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Following her talk, Monica will engage in facilitated Q+A and conversation with CT librarian and All CT Reads 2025 Adult Committee member Cindy Haiken of the Wallingford Public Library. 

Presenter: 

Monica Wood is a novelist, memoirist, and playwright; the 2024 recipient of the Sara Josepha Hale award for excellence in New England literary arts; the 2019 recipient of the Maine Humanities Council Carlson Prize for contributions to the public humanities; and the 2016 recipient of the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance Distinguished Achievement Award for contributions to the literary arts. She lives in Portland, Maine, with her husband, Dan Abbott, and their cat, Susie.

Recording and Slides:

Recordings will be available on the All CT Reads website.

Who Should Come?

Everyone! Please share this with your patrons and student - they're invited to join the event too! You can add it to your library calendar and newsletter.

Accessibility

This webinar will be captioned. If you require another access service to participate fully, please use the Accommodation Request Form at least 14 days prior to the event.

"Non-resident loans" are loans of library materials to any non-resident who visits your library in person to borrow items that are on the shelf, showing their valid borrower card issued by their home library. Using their hometown cards, non-residents may visit any public library in person and borrow any of the materials that participating libraries lend to their local borrowers.

Libraries are required to have accurate and complete figures in place by the March 14 deadline or they will not receive a reimbursement payment. Libraries who did not submit expenditure reports by October 31, 2024, for the previous 18-month period are not eligible for payment.

Download and use the 2024-2025 borrowIT CT Report Form to report your library's non-resident loans during the March 2024 thru February 2025 reporting year.

As part of the reporting process, you will be required to:

• Report on monthly loans to each individual library's card holders.
• Certify the accuracy and completeness of the report as well as your library's adherence to borrowIT regulations.
• Email the completed form to the borrowIT CT administrator by the March 14 deadline.

Please submit reports to Brad Bullis at Bradley.Bullis@ct.gov. Please direct any questions regarding borrowIT CT regulations and payment requirements to Dawn

La Valle at Dawn.Lavalle@ct.gov.

SURVEY: Please fill out this presurvey to help the presenters prepare for the session and maximize learning. The survey only has to be filled out once for the series, not for each of the five sessions.

Libraries today are lauded as being spaces where everyone is welcome. Librarians are praised for their neutrality and receive vocational awe. Despite libraries' stated values of inclusivity and equal access, their actions have often contradicted these principles. This session will delve into the historical context of libraries as racialized organizations, highlighting their deep-rooted connections to white supremacist culture.

We will examine the establishment of the American Library Association, founded by individuals who perpetuated a white supremacist mindset, and discuss how contemporary concepts such as neutrality and vocational awe continue to uphold this ideology. Historical evidence from libraries in the southern United States, which denied entry and library cards to people of color, is well known; this session will also trace the largely erased history of exclusionary practices of libraries in the northern states.

As the first workshop in the Decolonize This Space: Making Antiracism Real in Public Libraries series, we will demonstrate the critical need for librarians to recognize and disrupt these historical foundations, setting the stage for the subsequent workshops.

Please note the five sessions in this series build on each other. You are not required to attend all five sessions (or watch the recordings in advance), though it is recommended.

Upcoming webinars in this series:

What Does it Mean to Decolonize (Part 1)

Tuesday, April 15 | 10:00 am-12:00 pm

Register: Decolonize (Part 1)

What Does it Mean to Decolonize (Part 2)

Tuesday, May 20 | 10:00 am-12:00 pm

Register: Decolonize (Part 2)

Equity in Action: Decolonizing Library Practices (Part 1)

Monday, June 16 | 10:00 am-12:00 pm

Register: Equity in Action (Part 1)

Equity in Action: Decolonizing Library Practices (Part 2)

Monday, June 23 | 10:00 am-12:00 pm

Register: Equity in Action (Part 2)

For more information about upcoming sessions in April and May, please see details in the Workshops & Programs section below. 

• From Bertha Benz to Shirley Muldowney, How Female Drivers Used Cars to Fuel Empowerment | Atlas Obscura

• Joan of Arc: Saint, French Hero, and Feminist Icon | Flipboard

• In Ukraine’s Coal Mines, Women Take up the Slack as Men Leave for War | CSMonitor.com

• The Feminist Who Inspired the Witches of Oz | Smithsonian

• Hatshepsut: 10 Facts on the Queen Who Would Be King | The Collector

Please submit your stories about how patrons use hotspots and what it means for connectivity in your community. 

E-Rate: USF at the Supreme Court

The Constitutionality of the Universal Service Fund (E-Rate) Goes to the Supreme Court | POTs n PANs, January 24, 2025

Learn what burnout is and isn't, why it's dangerous, and strategies and tools for addressing it. In this interactive Zoom workshop, you'll explore how to: recognize the signs of burnout, identify the causes--both internal and external, own it (you're the boss of your own life), explore alternatives, and decide what you want as there are never no choices.

This workshop will give you your own personalized plan for ensuring that burnout doesn't stop you from having your best year ever. 

Participants will be able to develop their own plan based on their staffing model and to problem solve possible obstacles to ongoing outreach efforts. This workshop includes a working session for participants to draft their library outreach plan.

This session is the last of the Reimagining Library Outreach and Access series providing library staff with strategies, tools, and frameworks to expand their reach and impact within their communities. Using their own library and local data, participants have the opportunity to evaluate barriers to access within their own communities and to reconsider their approach to outreach utilizing their existing assets and structures.

In this small class, you will gain confidence and insight by actively researching legal problems with partners or small groups using free legal resources on the Internet. Along the way you will get great tips from experienced law librarians that will get you on track to providing legal information and help you avoid giving legal advice.

There are no prerequisites for this session, but since this is a small group workshop, participants will need a computer with a camera and microphone so that they can research questions provided to them, share their results, and ask questions throughout the class.

In this session, we'll cover funding categories, application process, grant application evaluation, timeline, grant contract, starting and managing the project, state requirements, and advice.

Prospective library applicants should attend the mandatory construction grant session for the grant cycle they intend on applying for. Attendance at a construction grant information session is a requirement for all applicants.

Additional Construction Grant Information Sessions coming up this spring:

Wednesday, April 16 | 10:00-11:30 am 

Register for April 16 Construction Grant Session

Wednesday, April 30 | 1:00-2:30 pm 

Register for April 30 Construction Grant Session

Wednesday, May 14 | 1:00-2:30 pm 

Register for May 14 Construction Grant Session

For more information about the CT State Library's Construction Grant Program, please visit the Construction Grant Libguide.

This session will delve into the historical context of libraries as racialized organizations, highlighting their deep-rooted connections to white supremacist culture.

For more information about this series, including registration links for upcoming workshops, please see description in the Initiatives & Announcements section above.

In this hands-on workshop, participants will work with Canva templates and learn tips for navigating the new Canva homepage with ease. Participants will work on their own designs during the workshop and will finish the class with designs they can refer back to at their library.

Since this is a small group workshop, participants will need a computer with a camera and microphone so they can share thoughts and ask questions throughout the class. This is a beginner class - however it assumes participants have basic knowledge of Canva or have taken CSL DLD’s INTRO TO CANVA class.

Participants should have a Canva account and be able to log in before the workshop. (Free Canva accounts may be used - be aware that some features/templates available only on Canva Pro/Teams will be demonstrated). 

Visit our calendar

Whether it’s mysteries, biographies, self-help, science fiction, or professional development, you and your patrons will find it in the Connecticut State Library eBook collection. The collection now has over 50,000 items.

Don’t forget, you can read or listen this year’s All CT Reads titles in the Palace app!

If you have questions or would like more information about eGO CT, the Palace Project, or the eGO CT Community Sharing Program, please contact Brad Bullis at Bradley.Bullis@ct.gov.

New eAudio Titles Now Available in the Palace Project app!

MLSC March Madness: Puppet Edition

Book kits circulate for 90 days. Reserve your Dyslexia Support Kit through our Equipment Catalog.

Questions? Looking for more book kits? Please call MLSC at 860-704-2200, or email Abbey at Abbey.E.Lynch@ct.gov, or Cathy at Catherine.Potter@ct.gov.