On-Demand Webinars

Join StoryCorps, the national oral history project, for an in-depth look at how to engage your community and local stakeholders through storytelling. Each year, StoryCorps collaborates with hundreds of community partners in order to record and preserve diverse voices from across the U.S. In this webinar, we’ll share insights from our partnership model, discuss StoryCorps’ efforts to create a representative archive, and provide best practices and case studies for engaging your library community through storytelling.

Houston and Queens Public Libraries offer the innovative financial wellbeing program Ready, Set, Bank℠, in partnership with Capital One, to meet the significant demand for senior digital skill development and financial wellbeing classes. This free on-demand webinar shows you how this program helps patrons navigate the world of online banking by providing hands-on demonstrations, video tutorials, and answers to questions about safeguarding personal information online, along with step-by-step guidance on how to manage a bank account on a computer or mobile device.

The Inclusive Internship Initiative (III) offers paid, summer-long internships to high school students at their local public library. Through III, students from diverse backgrounds are introduced to careers in librarianship, library mentors practice leadership skills, and host libraries grow new audiences through outreach and programming. Any public library in the U.S. is welcome to apply. Applications for the Summer 2020 cohort will be accepted from January 6–February 3, 2020. Is your library interested in applying to be a part of the 2020 cohort?

In 2017, the Public Library Association (PLA) launched a new initiative, Fostering Creative Community Connections, with Public Libraries and the Short Story Dispenser. With funding from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, PLA worked with the French company Short Édition to bring their Short Story Dispenser and digital content creation platform to a pilot group of select U.S. public libraries. The aim of the project was to strengthen a culture of literacy and reading, while increasing public awareness and use of library programs and services.

You’ve surveyed your patrons. You’ve collected great data. You’ve learned more about what your patrons value. Now, how can you begin implementing changes based on the outcomes you’ve gathered? In this on-demand webinar, learn how your peers have taken action—and how you can, too—using results you’ve gathered from Project Outcome surveys. Use your survey results to guide programming changes, strategic planning, communication, advocacy, or new funding requests.

This on-demand webinar shows how public libraries can educate uninsured patrons and build awareness about health insurance coverage. Learn about PLA’s second annual initiative, Libraries Connecting You to Coverage, with tips and tools to help libraries start or increase their efforts to educate and build awareness of coverage. These efforts will help reach the uninsured, many of whom are people of color, and increase health insurance literacy for better health outcomes.

Public libraries have long been leaders in bringing people into the digital world, providing programs and services that help patrons get jobs, gain knowledge, increase productivity, and engage with others online. Leveraging and strengthening existing library and community resources can help reduce staff burden and increase the library’s impact on digital literacy. In this on-demand webinar, a panel of digital literacy experts share tools, resources, and partnership strategies to help you enhance digital skill development among patrons and library staff.

Public libraries need more data and evidence to demonstrate their value to their communities, but collecting the data is only half the battle. How do you communicate it? How do you use it to make strategic decisions? Data visualization can help libraries better understand their data and feel confident communicating their impact back to their communities. In this on-demand webinar, attendees learn best practices for how and when to use data visualization, helpful tools for creating visualizations, and how to apply these tips using Project Outcome.

Offering a hotspot lending program at your library offers endless opportunities for your patrons, especially those that lack broadband connectivity at home. This free webinar will offer public library staff tools and resources for how and why to start a hotspot lending program. Participants will hear from two public library staff members who will share insights about their libraries’ processes, policies, challenges, and more.

In a time marked by uncertainty, the public library is in an extraordinary position as one of society’s most trusted institutions. Public libraries can leverage that trust to be at the forefront of voter education as we head into what will be one of the most watched presidential elections of our lifetimes. Voter education reflects the needs of an often divided and overwhelmed citizenry. It also addresses the changing landscape of information gathering and dissemination, while encouraging people to engage directly with community, state, and national issues of concern.