The PLA Blog | Official Blog of the Public Library Association
It takes a village to answer a question
On Saturday, January 12, I attended the “Best Practices in Cooperative Reference: Reference and Social Networking” session presented by QuestionPoint, with panel speakers Stephen Francoeur (Baruch College), Beth Evans (Brooklyn College) and David Lankes (Syracuse University). While the panel seemed targeted at academic librarians, I actually found a great deal that would be [...]
Pop Goes The Book!
How very exciting! It turns out that Sophie Brookover and Liz Burns, two of the intrepid librarians who blog over at Pop Goes the Library, are working on a book titled Pop Goes the Library: Using Pop Culture to Connect With Your Whole Community, to be published sometime in 2008.
And they need *your* feedback! [...]
Webjunction’s Spanish Language Outreach Program
This Sunday afternoon program was intended as a follow-up for individuals who had participated in Webjunction’s Spanish Language Outreach workshops. Although I was not one of those lucky few, I decided to attend the session to learn more about it, and I am very glad I did, as the information provided could be useful to [...]
Serving Spanish Speakers with Disabilities
This very informative program on Saturday morning was sponsored by Reforma, the National Association to Promote Library Services to the Spanish Speaking.
Carrie Banks, director of the Brooklyn Public Library’s Child’s Place for Children with Special Needs discussed staff training for working with Spanish speakers with disabilities.
Issues to be aware of when working with Spanish speakers [...]
Mining Gold in the 21st Century: Strengthening Your Library with Literacy Services
This workshop, hosted by the California Library Association Literacy Section, brought together a roomful of highly motivated people to discuss literacy programs in libraries. My career before library science was in linguistics and TESL. I have taught basic writing and sociolinguistics, understand basic literacy issues, and have had exposure to the adult literacy program in [...]
“You don’t want to join, you want to belong”
The title for this post comes from a sign I saw in one of the hotel elevators when I first arrived yesterday. I’ve heard Karen Hyman speak probably about 4 times by now, but it’s never too many times. Her well-attended presentation this morning on “The Customer-Centered Library: How to Stop Tweaking [...]
Arthur TV Series Grants for Public Libraries – Deadline December 18
This came to my attention very recently through the ALA Public Programs listserv. The deadline for application submission is very tight (December 18, 2006), but it seems like it would be worth the hustle and trouble for interested libraries. All bold emphasis mine.
Dear Library Colleague:
In the spring of 2006, Arthur marked a milestone [...]
Cancer clinical trials educational materials free to libraries
While National Breast Cancer Awareness Month is just about wrapping up, it’s not the only cancer awareness month in the year. Lung Cancer Awareness Month and Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month are just around the corner in November, and many other cancers have months of observance throughout the year (check out the calendar from Cancer.gov).
Because [...]
PodCamp Boston: Podcast Marketing – 5 Tools to Grow Your Audience TODAY
Christopher Penn, the madman behind the PodCamp unconference, speaks about marketing a podcast once you have it. The value of this presentation is not just in the marketing information for a podcast, but the importance of social networking to the future of marketing, especially viral marketing, and how libraries should definitely be thinking about [...]
How My Parents Learned to Eat: Dim Sum, Fry Bread, Collard Greens and Tacos in the Library
No, this was not another session about food but rather about strategies for reaching out to diverse communities. I came in on the second set of speakers, librarians from the Las Vegas County Library which has an increasingly diverse population of Chinese, African American, Hispanic and Native American individuals. So, the main question [...]
