Trustee Book Club is open to all library trustees! Whoever shows up at the meeting gets to decide our next reading. Folks who came to STLS to discuss The Bad-ass Librarians of Timbuktu last month chose to look at current thinking on best practices for libraries now and for years to come. Here's a list of what we'll be reading:

International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) drafted "Access and Opportunity for All". 

It's pretty lengthy. To get an overview, check out the handout "Libraries Can Drive Progress". 

 

The Harvard Family Research Project and the Public Library Association teamed up to investigate how families use public libraries. The result is Public Libraries: A Vital Space for Family Engagement. I love it.

 

The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) of the ALA hosted a yearlong national forum on library services to young adults. The result is The Future of Library Services for and with Teens: A Call to Action (often referred to as the YALSA Futures Report). The Executive Summary gives an overview of the issues identified and solutions developed. 

 

The last piece of big research is Public Libraries and Effective Summer Learning: Opportunities for Assessment. Like all research, there is a summary - this one is called the Leadership Brief. Something I love about this IMLS funded research project is that it resulted in a toolkit as well. You can see all the resources created from this research here.

 

Anyone can read any of these papers. If you'd like me to, I'll print, bind, and send via the delivery the papers for easier offline reading. Register for Trustee Book Club here and let me know if you'd like your readings printed and bound, if you just want the Digest version (just the summaries), if you'd like to attend in person, or if you'll be reading on your own. I'll be lining up a Skype guest for our meeting on May 9th at 2:30. Our location hasn't been decided yet and will be based on who would like to attend (if everyone is from down east, it will be near STLS, if we have Allegany County or Yates County folks, the meeting will shift closer to those attendees).

 

Conversation is always lively and worth the visit, if you can make it! Also, I'm open to suggestion on times and dates for future meet-ups.