2022 United for Libraries Virtual Program Descriptions
Tuesday, August 9, 2022
- KEYNOTE: Library Workers are NOT Okay: How Trustees Can Support the Health & Well-Being of Library Staff
- Diversity in Library Boards, Friend Groups, and Foundations: Successes and Struggles in Recruiting and Retaining Diverse Members
- Intellectual Freedom Challenges: How to Strengthen Your Library's Response
- Practical Policy Management: A Guide for Trustees
Wednesday, August 10, 2022
- KEYNOTE: Diversity Training That Generates Real Change: Inclusive Approaches That Benefit Individuals, Business, and Society (live only, no recording)
- Our Collection & EDI: A Richmond Public Library Story
- Preparing for a Material Challenge
- Successful Bequest Fundraising: Planned Giving Lessons from the Field
Thursday, August 11, 2022
- Power Up Your Annual Fund Drive!
- Community Centered Advocacy: How Friends & Foundations Can Be Leaders in Local Advocacy
- Tweeting to Congress: Library Social Media Advocacy
- Gala Author Tea Sponsored by Data Axle Reference Solutions
Keynote Descriptions
Library Workers are NOT Okay: How Trustees Can Support the Health & Well-Being of Library Staff
Tuesday, August 9, 2022, 2:30-4:00 pm Eastern
The COVID-19 pandemic, an unprecedented number of censorship attempts, lack of funding/staff, and additional challenges have left many library workers at a crisis point. Learn how library boards/Trustees can support library workers, and what board members need to know about keeping library workers safe and healthy.
Libraries, Trustees, Friends, Foundations, and the DEI Revolution: Keynote by James O . Rodgers and Laura L. Kangas
Wednesday, August 10, 2022, 11:00 am-12:30 pm Eastern
“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”
Dr Martin Luther King, Jr.
Join with us in this dynamic, interactive workshop on diversity, equity, and inclusion. Participants will experience a variety of learning tools designed to define and create an expanded knowledge of diversity, equity, and inclusion; show how to support DEI work, and learn DEI leadership strategies. We will also explore the critical gap between espoused theory and theory-in-use as it relates to DEI. This will be a fast-paced workshop offering many opportunities for personal transformation through self-reflection, small group work, and large group discussion. The session will not be recorded. Attendance for the full 90 minutes is expected. The keynote facilitators, James O. Rodgers and Laura L. Kangas, have a combined total of over 50 years of experience in DEI work and look forward to working with you!
Dr. James O. Rodgers is president and principal consultant of the Diversity Coach. His clients include organizations like Howard University, AT&T, Prudential, IBM, Shell, Pfizer, Coca-Cola, Pizza Hut, the CIA, and Society for Human Resource Management. He is a fellow of the Institute of Management Consultants and is the coauthor of Managing Differently: Getting 100% from 100% of Your People 100% of the Time.
Laura L. Kangas is the founder and director of RiverBend Associates and is a global organizational and employee development consultant, workshop and program designer, facilitator, speaker, and writer. For over twenty-five years, she has been collaboratively developing strategy and leading programs in diversity, equity, and inclusion and other areas of employee and management development.
NOTE: This session was presented live only.
Program Descriptions
Community Centered Advocacy: How Friends & Foundations Can Be Leaders in Local Advocacy
This program will encourage Friends and Foundations to engage in local political advocacy on an ongoing basis. This program will cover the legalities of lobbying by nonprofit organizations in addition to a step-by-step method that any Friends or Foundation group could use to get started with political advocacy when it has never done so before.
Community Needs Assessment: Informing Library Goals and Strategy
Libraries cannot plan for their future without a firm understanding of the needs – both existing and forecasted – of the public they exist to serve. While a simple enough concept in principle, a public library’s mandate is in practice complicated by the disparate wants and expectations of a diverse patron base. Only with periodic, intentional stakeholder engagement activities can a library – its leadership and trustees – feel fully confident in the prioritization of certain resources and services over others. In recent partnerships with libraries, the presenters have facilitated community needs assessments to provide data and analysis regarding community perceptions of the library, barriers to usage, and aspirations for their library. The presenters will provide an overview of recent projects, tools utilized for community needs assessments, and the value of the process and outcomes to support the library’s decision-making and prioritization of resources within the context of defined community needs.
Diversity in Library Boards, Friend Groups, and Foundations: Successes and Struggles in Recruiting and Retaining Diverse Members
Library boards, friend groups, and foundations have sought to recruit and retain diverse members, still some groups undoubtedly struggle. As a part of the 2022 ALA Emerging Leaders, we examine case studies, stories, and real-life examples of equity, diversity, and inclusion in library boards, friend groups, and foundations and how they are building and sustaining diverse memberships within their groups. Working with United for Libraries, our ultimate goal is to provide information and resources that will support Library Directors, Boards, Foundations, and Friends Groups in achieving this diversity, while at the same time highlighting some common struggles and success.
Intellectual Freedom Challenges: How to Strengthen Your Library's Response
Is your library prepared to weather a storm in the face of materials challenges? In this session, we'll discuss how to develop a roadmap that will guide your crisis response. You'll learn about the policies and procedures that library staff and affiliates can put in place to ensure that you're speaking with one voice, effectively communicating internally and externally, determining activation and escalation thresholds, responding in a timely fashion, and taking the safety and well-being of your staff, patrons, and affiliates into consideration.
Our Collection & EDI: A Richmond Public Library Story
As the former home of the confederacy, the Richmond Public Library (RPL) had decades of decision making that did not embrace all its residents. Our director, Scott Firestine, is a firm supporter of EID in all ways for RPL with full Board of Trustees support. The focus of this proposal is our approach toward our collection. Our challenge was two fold. First, we needed to identify gaps in our holdings. Our goal is a collection that reflects authors and main characters that are different colors, genders, and disabilities. Especially in a city that has a large community of marginalized African Americans, literature that readers can identify with is essential. We, at the same time, sought to inventory material that reflected “Lost Cause” mythology. Once we completed our inventory, we worked with public historians and experts from our local rare and special collections to provide context and determine the best location for such items. Over the past 8 months we have made significant progress and would love to talk to Trustees, Foundations, and Friends groups about our approach and its benefits.
Power Up Your Annual Fund Drive!
Libraries that incorporate annual fund drives into their fundraising plans generate critical support for their operating budgets year after year. This presentation goes beyond the basics and offers examples of one library's successful multi-faceted approach to raising funds and friends through an annual fund drive.
Practical Policy Management: A Guide for Trustees
Policy is essential to smooth library operations, and ensuring equality of access for all patrons, but is often seen as an obstacle to progress or a difficult task to be accomplished once and never seen again. This program is designed to educate both library trustees and directors of the statutory responsibility of library trustees in creating policy, as well as practical steps for creating, maintaining, and managing effective policy, including ensuring collaboration between director, staff and board during the process. The program will also offer practical suggestions for policy creation, procedures for periodic policy evaluation, and ways to streamline the policy process.
Preparing for a Material Challenge
Speakers will discuss their previous experience handling book challenges and how they worked with their trustees during the process. Time will be allotted for breakout sessions for smaller groups to discuss how they would respond under similar circumstances. The presentation will include information on how the issue was handled, what Tonya and David learned, and how they would respond now if facing the same situation.
Successful Bequest Fundraising: Planned Giving Lessons from the Field
A panel of fundraising experts outline the distinct profile and motives of the bequest donor. You will be able to identify and cultivate them as part of your planned giving strategy. This will be critical in the next few years as baby boomers age and trillions are set to transfer between generations.
Tweeting to Congress: Library Social Media Advocacy
This session is an introductory training on social media library advocacy, with a focus on the federal level. Participants will learn key strategies for digital Congressional outreach, gain a theoretical understanding of the importance of social media for federal advocacy, and spend time crafting their own social media advocacy posts.
