On-Demand Webinars

Enhance the customer experience by increasing staff engagement! Learn how the Plano Public Library created a cohesive customer service experience by training staff to share “just one thing” about the library. Staff became more comfortable with patron interactions and engaged with more people during outreach. This concept became a cornerstone to the Outreach & Engagement team’s training and communications. With this concept in place, specific staff were identified for different types of outreach events to address the needs of different communities in their city.

Libraries may feel too overwhelmed with limited staff and resources to take on something new like measuring outcomes, which is why starting small and scaling up is the best method for success. Starting small helps libraries increase their staff’s comfort with and expertise in outcomes measurement; capitalize on trial-and-error learnings; and build a structure for peer support of data collection and use. Hear from a veteran Project Outcome user on their experience starting small by evaluating the library’s Small Business series and scaling up to library-wide programming.

The 2018 class of ALA Emerging Leaders was charged with identifying data competency training resources for the Public Library Association. It has become increasingly important for library professionals to be able to gather, analyze and communicate data in order to navigate a data-rich world and make data-driven decisions related to funding, policies and other resources needed to support the communities you serve. Learn how the website created by the Emerging Leaders serves as a professional development guide that can help move library staff toward becoming more data competent.

Computational thinking is a problem-solving process often associated with computer science, programming, and coding. However, the universal ideas behind computational thinking—decomposition, pattern recognition, and abstraction and algorithmic design—are concepts most children’s librarians and early childhood educators know. By exploring the relationship between early literacy and computational thinking skills, library staff can challenge themselves to think differently about the ways their work supports the whole child.

As part of its ongoing work to support the public library’s role in creating healthy communities, PLA is offering new resources for libraries to help more Americans participate in the Open Enrollment period of the Affordable Care Act. The deadline to enroll is December 15, 2018. What is your library doing to help? This free on-demand webinar helps public library staff plan for how they can promote the deadlines, educate their communities, find certified enrollment assistance, and support patrons’ efforts to enroll successfully.

Outcome measurement is a way for libraries to assess their impact on the people they serve and helps libraries answer the question, “What good did we do?” In some instances, libraries may need to measure outcomes over a longer period of time to demonstrate the good they’re doing. Logic models are used to develop a sequence of steps needed to achieve a desired outcome and measure impact. This webinar will walk through the logic model process to help libraries identify short-term, intermediate, and long-term outcomes.

Libraries strive to serve their communities with important services and programs, and they also contributed to our nation’s history of creating racial inequity by enforcing racialized laws. Although racial discrimination is illegal, many long-held library practices perpetuate racialized outcomes and maintain libraries as white spaces—often unintentionally. This webinar, presented by the Race Forward Government Alliance on Race and Equity (GARE), presented an overview of concepts and approaches libraries are using to reduce racial barriers in their work.

It’s never too early to start planning for next year’s summer learning programs! Measuring the outcomes of programs and services helps libraries with decision making, program improvements, advocacy, and funding requests. PLA staff gathered stories from libraries participating in Project Outcome to create implementation tips and best practices to help libraries feel confident implementing Summer Reading surveys next year. Learn how libraries have used the standardized Summer Reading surveys to measure the success of their summer learning programs and demonstrate their impact in the community.

Photovoice is a type of participatory research methodology designed to empower participants through photography and the power of storytelling in small group settings. In 2013, the Chicago Public Library (CPL) partnered with a local organization to start collecting stories from refugees and political asylum seekers about their lives in Chicago. This on-demand webinar introduces the project and its methodology, and will help you begin to design your own photovoice project.

What happens when you mix public library staff, high school students, architects, and STEM curriculum? You get project-based learning that leads to students designing a hybrid public library/farmer's market facility! Learn from speakers who have been immersed in a year-long IMLS National Leader Planning Grant, which has involved teaching students about human centered service design and exploring libraries and farms in field trips, and hear how this innovative project engaged teens along with community partners.