PLA Blog

ALA Legislative Day: What to Know Before You Participate
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
4:00 PM - 5:00 PM EDT
Free online webinar presented by the ALA Washington Office

On Wednesday, April 16, advocacy “guru Stephanie Vance will host the Washington Office’s second Advocacy Webinar. (The first webinar was a huge success.)

The webinar comes just as National Library Legislative Day (NLLD) approaches, when our advocacy skills need to be honed to a razor sharp edge. Librarians, friends, trustees and enthusiasts from across the country will be participating in NLLD on May 13 and 14, 2008. Some will be coming to DC to meet with their Members of Congress, while others will be participating in Virtual Library Legislative Day by calling and writing their elected officials from the safety of their own offices.

How can you best prepare for and be effective in these communications? How can you be sure legislators and their staff will hear your message and pay attention? What kinds of federal policy issues should you talk about?

Space is limited, so reserve your Webinar seat now.

10 Ways to Make Your Library Great in 2008—via Web 2.0
1/16/08 11 AM-12 PM PT / 2-3 PM ET (registration is optional)
Excellent note: WebJunction’s webinars are now closed captioned in real time as well as in the recorded archive.

As you think about your resolutions for the New Year, why not resolve to make your library a great educational asset within your community? This webinar will show you how to leverage social networking tools such as del.icio.us and Librarything to enable knowledge sharing and create collections of information around professional development. Ten key themes are presented to empower library staff as well as to increase a library’s value within the community. Presented by guest speaker Ed Rossman, adult services librarian at Shaker Heights Public Library and author of Castles Against Ignorance: How to Make Libraries Great Educational Environments.

Be Safe, Not Sorry: Protecting Your Data
PC Magazine Learning Center self-paced course, four 30-minute webcasts

Are you doing everything you can to protect your data? Malware—from viruses to spyware—continues to plague many businesses, not to mention internal security threats. Does your small business have a holistic security strategy in place?

Don’t have a plan to secure your business data? Let the expert editorial staff of PC Magazine teach you everything you need to know. Attend this course of four dynamic online webcast lessons each of which includes practical downloadable coursework.

Even though we aren’t “businesses” per se, libraries are large organizations dealing with computers — public and staff — and their issues. This course, which you can do at your own pace, offers something a bit deeper than your average article about vanilla virus protection, and will give you excellent fodder for your next coffee with the tech folks.

Bringing People Together at the Library: Rural Libraries as Place
Presented by the Rural Library Sustainability Project
October 25, 2007
11:00am PT / 2:00pm ET

More and more people are accessing information and resources from home and work computers. Does that mean the physical library will go away? NO WAY! In this session we will talk about the evolving role of the physical library space. We will highlight innovative and interesting rural library examples. Join the Rural In Focus webinar facilitator, Brenda Hough, and guest presenter Cindi Hickey, Continuing Education Librarian and WebJunction Coordinator for the State Library of Kansas. Find information on joining the webinar in addition to archives of past webinars at Rural In Focus.

The webinar is FREE, and advanced registration is not required, you can just show up the day of. Visit WebJunction for information on how to attend the webinar, and to make sure your computer is ready to help you join the conversation. While you’re there, visit the archive of webinars (scroll down a bit on the page) that you can watch at your leisure.

This webinar, presented live this afternoon by WebJunction, is free for all and requires no advance registration. You really can just show up.

Be sure to follow the instructions for making sure your computer is ready for the webinar, and arrive 10 minutes early.

In Focus Webinar: Joy of Computing with practical techniques for supporting public computing

Each month the Rural Library Sustainability Project presents an hour-long webinar related to the work of sustaining rural and small libraries. This month join us on August 23, 11:00 am PT/ 2:00 pm ET for You can do it! Practical techniques for supporting public computing. How are your peers meeting the challenges of providing access to public computers? Pooling resources, developing technology plans, and staff training are three things that can help. In this webinar, we will take a look at The Joy of Computing Cookbook for small and rural libraries at www.maintainitproject.org. Join a lively discussion around best practices that will include some of the libraries who contributed to the cookbook. Bring your success stories as well as your nightmares, and let’s find solutions together!

Also, the archive for the recently presented Core Competencies for Library Staff webinar is also available, complete with close captioning, and it’s definitely worth the watch. While you’re there, you should check out the WebJunction Core Competencies as a companion document to the webinar archive.

Check out the free webinar action via two programs on WebJunction this month. Click on the links below for more information and to register for these FREE continuing education events.

Second Circ: Using Web 2.0 Tools in Your Library
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
11:30 AM - 12:30 PM EST
This session is part of EqualAccess (a community partner of WebJunction), a professional development program that trains public librarians in how to address their community’s most pressing needs. “This webinar will introduce you to the world of online tools available–tools that make it easier than ever to share information, promote your programs, and mobilize support. We’ll start with the basics, and through visuals and real-time demos, you’ll learn the skills to bring your library marketing into the next generation. All are welcome and no prior experience is required!”

Tools for Planning: Action. Vision. Future. Planning.
March 29, 10:30 AM PDT/1:30 PM EDT
This session is a supplement to the Rural Library Sustainability Project workshops (I attended one myself, and it was super!), where the process of creating a public access computer action plan was introduced. “Attend this session to hear about some action plan success stories and discuss planning tools and resources that are being successfully used in the library world. Moderated by Brenda Hough, Technology Coordinator, Northeast Kansas Library System (NEKLS).” The planning skills and best practices presented are beneficial even if you haven’t attended a Rural Library Sustainability session!

I wish I had posted this last week, but in any case, this free webcast on screencasting (creating digital presentations that record your actions as you use a computer, with or without a voice over) is happening today from 8-9am PST (11-12am EST). If you don’t catch it the first time around, SirsiDynix will be adding it to their archive, along with a whole slew of interesting, free, archives of previous webcasts on everything from podcasting to teaching client (patron) relations, to name just a few.