Yearly Wrap-up | December 20, 2024 | |
“But to tear down a factory or to revolt against a government or to avoid repair of a motorcycle because it is a system is to attack effects rather than causes; and as long as the attack is upon effects only, no change is possible. The true system, the real system, is our present construction of systematic thought itself, rationality itself, and if a factory is torn down but the rationality which produced it is left standing, then that rationality will simply produce another factory. If a revolution destroys a systematic government, but the systematic patterns of thought that produced that government are left intact, then those patterns will repeat themselves in the succeeding government. There’s so much talk about the system. And so little understanding.”
– Robert M. Pirsig
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
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As we prepare to turn the page to the next year, we always like to take a moment for a bit of pause, reflection, and connection with our Connecticut library community.
It is alongside and inspired by all of you that the CT State Library Division of Library Development (DLD) continues this visionary journey to re-imagine library systems positioning Connecticut libraries to co-create abundant futures with transformative programs, services, and consultation.
To truly prepare for the future, DLD is striving to empower library staff to move beyond established linear systems and silos defined by separation, quantification, reduction, and a scarcity approach. To change and innovate our ways, we need to alter our “patterns of thought,” in the words of Robert M. Pirsig, and rebuild with that freshness. As our partnership with TFSX continues, we embrace their “approach seek[ing] to unlock a shared universal dynamic of care, empathy, diversity, collaboration, and love within all.”
Everything we are doing is to foster empowerment across our community of practice. Together, we have many eyes, many voices, many insights. As this library network, we can be collective, cooperative, and collaborative, and herein lies our strength. We are already everywhere, and it is in understanding this that together we can be powerful. We can break away from systems that do not work and fuel an emergence of change, of a public service mindset, of unbounded possibilities, all in relation to one another.
The future is integrated, relational, and process-oriented in its becomingness. We are ready to co-create the future of Connecticut libraries. Are you ready to join us?
With that, read on to learn how we at DLD are growing and becoming.
Wishing you all the happiest of holidays!
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Dawn La Valle
Director, Division of Library Development
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Towards Integrating Social Justice, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (SJDEIA) | |
Transforming Libraries and Museums: Collaboration for Accessibility with Perkins Access
In 2022, the CT State Library launched a partnership with Perkins Access, a division of Perkins School for the Blind in Massachusetts, America's oldest school for the blind and visually impaired founded in 1829, with a mission to help make the world more accessible to people with disabilities. After part one of a pilot accessibility training program with 13 libraries and museums in 2023, Perkins Access delivered a workshop in August 2024 on accessible multimedia for cohort participants. Work on this project will continue in 2025 and planning is underway for a second cohort of libraries and museums to participate in the image description and accessible multimedia workshops.
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Growing Equitable Library Services (GELS) Grants
DLD launched a brand-new grant! The Growing Equitable Library Services (GELS) Grant had its inaugural round this fall. GELS is a workshop series that strives to provide the trainings that help libraries become strength-based, trauma informed, antiracist, socially and emotionally conscious community institutions. The GELS Grant is a six-month grant initiative to support libraries on their journey to providing equitable services in their community offering up to $3,500 to principal public libraries. After rich conversation and strong applications, we will be officially announcing the grants in January!
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Digital Inclusion in CT Libraries
As the recipient of a $249,948 IMLS National Leadership Grant, the CT State Library began administering the project, “Designing and Implementing a Regional Digital Navigator Sharing Plan.” With this funding, the Hamden Public Library has been acting as a hub for seven public libraries providing digital navigator appointments in English, Spanish, and Arabic to residents who have not been meaningfully connected to online resources and need mentorship. The other participating libraries include New Haven, West Haven, Bridgeport, Naugatuck, Derby Neck, and Woodbridge. Lessons learned have been shared with other CT libraries via presentations at CT Libraries & Partners for Digital Equity (CTLPDE) meetings and individual consultations. Work will continue through the fall of 2025 with the goal of codifying the best practices and workflow developed for public libraries everywhere.
Through CTLPDE, the CT State Library continued to provide programming and discussion space for public libraries and community partners who want to increase their involvement in digital inclusion work. This year the focus of educational presentations has been on the various ways libraries, in concert with partners, could prepare to apply for State Digital Equity Plan capacity grant subawards in the first quarter of 2025.
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Towards Inclusive Accessibility in Libraries (TIAL)
This year, DLD launched its newest initiative, Towards Inclusive Accessibility in Libraries: Expanding Possibilities for All Ages and Abilities (TIAL). The inspiration for TIAL stemmed from the 2023 GELS ADA and Beyond series that encouraged library staff to think beyond the ADA when serving patrons in their communities. After reflecting on the success of ADA and Beyond and the needs of the CT library community, we chose to expand the series into its own initiative, developing a new name, logo, and mission statement. In particular, we felt that the topics of accessibility and aging have considerable overlap, which led us to our mission:
We recognize that providing greater accessibility expands inclusion. Towards Inclusive Accessibility in Libraries (TIAL) seeks to address the knowledge gaps and biases that exist about people with disabilities and people who are aging, and to aid libraries in extending access to library resources and services, enriching the lives of all community members.
For more information about TIAL, including resources and upcoming programs, please visit the Towards Inclusive Accessibility in Libraries LibGuide.
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Towards the Impact of Libraries as Community Anchors | |
CT Ready to Read
In February 2024, DLD announced a new initiative called CT Ready to Read. CT Ready to Read is designed to equip public library staff with the information, skills, and tools needed to promote and develop early literacy skills and reading readiness in their communities. Through research backed learning models, workshops, and resources, library staff will be provided the opportunity to learn to model for, and work with, parents, caregivers, and children. To date, the sessions that have been included in the workshop series have been Every Child Ready to Read and Reimagining School Readiness.
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New England Youth Summit
The New England Youth Summits are collaborative professional development events hosted in partnership by the State Youth Consultants from across New England’s state libraries. As a collaborative, the New England Youth Consultants organized Teen Summit, a day long free virtual event, that shared workshops including Teen Volunteering as a Core Service, Reimagining Teen Book Groups, teen book awards, and more. For the first time, New England Youth Consultants offered a half-day workshop series called Becoming Readers. The series explored topics such as supporting prenatal and newborn families, exploring how kids learn to read, and the Mind in the Making early learning program.
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No Child Left Inside
In partnership with the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection State Parks, the DLD participated in events as part of an initiative called No Child Left Inside. The events encourage CT residents to learn about state parks and forests and outdoor activities like boating, fishing, and local wild animals. DLD shared information about public libraries and the connections between reading and the outdoors at a variety of events including Boating Day, Family Day, Dino Day, Winter Fest, and a special highlight – watching the eclipse on the SEAL sun spotter!
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Transformation for Libraries: The Futures School (TFSX)
Building on four years of the IMLS-supported Transformation for Libraries: The Futures School, the CT State Library and partner TFSX (formerly Kedge: The Futures School) are training organizational cohorts, including library systems, associations, and partner networks. The initial phase empowered individuals with strategic foresight. In this current iteration, the initiative takes a systems perspective, integrating strategic foresight into operations and infusing futures thinking into institutional capacity, cultural shifts, technological innovation, model processes, and succession planning. Each cohort trains a team of staff members with foresight tools to lead their library to the future. To date, over 600 library staff have been successfully trained!
The Connecticut State Library Division of Library Development's Transformation for Libraries: The Futures School is made possible by a supplemental grant following the successful Institute of Museum and Library Services grant #RE-250063-OLS-21 in the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program.
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Libraries Without Borders
Over the last two years, DLD has partnered with Libraries Without Borders US (LWB) in an initiative that began with a pilot project with six CT public libraries. With each library, the teams used mixed-methods data collection leveraging both quantitative and qualitative research to analyze existing access barriers and producing robust community assessments. The research and analyses, in turn informed the tailored recommendations LWB made to each library to expand outreach and impact into their respective communities and begin implementing that work.
In 2024, the second year of the partnership, DLD worked with LWB to co-create Reimagining Library Outreach and Access, a 10-workshop series integrating pilot-year lessons, approaches, and challenges into trainings, providing libraries with strategies and tools to expand their community reach and impact. To date, we have held seven sessions and are looking forward to completing the series in 2025. All the trainings are recorded and the recordings, slides, and supporting materials are available to the CT library community in the CT State Library’s Niche Academy.
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Professional Development and Continuing Education
In January 2024, DLD conducted an annual survey to assess the training needs of CT libraries that directly inform our work. We offered approximately 100 virtual and in-person workshops on a variety of topics with over 2,800 registrations. We continue to offer self-paced tutorials for all library staff through the CT State Library Niche Academy, as well as supporting subscriptions to Library 2.0’s Safety and Security series, PCI Webinars and promoting webinars and courses on WebJunction. Northstar Digital Literacy has been made available to 50 public libraries and their branches, and in the fall, we began a new subscription for up to 200 libraries to Learn with NoveList.
What else? Let us share some highlights. We introduced a new online series of workshops from January through April on Readers Advisory with expert Becky Spratford. Continuing through the spring was a new Lead Your Library series with Jerry Nichols focusing on Practical Management of Public Libraries that included workshops on the critical partnership between director and board, facilities management, HR and financial reporting. Beginning in October we kicked off a technology series with David Lee King starting with a two-part Emerging Tech Trends in Libraries.
AND The Giant Room continued into 2024 working with five pilot libraries to bring facilitated community engagement programs to those libraries’ towns. The pilot libraries included Ansonia, Bristol, and Granby in Connecticut as well as Tiverton and Warwick in Rhode Island. A new set of professional development webinars with the Giant Room was held in November and December, and libraries will be chosen to participate in both facilitated workshops with the Giant Room as well as having the opportunity to have the special collaborative Remix stations and publications created for their communities in 2025.
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Towards Equitable Access to Information and Resources for All | |
New DLD Homepage
The new DLD homepage was published on November 1. With an eye towards accessibility, the new home page and subpages are designed to be user-friendly and allow visitors to find what they are looking for quickly and efficiently. Icons and brief descriptions for all DLD programs and services can be found throughout the redesigned pages. A DLD Staff Directory drop-down menu is available on all pages so visitors can easily connect with their library liaison or a DLD staff member to answer any questions they may have. Connect with us!
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Connecticut Library for Accessible Books
Reaching Out
In FY24, the CT Library for Accessible Books (CTLAB) staff conducted over 27 outreach sessions that reached over 650 people including with low vision support groups, health and wellness fairs, professional conferences, doctor’s offices, senior living residences, and public libraries. CTLAB also presented at a number of conferences including the Public Library Association (PLA) Annual Conference, Connecticut League of Museums Annual Conference, and the National Library for the Blind and Print Disabled (NLS) Bi-Annual Conference.
Circulation
CTLAB had a total circulation of 164,232 items to their 5,432 active patrons during FY24 – that amounts to over 30 books borrowed by each patron during the year!
Partnerships and Special Projects
CTLAB remains in partnership with nine public libraries across CT that serve as CTLAB Hub Libraries. During 2024, hub libraries shared information about CTLAB with over 160 individuals!
CTLAB Book Club
CTLAB’s quarterly virtual book club met throughout 2024. Facilitated by a CTLAB Reader's Advisor, the Book Club alternates between fiction and non-fiction titles. Books read included: The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, Inheritance: a memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love, and Covenant of Water.
Talking Books CT
CTLAB continues its longstanding partnership with Connecticut Volunteer Services for the Blind and Handicapped, Inc., now known as Talking Books CT/CVSBH. Talking Books CT volunteers record locally produced Talking Books (audio), which are made available to CTLAB and NLS patrons nationwide via BARD, the Braille and Audio Reading Download service maintained by NLS. A major focus during 2024 was converting CT Talking Books originally available on cassettes to digital format. During 2024, approximately 100 CT Talking Books were posted to BARD, most of which were recently converted from cassette to digital format.
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Summer Reading
For summer 2024, the CT State Library provided access to the iREAD Resource Guide to 105 libraries in addition to READsquared, an online book tracking software with preloaded reading programs. To help libraries share the impact of their summer programming with their community and stakeholders, we created a 2024 Summer Reading infographic template in Canva.
Each library was encouraged to edit the template with the information and images best suited to amplify the success of their program. And since we are all about supporting summer reading, additional support was provided through the Building Equity Based Summer IMLS Grant initiative and the Summer Enrichment Grants.
| Services and Resources at Our Core | |
eGO CT
It was a year of growth for the eGO CT Program in 2024! FY24 was our second full year with the Palace Project app and the eGO CT program saw a 150 percent increase in the number of checkouts (7,767 in FY23 compared with 19,435 in FY24)! In February 2024, we launched the Palace Project app for academic libraries adding 17 academic sites from Connecticut State Colleges and Universities (CSCU). We ended the year with a total of 175 sites live in the Palace app.
We also continued the eGO Community Share program for schools in 2024 with LSTA grant funds for 170 school sites. There are currently a total of 161 sites participating in the program and sharing free eBook content with their students. The program was originally offered to K-12 sites that use the Destiny catalog, and is now offered to all K-12 sites in Connecticut through the Boundless app.
The collection also grew as DLD purchased over 5,214 items for the eGO Program in 2024, including 1,606 items specifically for schools participating in the eGO CT Community Share program. The Connecticut State Library collection provides over 45,400 items to participating institutions.
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requestIT CT | findIT CT | researchIT CT
We all know libraries love resource sharing – and DLD helps! In 2024, requestIT CT saw a 1% increase in usage over 2023 (13,541 in FY23 compared with 13,647 in FY24). In 2024, Connecticut’s statewide library catalog findIT CT contained over 25 million bibliographic records and over 19 million items from 333 libraries of all types.
In 2024, findIT CT had approximately 1.2 million visits and 7 million page views. Thanks to LSTA funds, DLD continues to provide Workforce Solutions, a suite of resources provided to public libraries to help promote workforce development through June 2025. researchIT CT database usage during FY24 was 2,201,805 views, saving CT libraries over $42 million!
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Puppets Galore!
In 2024 MLSC moved the records for over 500 puppets into our Equipment Catalog. This change allows patrons to reserve their items up to 365 days in advance and provides pictures for easier browsing. Librarians embraced the change, with 71 patrons checking out 611 puppets throughout the year. We also added 22 new puppet friends to our offerings, including French Bulldog, Goat, Mole, and Yeti. Don’t you just want to squeeze them all?
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Fiber to the Libraries
This year, DLD administered the second step of a state-grant funded project to help 36 libraries served by CEN dark fiber internet connections upgrade their internal connections, distributing over $1,300,000 in this final distribution of state Fiber to the Library bond funds. This meant that in 2024, the last of the original $3.6 million in bond funds allocated in 2016 for the Fiber to the Library grant program were distributed and in a way that dramatically enhanced the connectivity of CT public libraries.
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What’s on our minds for 2025? Let us share a few things.
Transforming Libraries and Museums with Perkins Access will expand as we work together to plan and develop a wayfinding workshop that will be piloted to the participants of cohorts one and two in 2025.
TIAL, too, will grow with two more sessions this winter with Dr. Clayton Copeland from the University of South Carolina on recognizing our accessibility lens and taking action with accessibility. We will also host a five-part series on Welcoming Deaf and Hard of Hearing Patrons to Your Library with Author, Librarian, and American Sign Language (ASL) interpreter Kathy MacMillan. Our partnership with CT Age Well will blossom and, in 2025, we expect to do more with creative aging programs, re-enlivening work that happened in 2023.
Look for more technology workshops on social media, technology tools, digital media labs and production studios, and, of course, AI in 2025.
We will further refine our brand-new annual report platform, building out visualization capabilities and developing workshops on storytelling with data and other applicable topics to help libraries make their data accessible and actionable.
CT LAB will build its efforts to grow outreach and increase the number of patrons, including expanding its newsletter to patrons in audio and braille formats in addition to Large Print and email.
The eGO CT program and the Palace Project app are opening up to embrace an additional 10 academic library sites, while the Community Share Program will increase the number of schools engaged by offering the Boundless option, which enables us to invite all Connecticut K-12 sites to participate. And if that is not enough, we also have big goals of increasing overall circulation of eBooks and eAudiobooks. We are projecting circulation of over 32,000 in FY25 based on our first quarter totals, representing a projected 65% increase over the usage we had in FY24!
Next year, we plan to expand our fiction collection at MLSC to include books for elementary school age readers, filling the gap between our sizeable picture book and middle grade/teen fiction collections. We will also add several new Story Time Props, bringing more classic characters and new favorites to your story times.
We know we just talked a lot. We also love listening to you, and we welcome your emails, phone calls, questions, and thoughts any time.
Celebrating and recognizing you, CT library land – cheers to merry holidays and a happy New Year!
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Connecticut State Library | Division of Library Development
Middletown Library Service Center
786 South Main Street | Middletown, CT 06457
(860) 704-2200 | libguides.ctstatelibrary.org/dld
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