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6 COGNOTES JANUARY 2017 PREVIEW
Learn How Community Engagement Is Shaping Libraries
As the nation becomes increasingly divided, communities need conversation more than ever. Libraries across the country are rising to the challenge, bringing people together to tackle challenges large and small.
Learn how libraries are transforming their communities – and how your library can get the resources you need to transform yours – at the 2017 ALA Midwinter Meeting.
“Libraries Transforming Communities: Models for Change”
Starting in early 2017, public and academic libraries across the country will be invited to learn community engagement techniques, like coalition building and dialogue facilitation, through a series of free web-based and in-person trainings. The trainings will be led by change-making leaders like the National Coalition on Dialogue and Deliberation (NCDD), Everyday Democracy, National Issues Forum, and World Café.
Join the ALA Public Programs Office for a News You Can Use Session, “Libraries Transforming Communities: Models for Change,” to learn about these new offerings, including training schedules, application instructions, and special travel stipends available to small and rural libraries.
The session will be held from 8:30 – 10:00 a.m. on Saturday January 21, in room GWCC-B406.
Through “Libraries Transforming Communities: Models for Change,” a two-year initiative supposed by the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS), ALA will offer library-focused training and resources on a variety of community engagement models. The initiative builds upon Libraries Transforming Communities, a 2014 – 15 ALA project that introduced hundreds of libraries to the “Turning Outward” approach, a set of community engagement techniques created by The Harwood Institute for Public Engagement.
Get more information and add this to your schedule now.
“Building Community, Leading Change: Libraries Transforming Communities”
Join us for a discussion with three library innovators – with experience in public, school and academic libraries – about how libraries are evolving and becoming leaders in the community engagement/facilitation/dialogue space, and this shift’s impact on the professional and personal practices of library staff.
Attendees will also learn about “Libraries Transforming Communities: Community Engagement Models for Change,” a new ALA initiative that will offer free community engagement training to libraries of all sizes and types starting in early 2017.The session, “Building Community, Leading Change: Libraries Transforming Communities,” is part of the Symposium on the Future of Libraries. The meeting will begin at 3:00 p.m. Sunday January 22, in room GWCC-A402.
Panelists will include Erica Freudenberger, outreach consultant for the Southern Adirondack Library System; Nancy Kranich, lecturer at the Rutgers University School of Communication and Information; and Ken W. Stewart, school librarian (retired) from Blue Valley High School in Stilwell, Kan.
Get more information and add this to your schedule now.
ALA Masters Series Features Catherine Murray-Rust, Kelvin Watson
Join innovative library leaders Catherine Murray-Rust (Georgia Institute of Technology) and Kelvin Watson (Queens Library) for an informal discussion of transformative projects they are or have been involved with. These Midwinter Meeting noontime ALA Masters series take place on Saturday, January 21 and Sunday, January 22, 12:30 – 1:30 p.m., in room B313 of the Georgia World Congress Center. Feel free to bring your lunch!
On Saturday, Murray-Rust, Dean of Libraries and Vice Provost for Academic Effectiveness at the Georgia Institute of Technology, will talk about reimagining the research library for the 21st century, including (in their case) creating a shared collection with Emory University, renewing two library buildings, and adopting such techniques as portfolio management and supply chain thinking to reshape every job, process, program, and service. The Library Next project is focused on renewal and the evolution of physical spaces and library services to meet the institution’s changing research, teaching, and learning needs. The goals of the project are “to show what a library really can be, and what research librarians and archivists really can do, like no other research library in America has yet done. . . . Georgia Tech’s own strategic plan includes enriching the student experience, developing an innovative environment, sustaining excellence in research and scholarship, and providing a cutting-edge infrastructure to support the faculty’s vision. . . . The new, re-imagined Georgia Tech Library building will be a space to provide many new physical, informational, and technological resources to do just that.”
And on Sunday, January 22, attendees can join Watson, Chief Operating Officer and Senior Vice-President for the Queens Library (NY) to discuss wide-ranging innovations that are transforming the Queens Library, and learn about their efforts to radically transform and improve the way library patrons discover and access eResources through a Virtual Library System. This system will provide a best-ofbreed solution for all their users, keeping the library’s doors open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and shifting the balance of power from providers to libraries and the customers they serve. Attendees will learn about how the Virtual Library System allows users seamless access to digital materials, all within Queens Library’s own web and mobile interfaces, extending beyond the confines of any physical location and into people’s homes with the tools and devices that allow deeper interaction with the library’s offerings.
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