Webinar Summaries

Recently, I attended a webinar from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services or USCIS on citizenship and libraries. They have partnered with IMLS to provide libraries with information, educational materials, and training resources on immigration and citizenship. They want to educate librarians on topics ranging from naturalization, the unauthorized practice of immigration law, and the importance of digital literacy. Look to their website’s Citizenship Resource Center at www.uscis.gov/citizenship for a wealth of information. From there, you can order a Civics and Citizenship toolkit that has immigration and civics publications, handbooks, multimedia tools, and a quick start guide with ideas for use. There is a limit of one toolkit per organization. The kit can be used to provide basic information, develop class content and train staff and volunteers. USCIS also offers free training for adult educators, program directors, volunteers, and representatives from immigrant-serving organizations. These seminars will help develop the skills needed to teach U.S. history, civics, and the naturalization process to immigrant students and to administer comprehensive adult citizenship education programs. You can find information on that at http://www.uscis.gov/citizenship/teachers/training-seminars. There was another useful website mentioned: https://literacydirectory.org. You can use it to find Citizenship or ESL classes near you throughout the US.

The Modern Library: Meeting Library Users On Their Own Terms webinar
Kathleen Lockett from Wellington City Libraries in New Zealand and Michael Hull from Western Plains Library System in Oklahoma presented. Kathleen presented her library system’s Book Bike program that goes out in the community to serve customers, similar to what our Mobile Express program does. They rented a bike and fitted it for storage for books and library collateral and biked to the waterfront during the summer and offered gently used books to check out as well as impromptu storytimes. They also were able to sign up new customers. This summer they will be using new technology offered by CarlConnect to do mobile reference and library card sign up. The library also did outreach geared to university students by going directly to the campus. They couldn’t immediately sign students up for a library card, so they had two staff members work to do it. One would type the student’s information into a spreadsheet on a tablet, while the other would issue the card. They would upload all information when they returned to the library to create a new patron record in their system. Now using new technology with CarlConnect, they are able to do more mobile registration and reference. Kathleen also presented a new opportunity to have a satellite location at the Wellington airport where they will take advantage of signing up out-of-town visitors with temporary library cards as well as providing services to customers while waiting for their flights.

Michael talked about maintaining the library brand’s image and needing to effectively inform the public on what we offer. Libraries need to be outreach minded and get users on their own terms. They need a simple yet strong virtual presence. He encourages staff to go outside the library on a regular basis. Libraries should have a strategic advertising campaign. Virtual identity should be established by using Facebook or other social media judiciously with not too many postings. His staff, mainly managers are allowed to use their personal accounts. He suggested that the library website shouldn’t be overcrowded, but offer what your customers need quickly. Use it to promote events, booklists, etc. Their system’s website can search by accelerated reading levels. They use LS2 staff technology on bookmobiles to set up new customers with library cards. Civic presentations have helped their visibility and they’ve used it to showcase their technology to the community. Use your library’s newest and flashiest products to attract attention. His system has gone to the schools and offered library card registration to students. They send the applications to the teacher, and the teacher has students take them home for parental approval. The teacher verifies the information when the forms are returned and at the school’s library event, the students are issued their library cards. Michael also encourages traditional advertising and marketing through newspaper, radio, billboards, PSAs and TV.

Thanks,
Yolanda
If you would like to share a webinar that you have done recently, please email Laurie or Yolanda.