The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters By Priya Parker We spend much of our time in meetings, at conferences, and attending other work-related affairs—either in person or virtually—but often those experiences are narrowly focused on logistics, one-way communication, and mechanics. Parker shows that getting together with other people doesn’t have … Continue reading Building Community
With COVID-19 and social justice in mind, keynotes and sessions introduced management tools and strategies, highlighted opportunities for organizations to pivot and imagine a different future, and explored what these changes might mean for the libraries and nonprofits that support them. Realizations and reckoning At the opening keynote session “Integrating Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity into … Continue reading Community and Cooperation
The American Library Association–Allied Professional Association’s Library Worklife site states: “Union contracts often provide for fair and flexible working hours, better pay for overtime and work on evenings and weekends, more paid holidays, paid family and medical leave, and employer help with child care and elder care.” These conditions are undoubtedly important. But when talking … Continue reading Contract Concerns
“Sandy’s willing to take a look at anything, from mending pants to replacing zippers to sewing buttons on a shirt or pants,” says Director Jennifer Tallman of Sandra Vardell (pictured), a former board member who volunteers one Saturday per month to tackle the town’s toughest tailoring. JMML, at the suggestion of Vardell, started its garment … Continue reading Bookend: Tailor-Made Fundraising
What made you want to write this book? ALA Editions published the first version of the book, Creating the Full-Service Homework Center in Your Library, in 2001 after I went around the country researching public library homework centers—something that no one had done before. I thought once the original book came out, nobody would ever … Continue reading A Conversation with Author Cindy Mediavilla
The challenge comes in maintaining a paid or volunteer workforce large enough to provide sufficient assistance to the multitude of students who use the library every day after school. Most libraries cannot afford to hire the number of part-time employees needed to provide necessary homework help. Nor are they prepared to recruit and train a … Continue reading Staffing Your Homework-Help Center
At the New Albany–Floyd County (Ind.) Public Library, where I work, we have a teen volunteer program that starts at age 11. We get a high volume of requests for volunteer hours because of a service requirement at a nearby middle school. We’re one of the only games in town for these kids, many of … Continue reading Helping Hands
Data and design boost engagement “A digital collection is not just scanned photographs,” said Greta Bahnemann, metadata librarian for the Minnesota Digital Library (MDL), at the outset of “Metadata: Preventing a Digital Junk Drawer.” Metadata should essentially make up half of your collection, she said. Why is metadata so important? Bahnemann and copresenters from the … Continue reading The Devil Is in the Digital Details
Books-to-prisoners programs across the country are doing their best to address this need by taking book requests from prisoners by mail, then having volunteers match those requests to books that have been donated by the public or purchased with monetary donations. Volunteers also prep books for shipment, assess and sort donations, keep track of the … Continue reading The Freedom of Reading
“We were both trying to instill a volunteer culture in an environment that didn’t have that culture,” says Gorman, assistant dean for special collections and university archives. “[Yet] there were people in the community who were very educated, highly motivated, with a range of skills I could leverage.” Along with Smith—a photographs, artifacts, and textiles … Continue reading Recruiting and Retaining Volunteers
As librarians, our skills are as embedded in our personal lives as in our work, and they do not desert us when we leave our positions. After retiring in 2009, I began volunteering at Hedgebrook, a writing residency program for women on Whidbey Island in northwest Washington State. Inspired by its founder, Nancy Skinner Nordhoff, … Continue reading Retired, but Embedded
