Adult Programming: Planning for Success
ALA
April 17, continuing for 3 weeks
Fee $199.00
Learn how to build programs that draw adult users into your library from one of the most well-known programming experts—Amy Alessio! Adults are a very important—but often overlooked—category of patrons. They generally make up a large proportion of library patrons.
In this 3-week eCourse, Alessio will help you plan a calendar year of events for adults in several different age groups. You’ll learn about the best programming resources for everything from planning to marketing. Throughout the course, you will design one detailed program plus provide ideas for future programs and contribute to discussion with other participants. You’ll walk away from this course with the knowledge and inspiration you need to create successful programs for your adult patrons. Register
Rethinking Social Media to Organize Information and Communities
ALA
March 6, continuing for 4 weeks
Fee $175.00
Tired of hearing all the reasons why you should be using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other popular social media tools? Perhaps it’s time to explore social media tools in a supportive and engaging environment with a keen eye toward using those tools more effectively in your work. Join us and social media guru and innovator Paul Signorelli in this four-week, highly-interactive eCourse as he explores a variety of social media tools in terms of how they can be used to organize information and communities. Together, you will survey and use a variety of social media tools, such as Delicious, Diigo, Facebook, Goodreads, Google Hangouts, LibraryThing, Pinterest, Storify, Twitter, and more! You will also explore how social media tools can be used to organize and disseminate information and how they can be used to foster and sustain communities of learning. Register
Assessing Student Learning with Instructional Technologies
ALA
March 6, continuing for 4 weeks
Fee $175.00
Are you prepared to deliver student learning data to your administrators? When you design your learning plans with assessment in mind, you will be ready to do just that. Course instructor Melissa Mallon will guide you through the steps of designing an authentic lesson and assessment plan. First you will have the option to choose either a lesson or activity that you teach regularly, such as critically evaluating sources, or use the example provided in the eCourse. Next, Mallon will introduce you to instructional technologies that will enable you to see what your students have learned. You will then be able to try these out and discover which technology will work best with your students. When you have completed this eCourse, you will have a ready-to-use lesson that uses instructional technology and an assessment plan to go with it! Register
Expanding Access to Digital Resources by Sharing
School Library Journal
March 14, 3:00pm Eastern
With funds always tight, you may assume a digital reading platform is out of reach for your school or district. Think again. Join us for this eye-opening webinar where we’ll hear how the Southwest Educational Development Center (UT) delivers eBooks and audiobooks to schools across six districts with an affordable shared collection. Register
House History 101: Useful Tips on How to Conduct the Research
Minitex
March 6, 1:00pm Central
Learn how to assist Twin Cities residents and homeowners with house and neighborhood history research using the Gale Family Library’s collections. Reference Librarian Jackie Beckey will discuss how to use maps, city directories, photographs, architectural periodicals and archival collections to piece together the past. Register
The Librarian’s Nitty-Gritty Guide to Content Marketing Workshop
ALA
March 9, 2:00pm
Fee $55.00
Has your library been promoting itself online through various social media channels (blogs, Facebook, etc.)? Have you seen mixed results? One way to be more effective online is by moving beyond the promotional mindset of traditional marketing and by embracing a different way of creating content that will engage and help serve the needs of your community. Are you ready to make your library’s online efforts more effective? Welcome to content marketing. Content marketing may be a new term for librarians, but it is a growing and effective trend in the business world. In this workshop, Laura Solomon will introduce you to content marketing by teaching you how to create a content strategy and how to implement it. This workshop will explain this growing trend, as well as give you and your staff the tools they need to get started on creating your own content strategy. Register
Upcoming Minitex Webinars – Click here
Top Tech Trends
School Library Journal
March 16, April 20, and May 18, 3:00pm Eastern
Our popular series returns with all-new presentations on technology in the education space, from helping struggling readers to sorting fact from fiction when it comes to digital information. Led by top practitioners in the field, these one-hour free programs will offer practical insight into these hot topics in tech, with implications for schools and libraries.
Session #1: Information Literacy in the Age of Fake News
Critical thinking is more important than ever. Our panelists will cover how to vet information and establish best practices for students to manage the digital firehose, and consider perspective and bias.
Session #2: 60 Tools in 60 Minutes
Get ready for a rapid fire tool share in this next webcast in the SLJ/ISTE series. We’ll explore the best applications and gear for your school or library, including must-have multimedia content, cool coding platforms, and top choices for your maker space.
Session #3:Â Technology to Aid the Struggling Reader
Join this free, resource-rich program for tips on how to leverage technology to help new and struggling readers. Learn about the best storytelling apps, digital sources of high-interest content for kids and teens, and more. Register
Using Change Management to Transform Your Library
ALA
March 8, 1:30pm Central
Fee $60.00
Are you ready to lead and transform your library? Like everything else, the library world has and will continue to change, so it is more important than ever to have strategies, knowledge, tools, and resources for making and dealing with macro level changes.
Change management is more than a descriptive term—it’s a set of practices and guidelines that facilitate strategic institutional transformation. In this workshop, Catherine Soehner will teach you the principles and techniques of change management and how you can apply them to become a leader in transforming your library. You will learn how to respond quickly and effectively to your colleagues, patrons, or employee’s anxiety and possible resistance to change; how to tackle and implement big ideas; and how to establish and achieve your libraries’ goals. Applying the tools of change management will enable you to manage the increased pace of change and maintain relevance to the communities you serve. Register
Cataloging, Gender, and RDA Rule 9.7
ALCTS
March 15, 1:00pm Central
Fee Up to $59.00
One of the paradoxes at the heart of library cataloging and classification is the demand to fix in place elements of a record even when those elements are in flux. We have to name things in order to locate them, which means we can’t escape encounters with the politics of naming. This webinar will discuss the particular example of RDA rule 9.7, a rule that, if recorded, required gender to be fixed in RDA-compliant name authority records until a group of catalogers fought to make it optional.
Prior to January 2016, rule 9.7 directed catalogers to record gender when identifying persons. Although RDA gave catalogers the flexibility to record more than two gender labels, RDA rule 9.7 limited Name Authority Cooperative Program (NACO) catalogers to a binary controlled vocabulary: male, female, or not known. Queer theory tells us that gender simply doesn’t work this way. Gender is socially constructed and contingent. Requiring a binary label meant requiring that catalogers ignore the wishes of many trans- and gender-variant authors, as well as authors who simply did not wish to disclose their gender. With this problem in mind, a group of catalogers lobbied the international RDA Steering Committee for a rule change and ultimately succeeded. Additionally, after the rule change a PCC Ad Hoc Task Group was formed to recommend best-practices for recording gender in name authority records. Register
Free Library Continuing Education Events for March – Wyoming State Library – Click Here.
Brainfuse Webinars for ALS Member Library Staff
By Mollie Stanford
I’m happy to announce another round of Brainfuse webinars for ALS member library staff of all types! The two-hour, interactive webinars will focus on the databases available to ALS patrons and students — HelpNow and JobNow. For a brief overview of services, please see the attached document.
To register for a webinar, please click this link. You will receive a confirmation email and log-in link two business days before the webinar. If you or your staff are interested in attending a webinar and the dates and times don’t work for your schedule, please let me know or feel free to view an archived ALS Brainfuse webinar here. Questions? Just let me know!
New Spring Nonfiction for the Library and Classroom
School Library Journal
March 15, 3:00pm Eastern
Looking for something new to entice your nonfiction fans? Look no further. Titles that inform, fulfill the needs of classroom teachers, and entertain students are right around the corner. There’s something here for all of your patrons, whether they’re interested in animal life or transportation, STEM materials or mythical creatures, outdoor sports or history, or even learning how to write poetry. Aimed at a wide range of readers and tackling a variety of fascinating subjects, these series are sure to entice report writers and casual browsers alike. Register
