Public Programs Office

Get answers to all of your questions about creating successful author programs for adults from experts at Random House, Inc., Macmillan, and HarperCollins Publishers. Learn who to contact at publishing houses, how far in advance you need to plan, if speaking fees are negotiable, how your library can be included in an author tour, and more.

This session in our civic engagement series covered the logistics and choices involved in planning to hold a forum—choosing the issue topic; setting the date; preparing the room and equipment; publicity; assigning moderators and recorders; participant registration; following up after the forum; and preparing issue-related resources for forum participants.

The Indianapolis Public Library has developed a hands on technology lab for early learners to develop literacy skills in a technology based environment. The Digital Littles lab contains technology tools such as cameras, video cameras, and laptops that assist librarians in developing storytimes and other activities. The mobile lab is designed to travel mostly to library locations, but can also be transported to schools, day cares, and other organizations. The lab is the library’s way of reaching out to the community and making technology more accessible.

The Pioneer Library System’s Virtual Library has been conducting classes on downloadable audiobooks and ebooks since January 2010. Initially they were lucky to get one staff person’s child to show up for class—and now their “Getting to Know Your eReader” courses are standing room only. So how do they do it? This webinar will look at how they started conducting these classes—staff, materials, and equipment involved—as well as best practices for promoting, designing, and carrying out eReader classes for the masses in your community.

Public deliberation is a process used to engage contentious, difficult issues from diverse perspectives. First in a four-part series, this session provided an introduction to deliberative conversations that public, academic, and school libraries are convening and how these discussions are repositioning libraries in their communities.

A free, online learning session hosted by the ALA Public Programs Office featuring Ronda Hassig, school librarian of Harmony Middle School, Overland Park, Kansas, and winner of the 2011 Sara Jaffarian Award.

For more than thirty years, hundreds of libraries across the country have engaged their communities by offering “Let’s Talk About It” reading and discussion programs. Find out how from an LTAI state-level coordinator and twenty-four-year veteran! Webinar attendees will be offered an overview of the model, tips for recruiting and working with a scholar, and access to an archive of ready-to-present program content on more than thirty themes. This session will also provide application information for an upcoming round of cash programming grants.

This second session in our civic engagement series covered what is involved in moderating a public deliberative forum in the library—how moderating is different from facilitating; how to promote deliberation; how to stay neutral but help people consider diverse perspectives; how to keep track of time and use an issue framework to help the group deliberate; and how to work with a forum recorder.

As informal education institutions, museums and libraries share similar missions and values and can benefit from forging partnerships. Participants will learn about a number of successful museum/library partnerships that are generating innovative programming, exhibits and creating new opportunities for outreach and how to identify potential partners and successfully manage joint projects.

Learn how to plan engaging programs about Islamic culture and submit a successful proposal for the ALA/NEH collection development grant, the Bridging Cultures Bookshelf: Muslim Journeys.

Nancy Davenport, Director of Library Services at the District of Columbia Public Library (DCPL), will share her experiences coordinating Picturing America programs within the DC library system. Nancy will share tips for empowering staff to use the collection as a basis for public programming, as well as creating partnerships with schools, community organizations, and local funding agencies.

Do you have tweens at your library, but find they rarely attend programs? Learn why programming for at-risk youth is important, discover what tweens like, and get tips for successful and popular programs. The highly successful MasterPieces program—a collaboration between The University of Oklahoma and The Pioneer Library System geared towards at-risk tweens—will be featured.

Join Lisa Sheffield, Adult Services Librarian at the Transylvania County Library in Brevard, North Carolina, to learn more about hosting a viewing and discussion series for adult audiences. Lisa shares her experiences presenting film-based programs, offering a simple program model, and discussing best practices for scheduling the series, finding and working with a scholar/speaker, setting program and audience goals, promoting the series, facilitating each session, and conducting evaluation.

The NEH grant initiative Bridging Cultures Bookshelf: Muslim Journeys will offer 1,000 libraries a collection of 25 books, three documentary films, and other resources to encourage exploration, conversation, understanding, and mutual respect between Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Experienced library programming experts will share their experiences presenting “Muslim Journeys” programs during the pilot phase, and offer ideas for submitting a successful grant proposal.

Join NEH, the ALA Public Programs Office and fellow Bookshelf grantees for an online learning session that will get you started in putting together fantastic public programming featuring the We the People Bookshelf on “A More Perfect Union.” Librarians serving K-8 and high school audiences give a sneak preview of their programs plans, and representatives from NEH’s EDSITEment present some of the valuable lesson and program planning resources available for several of the Bookshelf titles.

Nancy Davenport, Director of Library Services at the District of Columbia Public Library (DCPL), shares her experiences with using the Picturing America program within the DC library system.

Tumblr is a free, micro-blog hosting platform that allows users to easily interact with each other by sharing different types of multimedia. In this webinar, Erin Shea, Head of Adult Programming at Darien (Conn.) Library, will demonstrate how to use tumblr to network with publishers, bookstores, other library professionals, and authors to put your library on the map and share and collaborate with like-minded tumblr users.

As high school librarians, we know that the students aren’t always “tuned in” to library programming during school hours, so we’ve taken our programming to them where they are, when they are …online! Using humor and parody the librarian team of Mr. Heck and Mrs. Darnay created the webisode style series, “DarnitalltoHeck,“ to deliver reader’s advisory, book talks, library contests, special events, and more.

Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) is a structured, widely respected, research-based method of looking at art that enables participants to develop esthetic and language literacy and critical thinking skills. It provides a simple yet powerful technique that librarians can utilize not just in conducting Picturing America discussion programs, but throughout their careers. Join Oren Slozberg, Executive Director of Visual Thinking Strategies, for an introductory overview of VTS using Picturing America images as a basis for discussion.

Francis Feeley, school librarian at the Inter-American Magnet School, Chicago, and winner of the 2012 Sara Jaffarian Award, will present his winning model for humanities programming in the school library. Sponsored by the ALA Cultural Communities Fund.