsbury, MA, July 11)
  
• RILA/NELA Joint Conference (Warwick, October 21 - 23)

*Many of these events were found using the Wyoming State Library's Training Calendar, which shares upcoming free webinars for librarians, including many that are not listed here and may be of interest to you!

To encourage first-time attendance at the NELA Annual conference, NELA is offering an opportunity to make first-time conference attendance possible with scholarships, awarded annually to up to six NELA members representing each New England state.

Each recipient will receive a full conference registration (does not include travel reimbursements or hotel) AND a one year membership to NELA. Applicants do not need to be current members of NELA.

Apply now!

IMLS Activating Community Opportunities Using Museums/Libraries as Assets (May 14)
ALA Center for the Future of Libraries Fellowship (May 15)
Excite Transformation For Libraries Innovation Grants (June 14)
Association of Bookmobile & Outreach Services Awards & Scholarships (Aug 8)
Bank of America Foundation Grants (varies)
Library Pipeline: Awesome Foundation Innovation in Libraries Grant (due between the 1 - 15 each month)

May
RI Latino Books Month
Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month
Jewish American Heritage Month (JAHM)
Mental Health Awareness Month
National Bike Month
Older Americans Month
National Library Legislative Day & Virtual Library Legislative Day (May 7-8)

June
Gay and Lesbian Pride Month
GLBT Book Month
Father's Day (June 17)

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