The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that the employment of social workers will grow 12% from 2020 to 2030 to meet an increase in demand. Further, with the growth of telehealth and telemedicine visits continuing beyond the COVID-19 pandemic, individuals are finding more ways to reach their healthcare providers. However, in rural areas, finding local providers and reliable Internet access can create a barrier to access. As public libraries have long been viewed as the central hub for information, gatherings, and broadband service, their pivot to serve as a place for patrons to meet virtually with social workers comes at an opportune time. This presentation will show how three public libraries developed a pilot program – titled “Because You Matter” – with the Indiana University School of Social Work to coordinate weekly telehealth visits with social work students and library patrons. They’ll share successes, failures, and what they learned to improve the program in the future.
Date Recorded: 10/26/22
Format: Archived YouTube Video
Presenters: Stephanie Rawlins / Director, Pike County Public Library & Jordan Orwig / Director, Sullivan County Public Library & Nathan Watson / Director, Bedford Public Library
It’s a daunting tasks for librarians to consider how best to welcome visually impaired patrons into their libraries. However, with a better understanding of what vision loss is, you can make quick, easy, and inexpensive changes to your library that will open the doors more fully to those with vision loss. Learn more about vision loss and how to quickly and easily change your flyers and presentations, physical space, technology, and signage to be more accessible.
This session will include a demonstration of Canva, the web-based graphic design and publishing tool. Learn tips and tricks that will help you do more with Canva and help you create graphics that capture the attention of your audience. Questions submitted before the webinar will help guide the presentation.
Board games are fun for children of all ages, but they are also promising tools for education. How can we best practically incorporate them into K-12 classrooms in order to optimize learning? As a former neurobiologist who transitioned to teaching, I have experimented for the past seven years with the integration of board games as educational tools. Here I will discuss best practices for using board games effectively to teach content knowledge, focusing primarily on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects. Topics covered will include gamer motivations, fun yet educational game mechanics, lesson plan structures, roles of educators in scaffolded learning, and common mistakes I have discovered in the “gameschooling” process. I will also show preliminary evidence that board games can effectively improve content knowledge. Overall, I hope to show how popular modern board games could be utilized in educational arenas.
Keeping up with our busy work and personal lives can be a challenge! Technology exists to help make it a little easier, but how do you decide what to use?
Concerned about climate change? Help your library “go green” by leveraging the super power of libraries everywhere: the make-do mindset! You’ll learn solutions for everything from sustainable programming practices, environmental partnerships, as well as easy eco-friendly swaps, based on the experience of the Eureka Springs Carnegie Library.
Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr … how many social media accounts does one library need, anyway? And how can you make the most of them with limited time and money? We’ll give you basic social media best practices for libraries, then delve into the specifics of Facebook so you can learn how to make the right posts at the right time to reach further than ever.
A Library of Things expands the role of libraries in the sharing economy. Learn how to curate a circulating collection of objects to help patrons save money while being green.
Dr. Curtis Rogers, Communications Director for the South Carolina State Library, will share his experience with SCSL’s podcast, 
Under the staircase, an old study room, an accessible storage closet … anywhere can become a mini makerspace! The North Riverside Public Library, a small library outside Chicago, was able to cobble together funding using our budget and grants to create mini makerspaces in small nooks around our library. We will talk about our process, research on materials and space design, and how we solicited valuable feedback from patrons. We’ll also discuss our failures and successes throughout the planning and implementation process, including budgetary constraints and unique workarounds that we discovered. This talk will be applicable to any small or rural library willing to get creative.