Tag Archives: Library

Summer reading with the Talking Book and Braille Library

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Summer reading is in full swing at the Indiana Talking Book and Braille Library. This year’s theme is “Oceans of Possibilities.” All patrons of TBBL between the ages of 4 and 18 are eligible. The program runs from May 31-Aug. 5. Books are available to borrow from the library in braille, large print and digital audio formats; participants can also download digital audio books and braille files from BARD or use the BARD mobile app available from the iTunes app store, the Google Play store or the Amazon App Store.

Any book borrowed from the library within the time frame will count toward a participant’s total. Note that only books borrowed or downloaded from the library will count towards a reader’s total. Every reader will receive prizes!

We are sending out packets each week throughout the program that include prizes, activity sheets and crafts.

To enroll – or if you have questions about the program – please contact Abby Chumin via email or by phone at 317-232-3684 or 1-800-622-4970.

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

The Indiana Library Passport is here!

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The Indiana State Library is pleased to announce the launch of the Indiana Library Passport, a mobile passport that encourages everyone to visit libraries across the Hoosier state.

The passport is a free program, open to everyone. It showcases over 60 main libraries and branches to explore – including 31 historical Carnegie libraries – in an easy, mobile-friendly way.

In addition to 31 historical Carnegie libraries, the passport includes stops at the Allen County Public Library, which features the new Rolland Center for Lincoln Research; the South Whitley Community Public Library, which features the Shultz Gem Collection; the Bartholomew County Public Library, which features architectural design by I. M. Pei and the Large Arch statue by Henry Moore; and much more!

Patrons can visit a dedicated mobile passport landing page where they can sign-up for the Indiana Library Passport by providing their name, email address and mobile phone number. A link is then sent to their mobile phone, which opens the passport and directs the user to add the button icon to their home screen, where they can access it any time. There is never anything to download and no bulky apps take up space on a user’s phone.

When participants check in to libraries on the Indiana Library Passport trail, they will be entered into a quarterly drawing for a prize package, including, but not limited to, historical tour tickets, architecture books and gift cards from local and national merchants. Once users sign up for the passport, they only need to use their phone to check in while physically at each location. Participants are eligible to check in to each location on the passport once per week which will enter them into the prize drawing. Click here for detailed instructions on how to sign up and on how to use the passport. Click here to read the Indiana Library Passport FAQs.

The Indiana Library Passport is a collaboration between the Indiana State Library and Bandwango, a well-known technology company in the travel space. Bandwango technology is designed to support free and paid experiences created by destinations and marketed to visitors and locals. They are the technology company behind Visit Indiana’s State Nature Passport, among other passports in the state.

The 2022-23 Indiana Library Passport program is sponsored by the Indiana State Library Foundation.

The Indiana State Library Foundation plays an important role in promoting the dissemination of knowledge and information, the cultivation of historical research and individual ancestry, the preservation of valuable historical documents and the vehicle for the visually impaired to continue their ability to read and hear books. As a partner with the Indiana State Library, the Foundation enables the library to fulfill its mission and enhance its ability to serve the citizens of Indiana in the preservation of Indiana history. The vision of the Foundation is to enable the Indiana State Library to become the finest state library in the country. Click here to read more about the Indiana State Library Foundation and their mission.

Please contact John Wekluk, communications director at the Indiana State Library, with any questions.

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

Why use the Indiana State Library? Researchers, teachers and students, we’re here for you!

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Here at the State Library, we do a variety of things. Our library’s print and online resources cover a wealth of subjects and the assistance we provide gives patrons and data users a vast array of options for finding answers to their questions. Librarians and staff here are cross-trained in assisting with answering questions about genealogy, Indiana history, general reference, data about Indiana, specifics about library usage and research in federal and state government documents, among other topics.

Our library fits a few different categories.

  1. We are considered a research library, and many of our employees have belonged to the ACRL, the Association of College and Research Libraries. Although we are not an academic library – a library associated with a college or university – we do provide access to several in-depth special collections such as our Genealogy, Indiana, Rare Books and Manuscripts, cage and Holliday collections. The State Library is a research library in the broader sense of the term.
  2. We are considered a special library by the American Library Association definition because we are a library that operates within a state government. If you view the history of the library, you’ll see that we were originally created to serve our state legislature. The library’s mission has grown over the years. For a brief period beginning in the 1930s, the library was part of the Indiana Department of Education. We now serve under the executive branch of state government and we are open to the public.
  3. We are also a government information library. Several of our librarians consider themselves to be government information librarians. We handle requests about federal and state government documents and data on a regular basis. The government documents collections here include our Federal Depository Library Program collection, our Indiana state documents collection and our State Data Center collection.
  4. Our focus is on Indiana history. Many of the patrons we serve are looking for the history behind a certain person, group of people or Indiana location. Our history resources include original census records going back to the first census in 1790, county histories and maps of Indiana available from before statehood in 1816, rare family history volumes from residents of Indiana and surrounding states and the largest collection of Indiana newspapers in the world. Indiana history is one of our specialties here, so Indiana State Library staff are happy to help with history questions. Our building is also a living historical artifact. Built in 1934, it contains beautiful architectural details that you’ll need to visit to see. Contact us for a tour of the State Library!

*A friendly research tip, while you perform your research here, remember to collect information on the sources you view. This will ensure you do not repeat research you’ve already done and it helps while you’re creating citations for your reference lists and works cited pages.

In addition to our research collections, we also house the Indiana Young Readers Center and the Talking Book and Braille Library, both services of federal library programs through the Library of Congress – the Indiana Center for the Book and the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled, respectively.

Last but not least, the Indiana Historical Bureau shares our building and is a part of our organization. The Bureau manages the state markers program and runs a highly educational research blog. Their website contains excellent resources for educators here.

The Indiana State Library and Historical Bureau can also direct you to additional resources at the Indiana Archives and Records Administration, a partner agency. Discover more about its holdings here.

This blog post was written by Katie Springer, reference librarian. For more information, contact the Reference and Government Services Division at 317-232-3678 or submit an Ask-A-Librarian request.

New webinar series announced from the Indiana State Library’s Professional Development Office

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The Indiana State Library’s Professional Development Office has announced a new series of webinars, What the Research Says, featuring academicians and their research. This series will be irregular, but the hope is to feature at least one per quarter. We invite academic librarians to reach out to us with projects they would like to present or topics they feel would make good additions to this series. Submissions may be directed to George Bergstrom, Southwest regional coordinator in the Professional Development Office.

This spring, we kicked of this new series with “Creating Informed Learners in the Classroom: Librarian Experiences of Developing a Multi-institutional Information Literacy Project,” featuring librarians from Purdue University. In this webinar Clarence Maybee, Rachel Fundator and Amity Saha presented on their three-year research project funded by an IMLS grant.

The Creating Informed Learners in the Classroom project, made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (RE-13-19-0021-19), facilitated librarian-instructor partnerships to integrate information-rich student projects into disciplinary classrooms. The project was a partnership between librarians at Purdue University, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the University of Arizona. Over the course of  four weekly online sessions, the project team trained 15 librarian-instructor teams – five from each university – to use an information literacy framework called Informed Learning Design to design student projects that enable students to use information in new ways in their courses.

In this webinar, the team gave an overview of the principles of Informed Learning design, their specific project, how they had to adapt due to COVID and some great lessons learned from this three-year effort in improving student learning. Anyone who missed this webinar is invited to view the recording on the State Library’s YouTube channel. More details can be found on the archived webinars page of the Continuing Education website.

The Professional Development Office hopes that this series will offer a venue for academic librarians to not only share their work with others in their field, but with the wider library profession. The format will most often be a one-hour panel discussion webinar, but we are open to discussing other options with interested presenters. Anyone who is curious about being a part of this new series is invited to reach out to George Bergstrom.

This post was written by George Bergstrom, Southwest regional coordinator, Professional Development Office, Indiana State Library.

Save the Date: Difference is You Conference!

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This year’s Difference is You Conference will be held on Friday, Sept. 23 at the Indiana State Library. The DIY Conference is a training event for support staff and paraprofessionals created by the Indiana State Library’s Professional Development Committee. The theme this year is “Refresh and Recharge.”

The keynote speaker will be David Seckman, Jeffersonville Township Public Library director. He’ll be presenting “Build a Better World with Kindness and Gratitude.” Seckman has been researching and studying the effects of kindness and gratitude on well-being and relationships for 15 years and speaking on these topics for the last 12 years. He is especially interested in how kindness and gratitude can transform the culture of an organization to bring a sense of fun and joy to the workplace. With over 10 years of experience as a library administrator and manager, he puts these concepts into practice on a daily basis.

Keynote description
Have you ever wondered why some teams are highly productive, creative and innovative while other teams with similar levels of talent and experience seem to be stuck in neutral? Science has shown that people who practice gratitude in their lives show an increase in enthusiasm towards life, make more progress towards their personal goals, sleep better, show less symptoms of illness and depression and have more energy. In this keynote, presenter David Seckman will discuss how cultivating kindness and gratitude can improve work and personal relationships, as well overall well-being.

Below is the proposed schedule:

2022 DIY Schedule

  • 10:00-10:50 a.m. (50 minutes) Welcome and keynote
  • 10:50-11:00 a.m. (10 minutes) Announce DIY Award winner/Break
  • 11:10 a.m.-12:00 p.m. (50 minutes) Session 1
  • 12:00-1:00 p.m. (60 minutes) Lunch
  • 1:00-1:50 p.m. (50 minutes) Session 2
  • 1:50-2:00 p.m. (10 minutes) Break
  • 2:00-2:50 p.m. (50 minutes) Session 3
  • 2:50-3:00 p.m. (Wrap up and evaluations)

Registration fee is $25 per person. If you have any questions, you can contact Kara Cleveland.

This blog post was written by Courtney Brown, Southeast regional coordinator from the Indiana State Library’s Professional Development Office.

Looking for staff training? Let us help!

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Did you know that the Indiana State Library’s Professional Development Office provides free training for library directors and their staff? Continuing education is a vital part of the success of any library professional. There are dozens of ways to earn library education units (LEUs), network with others in the profession, and learn new skills to help advance the field of libraries in Indiana. We encourage you to stay on top of current trends and deepen foundational library knowledge by taking advantage of the free resources on our Continuing Education page.

Our available training spans a wide variety of topics including, but not limited to the following: communication, customer service, difficult situations, challenging coworkers, soft skills, teambuilding and many technology-related trainings. Some examples of technology-centered offerings are Google Drive, Google Apps, Google Docs and INSPIRE training. Another exciting new offering we have are Oculus Quest 2 VR Kits, which can be borrowed for 30 days for library use for staff to test drive and/or use for library programming. To reserve a kit, please contact your regional coordinator. On the Continuing Education page are upcoming webinars, a face-to-face training menu (which can be adapted to virtual), archived webinars, information about the Difference is You Conference for library support staff, information about the Indiana Library Leadership Academy, youth services centered training and so much more.

Maybe you have a staff training day or professional development day set up annually, but you need a few sessions filled at no additional cost to your library. Look no further than your regional coordinator from the Indiana State Library. Your regional coordinator can provide training sessions over a wide range of topics at no charge, either in person (we come to you!) or virtually. Below is a chart showing which regional coordinator you should contact based upon your library location, as well as the coordinator’s contact email.

Northeast Regional Coordinator – Paula Newcom, 317-447-0452, pnewcom@library.in.gov
Acts as liaison for the Indiana State Library and libraries of all types in the following counties of Indiana: Adams, Allen, Blackford, Dekalb, Elkhart, Grant, Hamilton, Howard, Huntington, Jay, Kosciusko, LaGrange, Marion (Speedway), Miami, Noble, Steuben, Tipton, Wabash, Wells and Whitley.

Northwest Regional Coordinator – Laura Jones, 317-691-5884, laujones@library.in.gov
Acts as liaison for the Indiana State Library and libraries of all types in the following counties of Indiana: Benton, Boone, Carroll, Cass, Clinton, Fulton, Jasper, Lake, LaPorte, Marshall, Montgomery, Newton, Porter, Pulaski, St. Joseph, Starke, Tippecanoe and White.

Southeast Regional Coordinator – Courtney Brown, 317-910-5777, cobrown@library.in.gov
Acts as liaison for the Indiana State Library and libraries of all types in the following counties of Indiana: Bartholomew, Brown, Clark, Dearborn, Decatur, Delaware, Fayette, Floyd, Franklin, Hancock, Harrison, Henry, Jackson, Jefferson, Jennings, Johnson, Madison, Ohio, Randolph, Ripley, Rush, Scott, Shelby, Switzerland, Union, Washington and Wayne.

Southwest Regional Coordinator – George Bergstrom, 317-447-2242, gbergstrom@library.in.gov
Acts as liaison for the Indiana State Library and libraries of all types in the following counties of Indiana: Clay, Crawford, Daviess, Dubois, Fountain,  Gibson, Greene, Hendricks, Knox, Lawrence, Martin, Monroe, Morgan, Orange, Owen, Parke, Perry, Pike, Posey, Putnam, Spencer, Sullivan, Vanderburgh, Vermillion, Vigo, Warren and Warrick.

Southwest regional coordinator, George Bergstrom

Additionally, contact information for the PDO supervisor/regional coordinator for the Indianapolis Public Library system and the state children’s services consultant is listed below.

PDO Supervisor – Kara Cleveland, 317-232-3718, kcleveland@library.in.gov
Oversees the work of the Professional Development Office. Acts as the regional coordinator for the Indianapolis Public Library.

Children’s Services Consultant – Beth Yates, 317-517-1738, byates@library.in.gov
Provides consulting and programming support in the area of children’s and young adult services.

Again, our trainings can be completed either in person or virtual,  and they all qualify for pre-approved LEUs. Whether your staff size is small or large, we can accommodate all your training needs. If you have a small staff, you might even consider partnering up with a similar sized library in your area to host training with a few more individuals together. All offered free training opportunities, including upcoming webinars as well as many archived past webinars and trainings can be found on our Continuing Education page here.

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