Tag Archives: Library

Indiana Library Leadership Academy project recap

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The Professional Development Office of the Indiana State Library conducted the Indiana Library Leadership Academy in the spring and summer of 2021 after postponing it from its original date in 2020. One of the aspects of involvement in INLLA is the completion of a project by participants that will enrich their library and community. Sadie Borkowski, branch manager at the Tutt Branch of the St. Joseph County Public Library, shared the following write-up at the conclusion of her INLLA project. It illustrates the amazing ways that INLLA participants contribute to their libraries and communities after completing the program:

The Tutt Branch of the St. Joseph County Public Library is located on the Southeast side of South Bend and serves residents who find themselves on the other side of the digital divide. The average household income of our neighborhood residents is around $38,000 and the area has some of the lowest graduation rates in the city. There are very few after school tutoring programs available. The few free options that were available before COVID were on the other side of the city, making transportation an issue for the neighborhood youth. Our library chose to focus on an afterschool tutoring program to help bridge the educational gap for our neighborhood youth. We had initially planned to host it at our library, but when COVID caused us to shut down temporarily, it put a hold on our project. Since our library would be cautious about slowly reopening in stages, we were unable to do programming inside of our building due to a lack of space when social distancing was a high priority. As the schools changed to e-learning only, the students found themselves at an even greater disadvantage due to a lack of internet access. The school offered Wi-Fi hotspots on roving school buses that would park around the city at very limited times, but transportation issues and inclement weather made using these outdoor parking lot spots ineffective for our students who were trying to keep up. The need for our program was growing and we had to get creative to meet the needs of our community.

With every crisis comes opportunity. A local nonprofit mentoring group called Free Your Wings approached my library asking to do a mask giveaway pop-up program outdoors in our library parking lot. We were able to develop a great partnership with this nonprofit and included them in our discussions about ways to help bring tutoring services to our neighborhood youth.

Aja Ellington, who founded the organization with her daughter and son, turned out to be just the missing component we needed to make the tutoring program work. She approached me about the need for tutoring and we mentioned the issues we were having, with a lack of space being our stumbling block. She was also interning at a local church we worked with called Christian Broadway Parish, just a few blocks away from our library. She brought up the idea that they had a considerable amount of space at the church. We approached pastor Carl Hetler with the program idea and he was excited to get involved. Students from elementary through high school seniors came for the weekly program. It was really heartwarming to see all the neighborhood volunteers, including some of our librarians and local teachers help with hands-on tutoring so students did not have to fall even further behind and repeat the year.

For students who needed help with advanced subjects – but were unable to come on the days the tutoring was offered or needed bilingual services to help with their tutoring experience – the library was able to supplement the program with our online tutoring service called Brainfuse. It was a service the library paid for, and I would highly recommend it to any public libraries wanting to offer tutoring services to their community. We gave out handouts with step-by-step instructions on how to use the service both at the church site and as handouts at the library. It was also useful to have the one-on-one online tutoring service available if we had an overflow of students coming in. Since our library had donated extra computers to the church just a few months earlier, it gave us additional workstations for the students who didn’t have the equipment or were waiting for their laptops to get fixed so that no one fell behind. It was great to see the donated computers in action.

Broadway Christian Parish ended up being the perfect space, not only due to having socially distanced workstations, but because of their full working kitchen and cafeteria in the basement that they used to serve community members in need with their free breakfast program. Aja was able to use her connections in the community to get local restaurant owners to donate time and materials to prepare evening meals for students, which was a big draw to bring in the demographic we were hoping to serve since they were able to enjoy a free dinner after we worked on their assignments for the day. This meant more parents were willing to drop off their kids to the church as they got home from work, and we saw a much higher rate of attendance than what we would have anticipated just having it at the library alone. It was really the best way to have bad luck.

The weekly program series also gave the kids who were isolated during e-learning a chance to reconnect with old friends and make new ones. I hadn’t really considered how important that social element was to learning before seeing it in action. As the program series ended, we were able to have an outdoor neighborhood gaming event at the church for students to enjoy playing Nerf games with our library programming equipment. When COVID began, it was hard not to feel isolated from the people we were trying to help. The program helped us reconnect with our neighborhood youth who needed us now more than ever. The most important lesson I learned was that libraries are a part of a larger community, and that there’s no shame in asking for help. In fact, when we work together with community partners we are able to create things even bigger and better than we had initially planned.

This blog post was submitted by Kara Cleveland, Professional Development Office supervisor at the Indiana State Library, on behalf of Sadie Borkowski, branch manager at the Tutt Branch of the St. Joseph County Public Library. 

Save the date – 2022 online learning, conferences and webinar opportunities

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The Professional Development Office at the Indiana State Library is in the process of developing our 2022 webinar offerings. The What’s Up Wednesday webinar training series will continue to be held on the last Wednesday of each month. Additionally, the What’s Up Wednesday – Get INSPIRED webinar series will be held on the second Wednesday of each month.

Many of our webinar topics are still in the process of being scheduled and will be noted with TBD. Some of the topics that are in development include – onboarding and offboarding staff, going through a disaster at your library, website accessibility and cybersecurity at the library. Be sure to check back on the Indiana State Library calendar for updates and registration links.

Additional training can be found on the Indiana State Library’s website on these pages:
Monthly Upcoming Free Training list
Indiana State Library Continuing Education Toolkit
Evergreen Indiana Training calendar
Indiana State Library’s Online Training

Below, you will find dates for the Indiana State Library’s training and professional development events as well as notable national conferences.

January 2022

February 2022

  • Feb. 3 – “In Conversation with the Little Free Library Organization”
  • Feb. 9 - ”What’s Up Wednesday – Get INSPIRED” with EBSCO trainer Lisa Jones
  • Feb. 23 - What’s Up Wednesday (TBD)
  • Feb. 25 – Big Talk from Small Libraries

March 2022

  • March 9 - “What’s Up Wednesday – Get INSPIRED: Health and Medicine Databases”
  • March 16 – Indiana 211 & Libraries
  • March 23-25 – Public Library Association Conference – Portland, Oregon
  • March 30 – What’s Up Wednesday (TBD)

April 2022

  • April 13 - “What’s Up Wednesday – Get INSPIRED” with EBSCO trainer Lisa Jones
  • April 27 - What’s Up Wednesday (TBD)

May 2022

  • May 11 - What’s Up Wednesday – Get INSPIRED
  • May 25 - “What’s Up Wednesday: Library Reads and Your Library”

June 2022

  • June 8 - “What’s Up Wednesday – Get INSPIRED: I See a Library! Making Libraries More Accessible to the Visually Impaired”
  • June 23-28 – American Library Association Annual Conference & Exhibition – Washington, DC
  • June 29 - “What’s Up Wednesday: NetGalley for Libraries: Live Demo and Overview”

July 2022

  • July 13 – What’s Up Wednesday – Get INSPIRED
  • July 27 - What’s Up Wednesday (TBD)

August 2022

September 2022

  • Sept. 14 - What’s Up Wednesday – Get INSPIRED
  • Sept. 14-17 – ARSL – Association for Rural & Small Libraries – Chattanooga, Tennessee
  • Sept. 23 - The DIY – Difference is You Conference
  • Sept. 28 - What’s Up Wednesday (TBD)

October 2022

  • Oct. 12 - What’s Up Wednesday – Get INSPIRED
  • Oct. 26 - What’s Up Wednesday (TBD)

November 2022

December 2022

Happy Holidays from the Professional Development Office!

This post was written by Northeast regional coordinator Paula Newcom, Professional Development Office.

New changes regarding the administration of Indiana librarian certification

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Indiana law has required some form of librarian certification program for many years. The belief is that individuals who go to libraries for assistance should receive quality guidance and information. The way to assure this is to require some basic minimum requirements for Indiana librarians.

The Indiana State Library administers the librarian certification program for Indiana and has historically relied on technology and software provided by the Professional Licensing Agency to make this happen. For the past 13 years, the State Library has contracted with the Professional Licensing Agency to provide a number of services including maintaining our database of certified librarians, processing online renewals, and mailing out renewal reminders, audit notices, and certificates for us. As of July 1, 2021, the State Library moved all of those functions in-house.

Our new system is designed specifically for Indiana librarian certification. Since it no longer needs to meet the demands of many different state agencies, each with different requirements, our new certification portal is simpler, more streamlined, and we think it is more intuitive. Currently, the new portal only replaces the functions that the Professional Licensing Agency had been performing for us, but over the long term we expect to expand the number of services and payments that can be handled online.

Things that have changed with the new portal:

  • We are using a different credit card service to process online payments. The new service charges lower fees and those savings are passed on to the librarians so they spend less on their transactions than before.
  • Correspondence with certified librarians now takes place almost entirely by email. In the past most of our communications have been printed and sent by the Professional Licensing Agency using the U.S. Postal Service. Renewal reminders and random audit notices are now sent by email.
  • In the new portal, librarians are able to print out a digital permit or certificate as soon as it has been approved.
  • Because our new certification portal has been designed in house, it bears some similarity to other services administered by the State Library, such as InfoExpress or Indiana Legacy. We think this makes the portal easier to learn and more intuitive to use.
  • The State Library never asks for librarian Social Security numbers or birth dates. However, recent changes to the login screen for the Professional Licensing Agency’s system made it seem like we were asking for that information from librarians as an option for logging into their account. That will never happen in our new portal.
  • The public look up page for librarians will also take place through the new certification portal.
  • Librarians will no longer be required to create an Access Indiana account to log into their record.
  • The State Library is able to troubleshoot all technical issues in house which leads to faster resolution in the event an issue arises.

The State Library is very excited about the new librarian certification portal. It is an exciting new tool to help us provide services to librarians who are certified, those who wish to become certified and the public who may wish to look up a librarian to verify certification. For more information about the certification portal or certification for Indiana librarians, click here. You can check out the new certification portal itself by clicking here.

This blog post was written by Sylvia Watson, library law consultant and legal counsel, Indiana State Library.

Who’s in charge? Public library boards in Indiana

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Public board meetings have been all over the news lately, and public libraries haven’t been exempt. Even a seemingly quiet place like a library can be subject to unpopular decisions and conflict daily, frustrating both staff and patrons. A well-functioning library board is an essential component of an effective and welcoming library, and there are a number of laws that help ensure a library has one.

So how do public library boards work in Indiana and what are their responsibilities? Nearly all of the 236 public libraries in Indiana are governed by a seven-member board of trustees. These trustees gather monthly, in person or electronically, to meet with the library’s director and assist them in leading the library, to propose and evaluate library policies, to monitor the library’s progress on its strategic plan and to approve expenditures in accordance with the library budget.

In Indiana, public library trustees are not elected, but instead appointed, by local elected officials which may include representatives from their local county and school corporation. Trustees serve four-year terms which may be renewed for up to four consecutive terms, or 16 years total. There are some exceptions where trustees may serve even longer than that (e.g., if a trustee had joined by filling in for a vacant partial term, or if a diligent search of a small community did not produce a new qualified candidate). Trustees receive no compensation for their service.

Public library trustees are community members of the library they serve. In fact, trustees are required to have resided in the service area of the library they will serve for at least two years immediately before becoming a trustee. Ideally, public library trustees should be library users themselves. They should be advocates for the library in the community. They should be lifelong learners and willing to seek professional development opportunities to hone their skills as a trustee. Most importantly, they should always make decisions with the community’s needs in mind. All public library trustees are required to take an oath of office before serving.

Per the Indiana Open Door law, public library board meetings are open to the public to attend. Whether or not public comment is on the agenda is determined locally by the policies of each library board. There are rare occasions that a board may hold an executive – or private – session, in which case they are required to post a meeting notice stating the reason for meeting in private. Boards are not allowed to vote or take final action in an executive session.

The Indiana State Library provides support for Indiana public library trustees in the form of consultations, trainings  – recorded, virtual or live – and even a trustee manual, recently updated for 2021. We are also happy to connect library patrons with their local library board if needed. We usually recommend that anyone with a board concern try to reach out to the library’s director first. If they would still like to contact the board, they can send correspondence care of the library or attend a public meeting.

If you are interested in serving as a trustee at your Indiana public library, you may contact the library board or the various appointing authorities in your service area to let them know you are interested in serving should a vacancy arise. Even then, the appointing authorities have the final decision on selection. Additionally, the appointing authorities are the only individuals with the power to remove a board member should the need ever arise.

To read the Indiana Code related to library board duties and composition, click here.

This post was written by Jen Clifton, Library Development Office.

Duplication on Demand transition complete!

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In March, the Indiana Talking Book and Braille Library completed the transition of its service model from sending patrons one book on one cartridge to Duplication on Demand, which sends patrons up to ten books per cartridge based on their requests and subject preferences. The same player and cartridge are used as before. Each cartridge includes a mailing card that lists its contents. Patrons should not attempt to return this card with the cartridge, but instead discard it or keep it for their records. There is an address sticker on each cartridge that ensures its return to the library.

There are many benefits to this change for both staff and patrons. Staff can duplicate up to 20 cartridges at a time. The number of physical items circulating through the library has decreased, allowing mail to be processed more efficiently. Patrons now have access to newly-published books more quickly, and there are no wait lists for popular titles. Cartridges can be easily customized for patrons wanting a series of books, or several books by the same author. Thousands of older titles that previously had to be ordered from offsite are now available immediately. All the Indiana Voices titles are also available through Duplication on Demand.

To access the titles on DoD cartridges patrons can either use the player’s bookshelf mode or the sequential play feature. Sequential play will play books in the order they have been loaded on the cartridge, while bookshelf mode lets the patron pick what book they want to listen to.

To use the sequential play feature, patrons put the cartridge in and listen to the first book as usual. At the end of the book, closing announcements will play; when they are finished a voice will say “end of book, press play/stop to go to the next book”. Patrons press the play/stop button and the next book on the cartridge will begin playing. They can repeat this step until all the books have played

To use bookshelf mode, patrons turn the player on and put the cartridge in. Next, they hold down the green “play/stop” button for ten seconds, or until the player beeps and says, “bookshelf mode.” Once in bookshelf mode, they use the fast forward and rewind buttons to scroll through the books or magazines recorded on the cartridge. After reaching the desired title, they press the green play/stop button again and it will start to play.

Any patron having any difficulties with Duplication on Demand should contact the Talking Book and Braille Library via email or at 1-800-622-4970.

This blog post was written by Laura Williams, Indiana Talking Book and Braille Library supervisor. 

Explore the Talking Book catalog

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The Talking Book catalog has a fresh new look and some fun new features for patrons to check out.
First, when you pull up the catalog you will be greeted by a new menu screen. This screen is easy to navigate and gives you the options Search, Browse, Quick Request and My Account. There is also a login button in the upper right corner.

Search
The search feature of the catalog has been redesigned to be more user friendly. You can now type what you are looking for into the query box and it will search the whole catalog for results rather than you having to select which field to search. Once you have your search results, you can easily use the options on the left hand side to refine your results by selecting the medium you are looking for (e.g., Digital Talking Book), the availability of the book or one of the other listed options. If you find a book you want, you can select it and add it to your book basket. Then follow the prompts to the check out.

Browse
Browse is a new feature in the catalog which will allow patrons to browse books in four categories: recent titles, popular titles, staff picks and Indiana Voices. This is a good option for someone who does not have a particular book in mind but is just curious about what is available.

Quick Request
Quick request can be used for patrons who have the exact book numbers for the books they want. Book numbers can be entered into the quick request box in the following format DB100054, with one book number on each line. When you have entered all of your book numbers, use the quick request button below the box to proceed to the checkout.

My Account
On the My Account page, patrons can see information related to their Talking Book service. Information about books they have checked out now, items they have on request, and items they have had in the past can be found on this page. Patrons can also review their reading preferences, which is the information the library uses to select books to send, on this page.

Patrons who would like to utilize the online catalog can call the library at 1-800-622-4970 for their username and password.

This blog post was written by Maggie Ansty of the Indiana Talking Book and Braille Library.

Library trustee resources

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Maybe you were just appointed to a library board for the first time, or maybe you have been serving as a trustee for 12 years and could do with a little refresher – whatever the case may be, we’ve got you covered at the Library Development Office!

On our Library Trustee page, you can find a copy of the statewide library trustee manual, titled IN the Public Trust. There is a copy of the Certificate of Appointment that is filled out by the Appointing Authority at the beginning of every trustee term and Conflict of Interest Disclosure Statement if it is every needed in the course of your duties on the board. You can find a template for board bylaws if you’re reviewing or updating your bylaws, which is required every three years by law. We also have links to the internal controls training required by the State Board of Accounts, which has to be completed by every board member just once. It can also be found on their website under Internal Control Standards.

In addition to these resources, we provide library boards with in-person – and now virtual – training upon request, as our schedules allow. There are five presentations types we may bring to your library board: a general overview, the trustee-director relationship, required and suggested policies, library expansion into unserved areas and a review of the Open Door Law and Access to Public Records Act. These training sessions are not public meetings under the Open Door Law, so you don’t need to schedule them to be held at your regular board meetings and you don’t need to post notice. We do, however, encourage you to host other nearby libraries during these training sessions in order to make the most of everyone’s time.

There may be times when we are unable to give presentations or when you don’t want to schedule a training for just a couple of members. In this instance, we have archived versions of most of our trustee presentations available on our trustee page under Webinars.

Other than the internal controls training through SBOA, none of these trainings are required by state law, but many library boards find them helpful in carrying out their duties. To learn more about our trustee offerings or schedule trustee training, contact Hayley Trefun in the Library Development Office at the Indiana State Library at 317-232-1938 or via email.

This post was written by Hayley Trefun, public library consultant, Library Development Office, Indiana State Library.

Ways to fill your shelves without draining your budget

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About a month ago, the Indiana State Library hosted a webinar titled “Ways to Fill Your Shelves Without Draining Your Budget.” During the webinar, I shared a multitude of resources for librarians showing where they can obtain free books. The webinar is now archived on the Indiana State Library’s website and available for viewing at any time. In case you missed it, or if you would like to try out a few of the resources included in the webinar, here are a few highlights:

EarlyWord – The EarlyWord website is a great place to find contact information for publishing houses and their many imprints. As a librarian, you can request books early to review and/or preview for purchase. Once you find out the publisher of a book, EarlyWord is a great place to go to find out who to contact for a specific book. They have two lists: one for adult publishing contacts and one for children’s publishing contacts. Another great feature of EarlyWord is that you can sign up for librarian newsletters from the links provided and organized by publisher. Publisher’s newsletters most always have contests and giveaways for free books for librarians.

Bookish First – On Bookish First, there are a few featured books each month that you can read an excerpt from and provide a quick first impression. For each of impression you write, you get points. You are also entered to win physical copies of each book you write the first impression for as well. Then, if you review books on their website, share your review to Amazon, Goodreads, or your blog if you have one, you can receive even more points. Once you have 2,000 points, you can choose a free book to be mailed to you. It’s free to signup, and when you do, you automatically get 500 bonus points to get you started.

Early Audiobook Listening Copies – There are two places I check each month to get complimentary early audiobook listening copies, known as ALCs, specifically for librarians. These are LibroFM and the Volumes app. Both are free to sign up. With LibroFM, librarians and educators can download three free audiobooks each month from their selection, which is updated monthly. For the Volumes app, you’ll have to download the app and then signup on the link provided above. Then you can download free audiobooks each month to review. They are yours to keep after downloading.

If you would like to view the full webinar – and see even more resources for receiving free books – you can access it on our Archived Webinars page, or directly via the link shared above. Don’t hesitate to contact me via email if you have any questions regarding these resources.

Submitted by Laura Jones, Northwest regional coordinator, Indiana State Library.

Duplication on Demand – coming soon to Talking Books!

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This summer, the Indiana Talking Book and Braille Library will be changing its service model from the current practice of sending patrons one book on one cartridge to Duplication on Demand, which will involve cartridges customized specifically for you with multiple books on each one. The new service will involve the same player and cartridges that we are currently using, but the cartridges will have more books on each one. Your cartridges will continue to come in the same type of container, but the mail card will be foldable and will contain a list of books on the cartridge. When you are ready to return a cartridge, you can throw away the mail card and book list; there is an address sticker on each container that will get your book back to us.

There are many benefits to this change. Currently, our audiobook collection contains thousands of older titles that are only available to download from BARD; these books will now be as readily available to you as new books are. In addition, you’ll now have access to new books faster and will never have to be on a wait list for a popular title. If patrons return their cartridges as they finish them, this will also help with slower mail times.

To access the titles on your DoD cartridges you can either use the player’s bookshelf mode or the sequential play feature. There are instructions for both options below.

While we were initially scheduled to make this transition in April, we now expect it to be delayed a month or two. Please contact us at 1-800-622-4970 if you would like to be among the first patrons to try it.

Sequential Play and Bookshelf
When you have a cartridge with multiple books on it, there are two ways to access the books: sequential play and bookshelf mode. Sequential play will play your books in the order they have been loaded on the cartridge, bookshelf mode lets you pick what book you want to listen to. To use sequential play, you will need to have the latest version of software for your player; it will install automatically when you play your first DoD cartridge. Or you can install it now by downloading it directly from NLS.

To use the sequential play feature, you put your cartridge in and listen to the first book as usual. At the end of the book, let the closing announcements play; when they are finished a voice will say “end of book, press play/stop to go to the next book”. Press the play/stop button and the next book on the cartridge will begin playing. Repeat this step until you have listened to all of the books.

To use bookshelf, turn your player on and put the cartridge in. Next, hold down the green “play/stop” button for ten seconds, or until your player beeps and says “bookshelf mode.” Once in bookshelf mode, you can use the fast forward and rewind buttons to scroll through the books or magazines recorded on the cartridge. When you have located the item you wish to read, press the green play/stop button again and it will start to play. Repeat the process for each item on the cartridge.

This blog post was written by Maggie Ansty of the Indiana Talking Book and Braille Library. 

EBSCO expands database content available via INSPIRE until June

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Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, EBSCO has graciously decided to expand database content available via INSPIRE until the end of June. This includes upgrades from Academic Search Premier to Academic Search Ultimate, with over 9,200 active full-text journals and magazine articles; from Business Source Complete to Business Source Ultimate, with over 3,200 active full-text journals and magazine articles; and from Masterfile Premier to Masterfile Complete. These upgrades are now live and may be accessed on INSPIRE. If you have questions or need assistance with any of the resources on INSPIRE, please contact us. Read EBSCO’s statement below:

“As the library community adjusts to the impact of the COVID-19 virus, EBSCO, as a key content provider and partner for INSPIRE, is looking to ensure end users have access to an expanded breadth of online content. Many college, university and K-12 students will be completing the current academic term in an entirely online format. To assist with this initiative, EBSCO has made the following offering available to all members of INSPIRE: Academic Search Ultimate, Business Source Ultimate and Masterfile Complete. This collection will bring thousands of additional full-text journal and magazine titles into each library’s collection.

Please let us know if you would like direct URLS for your libraries to access the new content.”

Those with questions may contact Deborah LaPierre, senior academic account executive with EBSCO. EBSCO tech support can be reached at 800-758-5995.

EBSCO has also made available all levels of Rosetta Stone until June 30. Libraries interested in access to the expanded edition of Rosetta Stone should contact Leah Griffin, account executive at EBSCO. Library patrons should contact their local public library to inquire about availability.

The upgraded databases can found under the Databases A-Z link on the INSPIRE homepage.

This blog post was written by John Wekluk, communications director, Indiana State Library.