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Pat Wagner Retiring

One of my favorite presenters (and people), Pat Wagner, is retiring from training and presenting at the end of 2022. When I started at SCLS in 2007, Pat was among the first presenters I worked with as a Continuing Education Consultant. SCLS and other Wisconsin library systems have had Pat for in-person and online workshops and webinars.

Pat is doing a final series of webinars for LibraryWorks and SCLS is coordinating group registration for them. The webinars are:

• Recruiting, Hiring, Orienting, Maintaining, and Saying Goodbye to Library Volunteers, October 6
• Mastering Uncomfortable Conversations with Library Visitors, October 20
• Everyday Leadership, Regardless of Your Job Title, November 3
• Spark! Little Things that Attract Library Users and Increase Circulation, December 3

The webinars are one hour long and scheduled from 1 - 2 p.m. Central Time.

If you are interested in attending one (or more) of Pat's webinars, please fill out this registration form and I will take care of the rest. To attend the first webinar on October 6, please fill out the form by Monday, October 3.

Registration for these webinars is funded in part by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services which administers the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA). Thank you!

Trustee Training Week 2022

Registration is now open for Wisconsin Trustee Training Week 2022. This year's webinars will be held from August 22 - 26. There will be one webinar each day from noon to 1 p.m. on a topic that's relevant to public library boards, friends, and trustees. Webinars are available free of charge and are open to anyone.

The schedule of presentations is as follows:

• Monday, August 22 -- Materials Challenges and Your Library from the Trustee Table-- Regardless of whether or not your library has had a request for reconsideration of library materials, the increase in challenges is dramatic, and quite frankly, upsetting. Becky Spratford, an expert in serving leisure readers through the public library with over 20 years of experience as a locally elected library trustee, Reaching Across Illinois Library System board member, and Illinois Library Association Executive Board member, will walk you through everything you need to do to prepare for a request to ban titles at your library. From the steps you need to take right now, to how to properly handle a challenge from your seat at the trustee table, Becky will help you to put the emotions aside and protect intellectual freedom.
• Tuesday, August 23 -- Here to Stay: Recruiting & Retaining Dedicated Library Workers -- The highly competitive job market makes it much harder for libraries to attract and keep library staff - including directors. While libraries might struggle to compete with other employers on wage scales, they can create a culture of inclusivity, inspiration, and belonging that appeals to creative and hard-working employees. This session will include practical tools for library boards like improving board-director relationships, reviewing job descriptions, and investigating options for improved salaries and benefits, and more to make your library a great place to work and help reduce staff turnover and shortages.
• Wednesday, August 24 -- Effective & Efficient Meetings: Parliamentary Procedure -- Planning great meetings and running them effectively and efficiently is crucial to a strong organization. This webinar will help make parliamentary procedure understandable and useful to you as well as focus on the tools to help you with the meetings you conduct and attend. After this webinar, the attendees will not only have a better understanding of parliamentary procedure but will have the knowledge and skills to help run an effective meeting.
• Thursday, August 25 -- Making Sense & Cents of a Library Building Project: The Library Trustee Role -- Public libraries around Wisconsin are building, expanding, and/or renovating their spaces. Your Library Director or Building Consultant is recommending to the board the need for additional library space. What is the role of the library board? How can the library board support the project? John Thompson will share some tips and insights on the library board role, an overview of the process, some of the costs involved, and how potential choices might impact the project and library services.
• Friday, August 26 -- From Stories to Action: How to Talk about Your Budget to Activate Support & Secure Funding -- The core of any library's strategic plan, management plan, or development plan is the organization's own mission, vision, and values system. But very often, the plans describe the “features” of the library, like hours, collections, staffing levels, and facilities rather than the expected or hoped-for outcomes. And library leaders are ready to share powerful stories about how the library impacts users, but not often about their own work. Learn how to talk about your funding in a new way by talking about you, your staff, and board, and why you do the work you do.

You must register for each webinar individually at www.wistrusteetraining.com. More information, including bios of the presenters, is also available at the link above, and you can also access recordings from the 2015-21 webinars.

Trustee Training Week (TTW) is produced by the South Central Library System with support from all Wisconsin Public Library Systems. TTW is funded in part by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services which administers the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA). Thank you!

Trustee Training Week 2020

Trustee Training Week registration is now open! Here's this year's lineup:

• Monday, August 24 -- Core Values of Librarianship with Jessamyn West
  Librarianship as a profession has a set of core values. But where do they come from, and what do they mean? Library technologist Jessamyn West will talk about the things that make up the core values of librarianship and discuss the tensions that exist between some of them.
• Tuesday, August 25 - Recruiting and Engaging Friends and Trustees Under Age 40 with Madeline Jarvis and Tess Wilson
  Millennials are more likely than other adults to have visited the library recently. However, most Friends and Trustee boards do not have even a single Millennial member (Pew 2016, ALA 2018). What accounts for this discrepancy, and how can we rectify it? Learn how to attract Millennials to your Friends group and Board of Trustees, and turn the largest generation of library users into your best advocates.
  
  
• Wednesday, August 26 - Public Library System Redesign (PLSR) Implementation Update with Bruce Smith
  Throughout the response to the public health event, the Department of Public Instruction Division for Libraries and Technology, Public Library Systems, Public Libraries and other partners have been extraordinarily collaborative in our efforts to support the Wisconsin library community. These efforts have allowed us to see new ways for how libraries and systems can be connected and work together in the spirit of PLSR. Through this lens of cooperation and continuous improvement as libraries bounce back from the impact of the pandemic, we continue to move our efforts forward to implement the recommendations of the PLSR Steering Committee. This presentation will include an overview of the PLSR process and an update on the progress of implementing the seven recommendations including information about specific activities and timelines. There also will be time for questions, comments, and input from attendees.
  
  
• Thursday, August 27 - Equity, Diversity, Inclusion: What Library Trustees Need to Know with Anne Phibbs
  Equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) impacts all communities and all aspects of librarianship. Library Boards of Trustees have an important role in supporting EDI and related initiatives. This webinar will help trustees and library directors understand how to incorporate EDI into policy development, strategic planning, funding initiatives, board development, and more. Anne will present a variety of interactive scenarios in which EDI issues are a factor, with time for Q&A and discussion. In this webinar, Anne Phibbs, PhD, Founder and President of Strategic Diversity Initiatives, will give a basic introduction to EDI and discuss what library trustees and boards need to know about EDI.
• Friday, August 28 - Walk the Line: How Trustees Can Best Lead Their Libraries Without Overstepping Their Authority with Becky Spratford
  Being a Trustee is an important job. You are part of a team that represents the tax payers, oversees the Library Director, and advocates for libraries. However, where exactly do your duties end the Library staff's begin? This line, while very clear from a legal standpoint, can become a bit fuzzy in practice. Join Becky Spratford, a 20 + years librarian and 5 term library trustee as she helps you understand how to walk the fine line between being a leader and being in the way. She will go over how you as a Trustee can best help the Library thrive, noting when you should step in but also when you should back off, strengthening all of Wisconsin's Libraries in the process.

Webinars are from noon - 1 p.m. each day and will be recorded and captioned.

Trustee Training Week is supported by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI), Public Library Development Team, with funding support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

                     

Professional Development Resources during COVID-19

Here is a list of continuing education resources for you and your staff. I'll keep adding to this list as I come across new items:

• Whitney Parillo, Director of Hutchinson Memorial Library in Randolph, shared this list of items for her staff to watch while the library is closed
• Center for Professional & Executive Development, UW Madison School of Business, has a series of 5 webinar recordings available including Culture: the Driving Force Behind Your Business Culture and more.
• Dr. Steve Albrecht's webinars on Library 2.0 (free registration required):
  • Library Safety * Security 2020
  • Interacting with the Homeless
  • Sexual Harassment of Library Staff: Responding to Incidents by Patrons or Others  
  • Security for Rural Librarians
  • How to Handle Challenging Patrons
  • Stress Management for Library Staff
  • Coaching Skills for Library Managers and Supervisors
  • Responding to an Active Shooter in the Library
• Public Libraries Respond to COVID-19, a free webinar series 
  • Note: registration may be closed for some of the webinars, but they will be recorded and available for future viewing
  • The Current Landscape, March 26 at 1 p.m. Central Time
  • Successful Ways to Work Remotely, April 2 at 1 p.m. Central Time
  • Managing Stress and Anxiety, April 9 at 1 p.m.
  • Innovative Solutions in Times of Crisis, April 16 at 1 p.m. Central Time
• Professional Development Opportunities, WI Libraries for Everyone blog post
• Librarian's Guide to Homelessness with Ryan Dowd includes Core training and bonus webinars:
  • Burnout/Compassion Fatigue
  • Advanced Body Language
  • Domestic Violence/Sexual Assault
  • Homelessness 201
  • Body Odor
    • All SCLS Member Library staff should have access to this. If you are having any trouble, please contact Jean
• WebJunction Course Catalog
  • Creating Pathways to Civil Legal Justice, a free online course starting April 6
• Infopeople
  • Webinars are free, courses are for a fee. SCLS member libraries may use CE Grant funds to offset the cost of courses.
• OCLC at PLA 2020, a YouTube playlist
• Wisconsin Literacy's Plain Language recorded webinar. Available until May 7

 

Census 2020 Webinars and Resources

Last month at the WLA Conference, Cindy Fesemyer from the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) presented on Say Yes to Census 2020. If you weren't able to attend the in-person program, Cindy has offered to do a webinar version of the same presentation on December 3 at 1:30 p.m. You can register here. The webinar will be recorded.

In other Census 2020 news, ALA recently announced a FREE webinar called "Connecting Your Community to 2020 Census Jobs." This webinar will be held on November 6 at 11 a.m. (Central Time) and you can register here. If you haven't already, you can download the Libraries' Guide to the 2020 Census from the ALA 2020 Census website.

And last, but not least, SCLS created a 2020 Census Outreach Information (pdf) that you includes information from the DPI, American Library Association, US Census Bureau, AARP, and the Government Accountability Office. This is a great resource to share with your library patrons and staff.

 

Upcoming FREE webinars

There are a several of FREE webinars and events coming up that I wanted to let  you know about.

First is from PLA and OCLC and is called "Public Libraries Partner to Respond to the Opiod Crisis". This webinar is part of a National Leadership Grant that PLA and OCLC received to study communities where the library is addressing the opiod epidemic along with facilitated discussions with library leaders and other government and community organizations. The first in a series of webinars, this one takes place on October 30 from 2-3 p.m. Central Time and you can register here.

Library 2.0 is hosting the third Library 2.019 virtual mini-conference on October 30 from 2 - 5 p.m. (Central Time). The theme for this mini-conference is Emerging Technology and you can register here. Earlier mini-conferences were on "Shaping the Future of Libraries with Instructional Design" and "Open Data." Both of those mini-conferences were recorded and posted on YouTube.

Next is LibraryCon Live! from Library Journal. This all day, free, virtual event runs from 10 a.m. - 3 p.m. on November 6 and is described as "A virtual festival for book nerds, librarians, and fans of graphic novels, SF, and fantasy." One of the sessions focuses on how to host a ComicCon style program at your library. More information on the program can be found on the Program tab.

Want more FREE webinars? The Wyoming State Library maintains a Training Calendar that you can view anytime (time are listed in Mountain time). You can also download and subscribe to the calendar.

Happy Learning!

Image by Harish Sharma from Pixabay

Back to School for Library Staff

September is a busy month for Continuing Education at SCLS starting with Tech Days East next week at the Monona Public Library. The keynote speaker for Tech Days East is Chris Willey who will be speaking on Extending the Third Place.

Here's the list of everything happening in September:

• Tech Days East - Franklin, September 10
• Tech Days East - Appleton, September 11
• Tech Days East - Monona, September 12
• CCBC Shorts (webinar), September 18 at 9 a.m.
• It's a Trap: How to Avoid Giving Legal Advice in Reference Services (webinar), September 19 at 10 a.m.
• Substance Abuse & Mental Health Symposium, September 24 (Wintergreen Resort, Wisconsin Dells)
• Introduction to Talking Books (webinar), September 26 at 10 a.m.

Hope to see you at one or more of our upcoming workshops and webinars. Happy Learning!

 

Library Advocacy Webinars

This week is Trustee Training Week (TTW) and two of the webinars relate directly to library advocacy. The first was on Monday, August 12, and was called Governing Libraries that Inspire Investment with Rebekkah Smith Aldrich presenting. I, and many of the attendees, found her presentation very inspirational and helpful. The recording and slides are available for you to watch at your convenience.

On Wednesday, August 14, Connie Meyer and Kathy Pletcher spoke about Effective Library Advocacy. I especially appreciated their summary of advocacy: all politics are local; ongoing relationships are best; be respectful of their interests & time; be appreciative of any support/time; be informative; be strategic and opportunistic; and (my favorite) be joyful about the library! You can watch the recording and see the slides and handouts anytime.

And, if you're in need of more advocacy information, check out this upcoming free webinar from EveryLibrary Institute. Reaching Across the Aisle for Library Funding and Other Initiatives will be held on August 29 from 1-2 p.m. Central Time and you can register here. This webinar will be presented by Patrick "PC" Sweeney, Political Director of the EveryLibrary Institute - and presenter at Trustee Training Week 2018 - and Pat Wagner, co-owner of Pattern Research, Inc., and presenter at Trustee Training Week 2019.

Pat is presenting Recruiting & Retaining Library Directors and Staff on Friday, August 16. You can find out about all the Wisconsin Trustee Training Week webinars along with the recordings of this year's webinars and all past ones on the TTW site.

 

 

Wisconsin Literacy's Plain Language Webinar

Every field is filled with jargon and acronyms and libraries are no different. ALA, PLA, ARSL, WLA, LD&L, WISL, ILL, and AC* are a few of the acronyms you likely read or hear about on a regular basis. In addition, we talk about topics cataloging, metadata, serials, and Dewey Decimal classification. Mostly these conversations are with other library practitioners so we have a mutual understanding of the language. Sometimes, though, we forget and use these and other words and acronyms in our conversations with our patrons, board members, and members of the community.

The upcoming webinar from Wisconsin Literacy, Plain Language, focuses on the fundamentals of plain language including the benefits of using it in the workplace. Several strategies for clear written communication including simplifying word choice, grammar tips, active vs. passive voice, and layout and design will be introduced. Participants will learn improved communication strategies that can be implemented immediately. Register here!

While the webinar will be recorded, the recording will only be available for one week. Plan accordingly.

This webinar is sponsored by IFLS, South Central, Southwest Wisconsin, Winding Rivers, Nicolet, Bridges, Arrowhead, Kenosha County, Lakeshores, Milwaukee County, and Monarch Library Systems.

*American Library Association, Public Library Association, Association for Rural and Small Libraries, Wisconsin Library Association, Library Development & Legislation committee, Wisconsin Small Libraries, Interlibrary Loan, and Administrative Council.

Email Overload & Productivity

Last fall, I read an article in Public Libraries about Efficient Librarianship by Douglas Crane. After I read the article, I went searching for more by Doug and found that he has a blog called Efficient Librarian. From there, I found a recording of a webinar called "Inbox Zero: Getting Out From Under the Email Avalanche" and I was hooked. While watching the webinar, I was going through my email folders and deleting old messages that I didn't need any longer. From there, I contacted Doug to see if he would be available to present a couple of webinar for us on email and productivity.

Happily, he was and his webinars are coming up on March 20 and 27. Doug Crane will be sharing his efficient librarian expertise with us in two webinars. Here are the details:

Overcoming the Email Avalanche: Three Steps to an Empty Inbox, March 20 from 10 - 11 a.m. Central Time. Register here!

Huge volumes of email are a fact of office life, yet it threatens to overwhelm our work.  Is there a way to get email under control short of mass deleting your entire inbox?  Yes there is!  In this fun and engaging class, participants will learn how to:

• • Clear out inbox backlog, no matter how large
  • Identify different types of actionable email and respond accordingly
  • Create an efficient organizational structure to their email client
  • Reliably locate archived email
  • Celebrate the joys of an empty inbox!

From Inbox to Completing: The Secrets to Successful Workflow, March 27 from 10 - 11 a.m. Central Time. Register here!

Is your inbox overflowing?  Is your work spilling onto every available surface?  Do you want to get more stuff done in less time while looking effortless in the process?  In this energizing class, you will learn the best practices for workflow management based on an internationally recognized system.  This includes discovering:

• • The definitive five phases of workflow
  • The key questions to ask about any item on your physical or virtual desk
  • The role of functional folders for later action or reference
  • The importance of a weekly review

Both webinars will be recorded if you're not able to join us live. Hope to see you at one or both webinars!