patrons making cards

My Library is… Fostering Kindness - Lisle Library District

13 January 2022
Stacy Palmisano
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The purpose of Libraries is to provide opportunities. Opportunity for information, research, connection, cultural awareness; the list extends for miles. One of the Lisle Library District’s goals is to provide an opportunity for kindness.

This effort has been conjured in collecting needed items for veterans and homeless people, hosting blood drives, food drives, and more, but the LLD sought something more permanent alongside these community efforts. Thus, the LLD Kindness Card program was launched in December 2021.

The LLD Kindness Card program consists of card-making stations...

Specialized Library Spotlight: Kane County Law Library and Self Help Legal Center

10 January 2022
Stacy Palmisano
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Debbie Baaske, acting Member Engagement Manager talks with Halle Cox, Director at the Kane County Law Library and Self Help Legal Center. Halle shares how the library serves the lawyers and judges, as well as the general public.  She says approximately 85% of their users are the general public.  They seek to create empowered and informed legal consumers.  

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Forefront

Specialized Library Spotlight: Forefront

4 January 2022
Stacy Palmisano
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Debbie Baaske, acting Member Engagement Manager talks with Sarah Rice, Research and Knowledge Services Manager at Forefront. Sarah discusses how the library serves the organization and its over 1100 nonprofit members. The library has a wealth of resources on various aspects of fundraising and donor prospecting.
Crowd at Fall Fest

Pandemic Programming - Baby Goats, Churros, and Pumpkins

3 January 2022
Gail Graziani
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Pandemic Programming – Baby Goats, Churros, and Pumpkins

Like many public libraries, the Lisle Library District has been challenged to provide new, primarily outdoor events for our community in response to the pandemic. Annual inside pre-pandemic events had included Harry Potter Day and Star Wars Reads Day – both of which entailed a full house of hundreds of patrons enjoying treats, crafts, and games. Now, with large inside events on indefinite hiatus, the time had come to try a new outside event or two in addition to the Summer Read Kick Off...

My Library Is.. Specialized Library Spotlight AHA

Specialized Library Spotlight: American Hospital Association

16 December 2021
Stacy Palmisano
Comments: 0
Debbie Baaske talks with Brenda Stenger, the director of the American Hospital Association Resource Center. Brenda discusses how the resource center serves the organization and outside users, and how demand has grown during the pandemic.  She also shares some great ways that she’s marketed the resource center.

Specialized Library Spotlight: ESi Library

29 November 2021
Dan Bostrom
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RAILS Member Engagement Manager Dan Bostrom talks with Cheryl A. Hansen, Research Librarian at the ESi Library about what ESi does and who they serve.

Connect with a Community Conversation

22 November 2021
Samantha Rusk
Comments: 0

Are you looking for a new way to gather input and spark ideas in your community? Try a community conversation.

The Vespasian Warner Public Library District in Clinton held a community conversation in August thanks to grant funding from Libraries Transforming Communities (LTC): Focus on Small and Rural Libraries, an initiative of the American Library Association (ALA) in collaboration with the Association for Rural & Small Libraries (ARSL).

The LTC grant gave the library the opportunity to participate in a facilitation eCourse and the skills gained were put into action...

Image credit: Sam McGhee via Unsplash.

RAILS to Spotlight Specialized Libraries

15 November 2021
Dan Bostrom
Comments: 0

Did you know that there are over 100 specialized libraries in RAILS? Each specialized library serves a unique audience with specialized resources. As part of the My Library Is... campaign, RAILS is looking to spotlight specialized libraries and how they make a difference in their organization. Through a series of video interviews called the Specialized Library Spotlight, RAILS will discuss how each library serves their audience and how they tell their story.

RAILS seeks participating specialized libraries to interview. For more information about the Specialized Library Spotlight...

My Library Is campaign.

Help Us Help You Get More Support for Your Library

3 November 2021
Dan Bostrom
Comments: 0

Do you need help demonstrating the value of your library to different stakeholders? Want to know what to say to justify the need for continued/increased library funding or staffing? Would you like to attract new library users? Want advice on how to promote the library’s role in identifying fake news or why libraries are needed more than ever in the internet age?
 
The My Library Is… campaign is designed to help libraries of all types (academic, public, school, and specialized) with these challenges and more. The campaign started in 2019, and we want to ensure that it continues...

A photo of a free-standing card catalog and small table. The card catalog is filled with seed packets for library card holders to use in their home gardens.

Borrow, Grow, Return: Blossom with a Seed Library

18 October 2021
Samantha Rusk
Comments: 0

The fall season may seem like an odd time to think about gardening, but it is the perfect time of year to start a Seed Library.  

A Seed Library is a collection of herb, flower, fruit, and vegetable seeds that are available for “check-out”. Library card holders are invited to “borrow” free seeds at the library, plant them, and then harvest the new seeds to return to the library at the end of the growing season. Housed in an old card catalog, the Seed Library at the Vespasian Warner Public Library District (VWPLD) in Clinton, Illinois has been used to borrow over 2,000 packets of...

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