Cognotes 2018 Midwinter Meeting Denver December Preview - 13

DECEMBER PREVIEW

DENVER

COGNOTES

Advocate for Your Library with New Tools and Training
In response to anti-library trends, two ALA
offices have joined forces to train a future generation of advocacy leaders. Their initiative,
the Advocacy and Intellectual Freedom Bootcamp, has traveled to 11 chapter conferences
and reached 300-plus library leaders - now
it's coming to Denver.
The Advocacy and Intellectual Freedom
Bootcamp ticketed program at the ALA Midwinter Meeting, shows participants how to
rethink advocacy messaging and recruit local
leaders to revive the role of libraries in community dialogue. The workshop confronts
brutal facts about the current environment,
while offering proven strategies on how to
promote libraries as the fundamental building
blocks of democracy.
Initiated in 2016, the bootcamp was created by the ALA Office for Library Advocacy
and Office for Intellectual Freedom. With
the decline in library funding, school librarians, and minors' access rights, both offices
crafted the bootcamp's content to answer an
ever-leering question in headlines and articles:
"Who needs libraries?"
"This is a critical time for libraries," said
OLA Grassroots Specialist Megan Cusick.
"Bootcamp reinforces consistent messaging
and research-based strategies, firmly positioning libraries as a public good - and a public
necessity."
The workshop reviews intellectual freedom
basics and methods that cover messaging, networking, and community engagement. In one
segment of the bootcamp, OIF Director James

LaRue explains how to put
libraries at the forefront of
conversations with the art
of storytelling.
"Brain research has
confirmed what children's
librarians have long understood: Stories have
power," said LaRue. "To
change minds, to advocate for an investment in
libraries, we have to share
narratives of transformation."
Attendees will leave
the session with an arsenal of facts to support The Advocacy and Intellectual Freedom Bootcamp
their library's progress and shows participants how to rethink advocacy messaging.
achievable goals to reinvigorate their advocacy work at the individual,
organizational, and state level.
OLA and OIF also offer a follow-up session after the bootcamp for those interested
in training the next generation of library
leaders. "Recruit and Rally: Advocacy Training Institute" empowers intellectual freedom
Americans are constantly bombarded
fighters to train others with new methods with information related to their health, but
and resources, arming libraries with skillsets the messages they are receiving may not be
to meet today's challenges head-on.
understandable, reliable, or even credible.
"Advocacy and Intellectual Freedom Boot- Faced with confusing medical terminology,
camp" takes place Friday, February 9 from conflicting reports, and a constantly changing
8:00 - 11:30 a.m. Tickets are $25. "Recruit healthcare system, people are looking to their
and Rally: Advocacy Training Institute" takes local public libraries for guidance. Are you and
place on Friday, February 9 from 12:30 - 4:00 your staff prepared to help them?
p.m. Tickets are $25.
Join the Public Library Association (PLA)

Don't Miss the ODL&0 Preconference
Join the Office for DiverSocial Equity and Inclusion
sity, Literacy, and Outreach
and through her consultServices for a preconference
ing firm, Dena Samuels
on "Managing MicroaggresConsulting (www.Denasions" on Thursday, FebruSamuels.com), she provides
ary 8 from 8:30 a.m. -12:00
seminars and consultation
p.m. This session will conto schools, campuses, and
textualize and deconstruct
organizations nationally
microaggressions to uncover
and internationally on the
often-unintended conseprocesses of integrating
quences. Participants will Dena Samuels
diversity and building inconsider how to effectively
clusiveness. Having already
challenge microaggressions. Tickets are sold out its first run, and now in its second
$50 for members and $75 for non-mem- printing, Samuels' latest book, The Culbers. Register using event code ODL1. turally Inclusive Educator: Preparing for
The preconference will be facilitated by a Multicultural World (Teachers College
Dr. Dena R. Samuels, an Associate Pro- Press, 2014) offers transformative stratefessor in Women's and Ethnic Studies at gies for building cultural inclusiveness.
the University of Colorado - Colorado Samuels volunteers as co-facilitator of the
Springs (UCCS). As Director of UCCS' monthly Second Tuesday Race Forum of
Matrix Center for the Advancement of Denver.

The exterior of the Hamilton Building of the Denver Art Museum at sunset.
(Photo by Jeff Wells, courtesy VISIT DENVER)

Patrons with Health Questions?
PLA/NNLM Unconference
May Help Provide Answers

and the National Network of Libraries of
Medicine (NNLM) for a special Unconference event at the 2018 ALA Midwinter
Meeting. "Public Libraries Supporting the
Health and Wellness of Your Community"
will be held on Sunday, February 11 from
1:00 - 2:30 p.m.
Bring your questions to this discussion
group, and experts from NNLM and public
libraries will answer them. For the first portion
of this session, attendees will review and add

topics to create an agenda, and then break into
groups for deep-dive discussions on the most
pressing concerns.
Topics may include: finding reliable health
information; providing health and wellness
programs for your community; the health
reference interview; opioids and libraries; and
the health and wellness of library staff.
By participating in this program, you'll not
only leave with valuable information for your
library, but you'll help inform future efforts
of PLA and NNLM, who will incorporate
the issues you raise into future educational
initiatives.
This project has been funded in whole
or in part with Federal funds from the
National Library of Medicine, National
Institutes of Health, Department of Health
and Human Services, under Grant Number
1UG4LM012346-01 with The University
of Iowa.

Money Smart Week®: Help
Consumers of All Ages Improve
Their Financial Literacy
On Sunday, February 11, come learn
how your library can participate in
Money Smart Week®, held April 21 - 28,
2018. This presentation will be held from
1:00 -2:30 p.m. during the 2018 ALA
Midwinter Meeting.
For eight years, the American Library
Association has partnered with the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago to sponsor Money Smart Week®. This national
initiative between the two organizations
provides financial literacy programming
to help members of your community
better manage their personal finances.
Libraries of all types can and do participate in Money Smart Week®, providing
financial programming for all ages and
all stages of life. Financial topics range
from basic banking services, credit and
debt management, estate planning, going
green to save, healthy habits that save,

mortgages, identity theft, investment
scams, financial fraud, and insurance to
investing and wealth building, kids and
money, personal finance 101, preparing
for financial emergencies, retirement
planning, savvy shopping and bargain
hunting, small business and entrepreneurship, taxes, teens and money, and
unemployment and job transitioning,
and more.
In 2017, over 1000 public, academic,
school, prison, and other libraries in 50
states participated.

http://www.ala.org/advocacy/advocacy-bootcamp http://www.ala.org/advocacy/advocacy-bootcamp http://www.Denasamuels.com http://www.Denasamuels.com http://2018.alamidwinter.org/registration/register-now http://www.ala.org/offices/money-smart-week

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