News Literacy Project has launched a Misinformation Dashboard to help track topics and tactics of the 2024 election. The interactive dashboard organizes content by various themes and three major topics: tricks of context, fabricated content, and manipulated content. Use the tool to keep track of viral trends this fall and share it with patrons as a way to stick to the facts this election season.

Playful City Lab, based at the American University in Washington, DC, has worked with over 50 cities and towns throughout the US to create interactive and engaging neighborhood storytelling, games, and outdoor experiences. You, too, can use tools from Playful City Lab to design and implement your own interactive adventures in your community. See a "tasting menu" of projects across the country, and explore resources, tools, and 'recipes' from Playful City Lab.

Upcoming Webinar with Webjunction

September 26, 2024 @ 3:00 pm

Find out how these do-it-yourself tools can help libraries of all sizes tell their own stories and build stronger places. Whether you're looking for a small or big project, this webinar will provide you with inspiration, resources, and real outcomes that can catalyze community engagement.

RI Energy offers free Home Assessments to anyone living in one to four unit homes to help ensure homes are efficient and notify residents of available incentives and rebates. They have provided the flyer below to libraries to help promote this free service to RI residents. Feel free to download and post this flyer on your library's community board or other resource station.

LinkedIn is an often under-utilized free tool, and many library workers do not know what it can do for them and their libraries. LinkedIn can help with finding a job or filling open positions at the library—but it is also a great tool for professional networking, including keeping in touch with colleagues as you change jobs, finding partners for collaboration, and sharing professional news with a wider audience.

Join Melody Karle for this session on using LinkedIn for libraries. Whether you want to maintain a professional presence for yourself or your library online, this session will cover the basics of using LinkedIn as well as library-specific tips for using and managing this tool.

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Join Donald Barclay for this webinar to consider how librarians and other educators can help learners think about information not as some perfect/imperfect, true/false dichotomy, but rather as points on a continuum of credibility that it is up to information seekers, who are as imperfect as any information they encounter, to untangle as best they can.

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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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Discover how libraries across the country are creating their own outdoor games and interactive stories that showcase local history, landmarks, and voices. These playful activities, often designed by library staff, include texting with murals, audio tours by Black feminist historians, ghost scavenger hunts, and "I spy" quests for architecture and culture. These low-tech creations are part of a national project, Engaging Beyond Our Walls, which aims to connect libraries with their communities in innovative ways. Learn how over 50 towns and cities have already joined in, using free templates and training from the Playful City Lab of American University and the DC Public Library. Find out how these do-it-yourself tools can help libraries of all sizes tell their own stories and build stronger places. Whether you're looking for a small or big project, this webinar will provide you with inspiration, resources, and real outcomes that can catalyze community engagement.

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Libraries are well-positioned to provide data analysis services to a variety of community groups, from nonprofits to government agencies, enabling them to gain insights into their operations and constituents. Recognizing the potential of data analytics, the Providence Public Library in Rhode Island (PPL) created "Data for Good," a project to train teens and adults in data analysis and provide these services to local nonprofits. PPL collaborated with library staff in Georgia and Texas to develop data analytics programming. Using the newly developed skills and the Data for Good (D4G) curriculum, participating library staff were able to bring their knowledge to local community members, organizations, and colleagues.

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The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) is offering $90,000 in scholarships to support in-person and virtual attendance at ACRL 2025. Scholarships aim to help academic and research library professionals expand their skills and stay current with industry developments.

Each scholarship includes a conference registration waiver ($259–$549 value) and a travel stipend (typically $600). Scholarships are available to early-career, mid-career, and career librarians, library school students, recent graduates, and support staff.

Priority is given to applicants from diverse cultural or ethnic backgrounds, those serving underrepresented groups, employed at community, junior, or technical colleges, international applicants, individuals demonstrating financial need, those living with visible or non-visible disabilities, and those contributing to a diverse representation at the conference. Applications require a biography, a description of how attendance at the ACRL conference will support current job responsibilities and/or long-term goals, and a commitment statement on equity and inclusion.

Applications due: October 11

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Digitizing Hidden Special Collections and Archives: Amplifying Unheard Voices, a program of the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR), supports the digitization of rare and unique materials held by collecting organizations in the U.S. and Canada. For the 2024-2025 cycle, up to $4,000,000 in grants will be awarded in the amounts of $50,000 to $300,000 USD for projects digitizing materials in a variety of formats that enrich the public’s understanding of the histories of underrepresented communities, particularly those of people of color and other communities and populations whose work, experiences, and perspectives have been insufficiently recognized or unattended. These often “hidden” histories include but are not limited to, those of Black, Indigenous, Latine, and other People of Color; Women; Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Non-binary, and other Genderqueer people and communities; Immigrants; Displaced populations; Blind, Deaf, and Disabled people and communities; and Colonized, Disenfranchised, Enslaved, and Incarcerated people. The program is generously supported by the Mellon Foundation. Eligible applicants include nonprofit, academic, independent, and community-based organizations as well as government entities in the U.S. and Canada that collect, preserve, and share rare and unique materials with the general public.

Applications due: October 30

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