VTLIB is proud to present a new speaker series specifically for State Employees! Beginning in January 2019, Tuesday Talks will presented during the lunch hour one Tuesday each month. The topic and speaker will change each month, but will always be relevant to events or trends in Vermont that affect State Employees.
In January, the topic will be education, and the speaker will be Kathleen Kesson. Kesson will be speaking about the idea of “personalized learning” which is discussed in her book
Unschooling in Paradise
. This idea requires a shift in the way we think about student learning, the role of teachers, and the relationship between schools and communities.
Kathleen Kesson is Professor Emerita of Teaching, Learning and Leadership in the School of Education at LIU-Brooklyn. She is the former Director of Teacher Education at Goddard College, and was Director of the John Dewey Project on Progressive Education at the University of Vermont. Her work appears in numerous academic journals and books.
Channeling John Dewey: What Would Vermont's Philosopher Have to Say about Personalized Education?
Tuesday, January 22, 2019
12:00-1:00pm
Pavilion Building Auditorium, Montpelier
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Apply for a Set of 2018-2019 Red Clover Nominees
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VTLIB has twenty (20) additional sets of the 2018-2019 Red Clover Book Award nominees that we would like to distribute to Vermont libraries. To apply to receive a set of these titles, please complete an application by Thursday, January 17, 2019 at 5:00pm. Late submissions will not be accepted.
We will select twenty (20) libraries from these submissions on or shortly after January 18, and recipient libraries will be contacted.
All libraries are eligible, but preference will be given to institutions serving youth in grades K-4, and libraries that do not own any, or only a few, of the 2018-2019 Red Clover nominees.
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Final Session: Teen Services Roundtable & Breakout EDU Workshop
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Thursday, January 24, 2019 - 4:00-6:00pm
VHS Community Room, VTLIB, Barre
This session is meant to be an informal get together where public and school librarians can meet each other and exchange ideas about how to best serve teens in their community. There will be a short Breakout EDU training and then kits will be distributed for everyone to keep. Everybody is welcome. Register here:
https://bit.ly/2SnSij7
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Total number of interlibrary loan requests made in November 2018: 4795
Books: 4207
Videos/DVDs: 393
Audiobooks: 150
Articles: 30
Music CDs: 10
Music Score: 4
Kits: 1
Some of the most interesting sounding titles I spotted:
- Barry, the Fish with Fingers (Sue Hendra)
- Beginner’s Guide to Losing Your Mind (Emily Reynolds)
- Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss: How an unlikely couple found love, dodged the FBI and transformed children’s literature (Nel Philip)
- Gloves: The stories of Vermont’s greatest boxers, trainers and personalities (Ernie Farrar)
- The Master Butchers Singing Club (Louise Erdrich)
- The Wonky Donkey (Craig Smith) – in case you haven’t seen this video, have a laugh.
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Top 10 most requested titles in November 2018 (with most requested at the top):
- Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (Jonathan Safran Foer)
- The Christmas Train (David Baldacci)
- News of the World (Paulette Jiles)
- Small Great Things (Jodi Picoult)
- Bread and Roses, Too (Katherine Paterson)
- Freak the Mighty (W.R. Philbrick)
- Housekeeping (Marilynne Robinson)
- Lincoln in the Bardo (George Saunders)
- Born a Crime (Trevor Noah)
- The Cooking Gene: A journey through African American culinary history in the old South (Michael Twitty)
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How much money has your patrons’ use of your library saved them over the past year? The American Library Association (ALA) posts a Library Value Calculator on its website here:
https://bit.ly/2Q9DDpQ
. By inputting the number of items borrowed, programs attended, and more, your patrons can calculate the value of their use this past year – and you can compare that to how much tax money they paid their municipality to support the library.
For example, if you have a patron who borrowed two adult books, two children’s books, and attended two library programs, s/he saved $98 this year – and likely paid much less than that per capita to support the library.
These numbers can help highlight the amazing Return on Investment (ROI) public libraries bring their communities – and help you defend your budget request during Town Meeting.
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Customer Service as "Facilitating Success"
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Why is providing exceptional customer service so important in public libraries?
Because the future of public libraries is in “connection” in addition to “collection.” In other words, people increasingly see their library as a place to connect with others in meaningful ways (including library staff and volunteers), not just as a place to access resources (
https://kng.ht/2LIg86U
).
In order for that “connection” to feel meaningful, in order to help our patrons bond more deeply with our library, staff and volunteers need to see their role as one of providing exceptional customer service. In her 2015 article “A Facilitative Mindset: Five Steps to a Customer-Service Culture” in Public Libraries Online (a publication of the Public Library Association), Cheryl Gould asserts that exceptional customer service involves caring about people’s success and asking, “How can I help people be most successful” and “How can I make it easy for this person to meet their needs?” Cheryl’s article discusses why we give poor customer service, what good customer service looks like, and how to create real cultural change to enable library staff and volunteers to commit themselves to “facilitating success” for your patrons – and thus create those meaningful connections that can transform library users into passionate library advocates. Link to article:
https://bit.ly/2RqrWQe
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Special Populations & ABLE Library
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Quick Links
- How to Use Windows 10’s Narrator to Read Your Screen Aloud:
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Memorable Times Cafe Series
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VTLIB is partnering with the Central Vermont Council on Aging (
https://www.cvcoa.org/
)
to offer a series of memory cafes at the VHS Community Room in Barre.
Upcoming Cafes:
January 16, 2019 - 1:30pm-3:00pm
February 20, 2019 - 1:30pm-3:00pm
March 20, 2019 - 1:30pm-3:00pm
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Continuing Education and Small & Rural Libraries
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New York City libraries have created seven online modules designed to train library staff about data privacy. These modules can be used individually and/or there is content for an in-person workshop as well as a list of supplemental resources. The modules are available at
nycdigitalsafety.org
, and cover these topics:
- Digital safety in the library context
- How information travels across the internet, and how it can be intercepted
- The entities that have vested interest in intercepting your information
- Securing accounts and devices
- Connecting to the internet securely
- Preventing tracking
- Avoiding scams and malware
- Minimizing your digital footprint
Highly recommended for all, and for those in the Certificate program, these will count as Continuing Education Units in Library Technology or Electives, one CEU/hour of content
.
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Career Programming for Teens
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There is a lot of talk and energy around the state about post-secondary options for Vermont students, particularly ones who do not enroll in college or university directly after graduating high school.
Career Programming for Today’s Teens: Exploring Nontraditional and Vocational Alternatives
, by Amy Wyckoff and Marie Harris (ALA Editions, 2019), combines programming ideas, collection development, case studies and more to help libraries support teens in their communities. This is also a great tool for planning collaborations with public and vocational schools and other organizations.
ISBN: 978-0-8389-1759-6
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As always, check the Continuing Ed page
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ARSL 2019 Conference Proposals
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The Association for Small & Rural Libraries (
https://arsl.info/)
is accepting proposals for breakout sessions for its 2019 conference, "Tap into Libraries!" The conference will be held September 4-7 in Burlington.
Submit your proposal here:
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"
Public libraries, apply by Feb. 8, 2019, to be part of a national tour for the traveling exhibition Thinking Money for Kids.
We all need to master the knowledge and skills to make smart financial choices and prepare for whatever the future brings.
Thinking Money for Kids
strives to teach children ages 7-11 and their parents, caregivers and educators about financial literacy topics—like saving, spending and budgeting—in a way that is not only understandable, but fun.
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From Our Neighbors at the Vermont Historical Society
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Third Thursday: Seeds of Renewal
Jan. 17, 12:00 pm
Vermont History Museum, Montpelier
Dr. Fred Wiseman, expert in Abenaki history and culture, will present his research into traditional native foodways and his project to continue those practices in the modern day. Dr. Wiseman’s talk coincides with the current exhibit in the Calder Gallery of the same name. As always, bring your lunch & we'll bring basic refreshments.
Before Your Time Podcast: Anything for Speed
People have raced cars in the Green Mountains since 1903. There were racetracks in every corner of the state: at fairgrounds, in farmers’ back fields, and finally at dozens of dedicated racetracks. Thousands of Vermonters have been drivers, mechanics, track officials, and spectators at those tracks over the past 115 years. Hear from a few of the legends themselves in the latest episode of the “Before Your Time” podcast produced by the Vermont Historical Society, Vermont Humanities Council, and VTDigger. Listen at
www.beforeyourtime.org
Vermont History Trivia Kit
Do you know what a gore is, and how many of them in Vermont? How about the original name for Camel’s Hump? Host a fun evening of Vermont History Trivia to find out!
The Vermont History Trivia kit is available to historical societies, museums, libraries, and other cultural or nonprofit institutions to use for a fun, lighthearted program that can appeal to a range of audiences. The kit is available in multiple formats: all-digital, questions only or questions & prizes. One round of the all-digital format is free for VHS institutional members (such as local historical societies or local libraries that subscribe to the VHS museum pass system) and additional rounds are available for a small fee. There are five rounds total available.
The kit includes questions and answers, guidelines for setting up and running the event, scorecards and a scoring system, and evaluation forms. Each round contains five rounds of eight questions, with a sixth round left blank for local questions of your own invention. Vermont Historical Society staff are happy to provide guidance to organizations that wish to use the kit. For more information, contact Amanda Gustin at
[email protected]
Library Closed January 14-25
Please note that the Leahy Library of the Vermont Historical Society in Barre will be closed January 14
th
through the 25
th
for processing of collections. It will reopen for regular hours on January 29
th
.
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