One sure way to beat the heat is to attend one of these workshops, meetings, or webinars. They have AC! August is a slow month, and if you’re unavailable on Thursdays, you might be out of luck. But before we hit August, there’s a late addition to July’s schedule.
The Going Green Libraries Networking Group ( ) meeting will be held at the Prospect Heights Public Library, July 24, 2012 at 9:30 am. Come visit Prospect Heights Public Library’s Butterfly and Children’s Gardens. Network and share ideas on how libraries can effectively communicate environmental concerns with the communities we serve. If you are planning to come, please sign up in our events calendar so we can get an idea how many people to expect. Register here FREE!
WebJunction kicks off August with Librarians are Wikipedians Too! Join in on Thursday, August 2nd from 1-2pm. Wikipedia is an increasingly prominent player in the web search environment, and more people are finding it “a good place to start research.” Despite open questions regarding quality, Wikipedia shares common goals with libraries in ensuring free accessibility to information, and relying on authoritative sources. FREE!
Max Klein, Wikipedian in Residence at OCLC Research, will overview the past efforts and future potential of libraries and librarians working with Wikipedia. Discussed are strategies to drive web- and foot-traffic to libraries through the use of Wikipedia. Plus powerful tips and tricks are revealed into the software and policies of Wikipedia, helping librarians to critically address quality for themselves. FREE!
The Business Librarians Networking Group (BIG) (shouldn’t they be called BLING, instead?) is meeting on Thrusday, August 9th from 9:30-noon at the Gail Borden Library in Elgin. Librarians working with the business community meet to network together, sharing resources, programming ideas and other related topics of interest to the group. Please let either Colleen Ringel (cringel@webrary.org) or Patti Smolin (psmolin@mppl.org) know if you will be attending this meeting no later than Tuesday, August 7, 2012. FREE!
When it’s the 10th, it’s time to SLAM THE BOARDS!. Promote librarians beyond the library! On the 10th of each month, visit your favorite “Social Q&A” sites (Yahoo Answers, Quora, WikiAnswers, etc.) and locate questions for which you can provide well-researched answers. Identify yourself as a librarian in your answer. Then post links to your answers on Twitter using the hashtag #slamtheboards. FREE!
The Readers Advisors Interest Group is meeting on Thursday, August 16th from 9:30-noon in RAILS’ Wheeling Conference Room. The Readers Advisory Interest Group (RAIG) is a group of area librarians who meet the third Thursday of every other month to discuss fiction genres and trends and readers advisory to patrons. All are welcome to attend our free meetings. FREE!
WebJunction is hosting another webinar on Thursday, August 23rd from noon-1pm. Telling the Library Story will help you learn how to tell a succinct, powerful story about the value of libraries. Based on OCLC’s “From Awareness to Funding” and the latest findings of brain research, this session focuses on turning the evidence of our daily patron encounters into short, compelling, and memorable messages that build support. Presented by: Jamie LaRue, director, Douglas County Libraries (CO), blogger, and chair of committee who created The Big Hairy Audacious Goal, a public library advocacy initiative. FREE!
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