October in the CoP was full of lively discussions from professional development to mobile equipment maintenance. Several opportunities to collaborate were highlighted and we had the last Friday the 13th of 2017! Scan below for any details you may have missed, and jump into the discussion forum with your questions, fun things to share, or whatever else is on your mind.
Listen
Kendra, Sara, and Gabbie chatted with K-Fai about the year ahead in the CoP and share their favorite resources in the from the resource bank. Meet the Lead Contributors
Matt Baker from the Mix in Virginia, Linsay Deming at ARTLAB+ in DC, and Colin Creasy from Miami jumped on a call to talk about their Resource Development Retreat resources!
Matt created a primer to the pedagogy behind YOUmedia & Connected Learning. Great for grant writing, paper writing, and general foundational understanding! Linsay takes the guess work out of site visits in her resource, culling together everything you need to know from sample agendas to the roles each person can take on to make the visit effective, efficient, and extraordinary! Colin’s resource is a must-have for folks interested in expanding their site’s services and programming to sister sites and branches with specific outcomes and lesson plans. RDR Shareout Podcast: Matt, Lindsay, and Colin
Gabbie chatted with Lance Simpson from Create205 in Birmingham about the present successes and future goals of their site. Check out the site spotlight to learn more about what Lance and his crew are doing with their teens. Hint: it has something to do with engineering, mentors, and amplifying youth voices through spoken word!
Read
Skill-building for professionals — Melanie McCartney at SEFLIN in Boca Raton posed the question about finding and using effective tutorials as professional development tools. Some great suggestions for sites that host tutorials beyond YouTube were offered up. Ultimately, this seems like a great opportunity to crowdsource a playlist of our favorite tutorials. Got a suggestion? Let us know in the discussion.
Handling equipment — those of us who send materials around to sister sites and branches have come up with some ingenious methods for protecting equipment in transit. Julie in Chicago offers a cheap, DIY approach: squirreling away and snagging used packing materials. Brian in Wisconsin uses hard cases with foam cutouts—many of which you can download on DIY sites, like Instructables. In Hartford, we try to keep as much of the original packaging as possible and use our interlibrary delivery boxes to ship between branches. What’s your method? Add to the discussion.
Opportunities
Joint Librarians of Color Conference Proposal deadline has been extended to Dec. 15! Find someone to collaborate with in the discussion.
RFP: The American Honda Foundation is again accepting applications for funding to support programs focused on youth and scientific education. $20 - 75k Deadline to submit is Feb 1, 2018.