Transformation – Page 2

September 5, 2020

Public Libraries Advisory Committee – April–August 2020 Report

The group met 1 time this reporting period.

Recent Activities

First Activity
1. Digital issues. The July/August and September/October issues of PL will be digital only. May/June will be a paper, but we will also provide a digital issues as a sort of test run.
Meets PLA’s strategic goals for Advocacy and Awareness, Transformation

Second Activity
2. Themes for 2021 – The group discussed possible themes for the 2021 issue, and also story arcs/ ideas for those themes. Here are some ideas:

Theme: COVID-19 and Public Libraries
Article ideas for this theme:
Virtual programming ( what libraries did and will keep doing in this arenaO
Pandemic policies and procedures created for next time
Advocacy and messaging during the pandemic

Theme: Funding
Article ideas for this theme:
Gaining political support
Grants
Back to basics

Theme: Partnerships
Article ideas for this theme:
IMLS Cares Grant and reaching parts of community not normally reached
Partnering to get messages out to vulnerable groups

Theme: Antiracism/Social Justice
Article ideas for this theme:
Fostering antiracism at the library
Alexandria (VA) working to bring attention to a past history of lynchings.
Equal Justice Initiative work (related to above I think, but also in general)
How libraries can be good allies

Theme: Emotional and Psychological Well-Being Staff
Article ideas for this theme:
Emotional cost
Burnout and stress involved with serving the public
Furloughed staff financial and emotional assistance

Theme: The library's role in Economic Recovery
Article ideas for this theme:
Helping people complete govt assistance forms like welfare, food stamps, unemployment, etc.
Providing job and career information services
Theme: Staff training
Article ideas for this theme:
3 perspectives on libraries and how they do their staff training
Secrets to training
Developing an overall training plan
How to become a better trainer
The reluctant trainer
speaking tips
Meets PLA’s strategic goals for Advocacy and Awareness, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Social Justice, Leadership, Organizational Excellence, Transformation

Third Activity
3. Ideas for the Insights column. This is a regular column in PL, which offers advice for library problems. The column editor is seeking questions to address. Here are some suggestions from today's meeting:
How to manage patrons who refuse to social distance and/or wear masks. And related, working with persons with developmental disabilities on social distancing and mask-wearing.
With the onslaught of virtual everything, how do we maintain a connection with customers/patrons.
What is the future of remote work for libraries/librarians? How to manage staff afraid to come back to work.
How to build equity into every segment of the library.
How can my library become more sustainable?
Meets PLA’s strategic goals for Advocacy and Awareness, Organizational Excellence

What will your group be working on for the next six months?
Evaluate impressions of PL digital and decide on future digital issues with the conclusion of the Sept/Oct issue.

Does the group have any policy recommendations, ideas with financial impact, or other items to bring to the PLA Board for discussion or action
Not at this time.

Do you have any suggestions for future products or resources (excluding conference programs) to be developed based on your group’s work?
Not at this time.

Are there other PLA/ALA committees your group might collaborate with to benefit the work of all?
Not at this time.

Have there been any issues related to meeting participation/attendance for any of the group’s members?
No

Is there anything PLA could have provided during this time that would have helped your group with its work?
Kathleen does such an excellent job providing encouragement and leadership, we have what we need.

Submitted by mary rzepczynski on 09/05/2020

August 31, 2020

Family Engagement Task Force – September–March 2020 Report

The group met 4-6 times this reporting period.

Recent Activities

First Activity
The committees first activity was to organize and plan a half-day preconference session for PLA 2020. The focus this training opportunity was to help libraries learn how to engage library leadership in the importance of Family Engagement as a new and regular part of library programming endeavors. The diversity of panel speakers from size of library to gender and ethnicity was of the speakers was in alignment with PLA's vision. The committee moved away from speakers we see at every conference in an effort to keep the information fresh and engage those who may not have been active previously.
Meets PLA’s strategic goals for Advocacy and Awareness, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Social Justice, Leadership

Second Activity
The second activity that took the bulk of the committee's time and effort was the planning and fine-tuning of the subscription webinar Family Engagement learning series. Based on the PLAâs Family Engagement Framework, this new professional development activity will enable public library professionals to expand and refine their current family engagement programming and strategies. This subscription plan will consist of eight highly interactive virtual classroom sessions. Each one-hour session will be led by experienced facilitators from the PLA Family Engagement Task Force and other experts. Participants will also engage in small-group work and facilitated discussions with their peers.

In addition to the online classroom sessions, participants will receive access to a closed ALA Connect group through which they may network with their peers and interact with session facilitators outside of class time. Access to this page, which includes exercises, session recordings, and other resources, will be given for a one-year period to all paid registrants.
Meets PLA’s strategic goals for Leadership, Organizational Excellence, Transformation

Third Activity
The PLA Family Engagement Task Force Partnered with Zero to Three to present a webinar. The webinar was titled Public Libraries: Vital Partners in Family Engagement.
Public libraries are accessible, offering diverse, intergenerational programming and serving families from low income homes at a high rate compared to other community providers. This session will enlighten new and experienced early childhood program staff, parents and others about the potential of public libraries and how they can collaborate with local public libraries as learning spaces and extend their own impact to engage families.
Meets PLA’s strategic goals for Advocacy and Awareness, Leadership, Organizational Excellence, Transformation

Fourth Activity
FE Task Force partnered with the National Center for Families Learning to present two sessions at their national conference, November 4-6 in Louisville, KY.
The first session was a webcast focused on ideas to engage families of diverse community groups and how libraries and public institutions can remove barriers to library access. It stressed that families are more likely to become engaged in their childrenâs learning when school and library staff reach out to them. This webcast was in partnership with the PLA and was sponsored by Better World Books.
The second session was a workforce development and family engagement session presented by Scott Allen (PLA), Ashley J. Brown (co-chair FE Task Force), and Gale (Baltimore Public Library). This session had over 50 attendees from the NCFL conference.
Meets PLA’s strategic goals for Advocacy and Awareness, Organizational Excellence, Transformation

Fifth Activity
The FE Task Force worked with Katie Campana, PhD, Assistant Professor in the School of Information at Kent State University to provide feedback and comments their white paper for PLA. While the library field has made good progress with encouraging computational thinking for older children and teens, it has not made as much progress with incorporating computational thinking into programs and services for young children and their families. The goal of the paper is to help library staff working with young children and families see the importance of computational thinking so they will hopefully start exploring how to incorporate and encourage it in their own programs. The paper provides a basic overview of computational thinking, why it is important for young children and their families, and a few examples of how it can be incorporated into library programs. The Task Force assisted with providing real-time programs currently taking place in libraries.
Meets PLA’s strategic goals for Advocacy and Awareness, Organizational Excellence, Transformation

What will your group be working on for the next six months?
The FE Task Force will support and help implement a recent IMLS grant awarded to PLA and NCFL, âExploring a Program Co-design Approach to Better Serve and Engage Low-income, Latinx Communities.â The Task Force assist with the partner libraries who will develop and document methods for how library staff can support authentic Latinx parent participation in family engagement. This will engage parents in creating services designed for them in three (urban, suburban, and rural) locations. The intent is to generate strategies and practices for authentic parent participation and identify approaches and best practices that can be piloted on a national scale. The Task Force will also evaluate and refine the subscription webinar learning sessions and create a timeline for the next series to begin.

Does the group have any policy recommendations, ideas with financial impact, or other items to bring to the PLA Board for discussion or action
None at this time.

Do you have any suggestions for future products or resources (excluding conference programs) to be developed based on your group’s work?
We would like to see more programming at conference that highlights partnerships between libraries and the private sector that promote family engagement. Now more than ever we are creating and implementing programs to be done at home by the whole family unit in a way that we have never experienced before.

Are there other PLA/ALA committees your group might collaborate with to benefit the work of all?
We absolutely see the FE Task Force benefiting from connecting and working with the Leadership Development Committee as changes in programming structure must come down from the top of the hierarchy to be successful. We also see advantages to working with AASL, ALSC and YALSA to engage libraries who are solely focused on children and teens to recognize and expand on the value of programs that are multi-generational.

Have there been any issues related to meeting participation/attendance for any of the group’s members?
No

Is there anything PLA could have provided during this time that would have helped your group with its work?
Scott Allen and Symone Villasenor have been essential in us being successful. We would like to thank them for their continued support and for always being patient with us. They listened, responded and helped us create a successful new learning environment to educate and promote family engagement services to a broader audience and promote awareness of the importance of adult services and children's services working side-by-side. The committee could not have been better supported and we look forward to continuing this work with Scott and Symone.

Submitted by Jo Giudice on 08/31/2020

August 5, 2020

Continuing Education Advisory Group – April–August 2020 Report

The group met 0 times this reporting period.

Recent Activities

First Activity
The group review existing webinars for relevance and recommended webinars for updating or removal from the archive.
Meets PLA’s strategic goals for Advocacy and Awareness, Transformation

Second Activity
The group promoted the call for webinar proposals through their local activities and experiences.
Meets PLA’s strategic goals for Advocacy and Awareness, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Social Justice

Third Activity
The group reviewed and scored submitted webinars using the provided rubric in order to recommend webinars of high quality that also focus on the core values highlighted in the PLA Strategic Plan.
Meets PLA’s strategic goals for Advocacy and Awareness, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Social Justice, Leadership, Organizational Excellence, Transformation

What will your group be working on for the next six months?
The Continuing Education Advisory Group will be working on promoting the next webinar submission process and then reviewing the submissions for recommendations.

Does the group have any policy recommendations, ideas with financial impact, or other items to bring to the PLA Board for discussion or action
Not at this time.

Do you have any suggestions for future products or resources (excluding conference programs) to be developed based on your group’s work?
Not at this time.

Are there other PLA/ALA committees your group might collaborate with to benefit the work of all?
Not that we can think of.

Have there been any issues related to meeting participation/attendance for any of the group’s members?
No

Is there anything PLA could have provided during this time that would have helped your group with its work?
We worked through COVID which while a strange time, I found the group way more engaged and available. My theory is the group was looking forward to inspiration and escape provided in the proposals.

Submitted by Sarah Tansley on 08/05/2020

March 18, 2020

Task Force on Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Social Justice – September–March 2020 Report

The group met 7-10 times this reporting period.

Recent Activities

First Activity
Presented three regional trainings across the country. The trainings were continuously updated.

Additionally, task force members planned six regional trainings for 2020.
Meets PLA’s strategic goals for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Social Justice, Leadership, Transformation

Second Activity
Task force members were organized into subcommittees to support work including regional training, creating content, and writing articles for library publications.
Meets PLA’s strategic goals for Advocacy and Awareness, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Social Justice

Third Activity
Wrote first article in Public Libraries series and planned subsequent monthly articles.
Meets PLA’s strategic goals for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Social Justice

Fourth Activity
Appointing member to joint PLA/ACRL/ODLOS/ARL Building Cultural Proficiencies for Racial Equity Framework which kicked off in February
Meets PLA’s strategic goals for Advocacy and Awareness, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Social Justice

Fifth Activity
Developing webinar that focuses on building capacity around EDISJ by learning to use the GARE Racial Equity Tool.
Meets PLA’s strategic goals for Advocacy and Awareness, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Social Justice, Leadership

What will your group be working on for the next six months?
Finalizing training content, promoting trainings, looking at other training delivery models, and writing PL articles, developing digital content for PL Online.

Does the group have any policy recommendations, ideas with financial impact, or other items to bring to the PLA Board for discussion or action
Not at this time.

Do you have any suggestions for future products or resources (excluding conference programs) to be developed based on your group’s work?
Stretch goal discussion topics have included: collaboration with progressive journalists, collating and promoting evaluation strategies for library EDISJ efforts; convening library directors specifically; starting to work with library schools, providing additional webinars to continue learning for regional training attendees.

Are there other PLA/ALA committees your group might collaborate with to benefit the work of all?
ALA ODLOS Advisory Committee, BCALA, ALA Council Committee on Diversity,.

Have there been any issues related to meeting participation/attendance for any of the group’s members?
Yes (if yes, PLA will contact you for more information)

Is there anything PLA could have provided during this time that would have helped your group with its work?
It was challenging to have four committees meeting in the same room. Additionally, the committee meeting time conflicted with the PLA Board meeting.

Submitted by Lois Langer Thompson and Christina Fuller-Gregory on 03/18/2020

March 17, 2020

Measurement, Evaluation and Assessment Committee – September–March 2020 Report

The group met 4-6 times this reporting period.

Recent Activities

First Activity
With the PLDS on pause, the MEAC focused much of their work during this reporting period on determining its future. The committee hosted three town halls (one in-person at the ARSL conference and two virtual) for the field to provide feedback about their data needs. In addition, feedback was solicited from current PLAmetrics subscribers. Based on this feedback, as well as other factors including low usage of PLAmetrics, the committee voted to sunset the PLDS and develop other initiatives to better meet the needs of the field.
Meets PLA’s strategic goals for Organizational Excellence, Transformation

Second Activity
The committee formed five subgroups to work on current priorities:

1) Future of the PLDS – subgroup reviewed the feedback from the town halls and PLAmetrics subscriber list
2) Project Outcome Case Studies – subgroup discussed surveying PO users
3) Tech Survey – subgroup reviewed drafts of the survey
4) Typologies – subgroup discussed strategies for developing the typologies
5) Elevating existing public library datasets and tools – subgroup discussed strategies for raising awareness about datasets and tools including the ALA Salary Survey, Project Outcome, RIPL, etc.
Meets PLA’s strategic goals for Organizational Excellence, Transformation

What will your group be working on for the next six months?
The group will a) review the results of the Tech Survey and the Typologies and determine strategies for promotion; and b) determine next steps with the Project Outcome case studies and efforts to raise awareness of existing public library datasets and tools, including the possible development of a webpage to promote these efforts.

Does the group have any policy recommendations, ideas with financial impact, or other items to bring to the PLA Board for discussion or action
We seek approval on the decision to sunset the PLDS.

Do you have any suggestions for future products or resources (excluding conference programs) to be developed based on your group’s work?
Not at this time.

Are there other PLA/ALA committees your group might collaborate with to benefit the work of all?
Not at this time.

Have there been any issues related to meeting participation/attendance for any of the group’s members?
No

Is there anything PLA could have provided during this time that would have helped your group with its work?
Not at this time. PLA has been very supportive – thank you!

Submitted by Linda Hofschire on 03/17/2020

March 15, 2020

PLA 2020 Conference Program Subcommittee – September–March 2020 Report

The group met 1 time this reporting period.

Recent Activities

First Activity
In September 2019, the Conference Program Subcommittee was tasked with reviewing 10 programs (among the final slate of 120 approved programs) to anticipate those with high appeal. Each subcommittee member was assigned 10 programs to rank on a 3-point scale to indicate, high, medium, or lower/specialized interest. Based on the feedback from the subcommittee, PLA staff was able to prepare a comprehensive session preference survey for all attendees in October 2019.
Meets PLA’s strategic goals for Organizational Excellence

Second Activity
Conference Program Subcommittee members met on Monday, February 24th at the Music City Center (Nashville, TN) to tour the facility and discuss tips for staffing the PLA 2020 Help Desk throughout the conference. Conference Program Subcommittee members staffed approximately 20 Help Desk shifts throughout the conference, asking questions for attendees and providing guidance.
Meets PLA’s strategic goals for Leadership, Organizational Excellence

Third Activity
As Chair of the Conference Program Subcommittee, Juliane Morian, was requested to speak at a morning session with visiting AfLIA librarians on Wednesday, February 26th, to discuss PLA's approach to delivering high-quality educational sessions at a national-level conference. Topics included how to recruit quality program submissions, rank proposals, and curate 100+ final selections.
Meets PLA’s strategic goals for Leadership, Organizational Excellence, Transformation

What will your group be working on for the next six months?
At this point, the Conference Program Subcommittee has fulfilled its charge and has no remaining tasks.

Does the group have any policy recommendations, ideas with financial impact, or other items to bring to the PLA Board for discussion or action
No at this time; if we do engage in a debrief and reflection, we will pass along any insights.

Do you have any suggestions for future products or resources (excluding conference programs) to be developed based on your group’s work?
No suggestions at this time.

Are there other PLA/ALA committees your group might collaborate with to benefit the work of all?
I would recommend continued collaborations between the Conference Program Subcommittee and the EDISJ task force. For the 2020 PLA Conference, we utilized input from the task force to improve the submission form in the pursuit of speakers and topics that advanced the greater themes of equity, diversity, inclusion and social justice.

Have there been any issues related to meeting participation/attendance for any of the group’s members?
No

Is there anything PLA could have provided during this time that would have helped your group with its work?
No, our PLA staff liaison, Angela Maycock was very supportive and instrumental in the success of the Conference Program Subcommittee.

Submitted by Juliane Morian on 03/15/2020

February 24, 2020

Digital Literacy Committee – September–March 2020 Report

The group met 4-6 times this reporting period.

Recent Activities

First Activity
Delivered session at ARSL Conference.
Meets PLA’s strategic goals for Advocacy and Awareness, Leadership, Transformation

Second Activity
Delivered half-day pre-conference session at PLA Conference.
Meets PLA’s strategic goals for Advocacy and Awareness, Leadership, Transformation

Third Activity
Presented work of committee and PLA at various conferences and on webinars.
Meets PLA’s strategic goals for Advocacy and Awareness, Leadership, Transformation

Fourth Activity
Committee members contacted state and local congressional leaders to oppose MacMillan Publishingâs eBook embargo.
Meets PLA’s strategic goals for Advocacy and Awareness, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Social Justice, Transformation

Fifth Activity
Continue to work with Microsoft and Google to expand our existing partnerships.
Meets PLA’s strategic goals for Organizational Excellence

What will your group be working on for the next six months?
Creating a plan to update the online courses in DigitalLearn.org

Does the group have any policy recommendations, ideas with financial impact, or other items to bring to the PLA Board for discussion or action
A digital services internship with PLA would be wonderful. Our idea is to work with the ALA accredited library schools to create a âvirtualâ internship where students could get course credit for helping to vet, update, and manage content on DigitalLearn.org. This could include both the eLearning modules as well as the instructor materials.

Create a DigitalLearn.org Technology Competency learning and evaluation module to add to the Tools for Trainers site for library staffersâ to be able to acquire and test technology competencies.

Do you have any suggestions for future products or resources (excluding conference programs) to be developed based on your group’s work?
See above.

Are there other PLA/ALA committees your group might collaborate with to benefit the work of all?
LITA

Have there been any issues related to meeting participation/attendance for any of the group’s members?
No

Is there anything PLA could have provided during this time that would have helped your group with its work?
No.

Submitted by Monica Dombrowski on 02/24/2020

September 3, 2019

Technology Committee – September–March 2019 Report

The group met 1 time this reporting period.

Recent Activities

First Activity
PLA technology committee met at ALA 2019 midwinter in Seattle as well as at ALA Annual 2019 in Washington, D.C. During the meeting at MW the committee decided to sponsor a presentation at Annual 19 about Code for America and the Public Library. Chair Henry Bankhead and Anastasia Diamond-Ortiz submitted a proposal entitled "Code for America and Your Public Library: How to Harness the Awesome Power of the Collective Will Using Open Data" that was accepted. https://www.eventscribe.com/2019/ALA-Annual/fsPopup.asp?Mode=presInfo&PresentationID=496228. The committee had a lengthy discussion on https://connect.ala.org/pla/ to organize and support the presentation.
Meets PLA’s strategic goals for Transformation

Second Activity
We are planning a program on Privacy issues for the 2020 ALA Annual conference. Anastasia Diamond-Ortiz and a number of other committee members are collaborating on https://connect.ala.org/pla/communities/community-home to organize a presentation, recruit speaker and submit a conference proposal.
Meets PLA’s strategic goals for Advocacy and Awareness

What will your group be working on for the next six months?
Conference proposal for ALA Annual 2020 and planning for meeting before PLA conference 2020.

Does the group have any policy recommendations, ideas with financial impact, or other items to bring to the PLA Board for discussion or action
no

Do you have any suggestions for future products or resources (excluding conference programs) to be developed based on your group’s work?
program on Privacy and the Public Library

Are there other PLA/ALA committees your group might collaborate with to benefit the work of all?
no

Have there been any issues related to meeting participation/attendance for any of the group’s members?
No

Is there anything PLA could have provided during this time that would have helped your group with its work?
Steve Hoffman's assistance is priceless.

Submitted by Henry Miller Bankhead on 09/03/2019