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Multitype Collaboration

Multitype Collaboration, Wimba Archives
Museum Adventure Pass Program
August 31st, 2009 | Permalink | Comment?

Description

The Museum Adventure Pass Program is designed to allow patrons of participating libraries in MLS, DLS, and NSLS check out passes to 17 area museums. This session is designed to give staff members of participating libraries an orientation to the program. Use of the website was demonstrated and questions were answered by the project managers.

Presenter/Trainer

Pam Kramer, Director of Educational Services, DuPage Library System

Sponsoring Agency

DuPage Library System

Archive Link

http://67.202.209.252/launcher.cgi?room=il_DLS_2009_0826_1639_15

Supplemental Materials

Macy Museum Adventure Program FAQs
Macy Museum Adventure Program Workshop PPT
Museum Adventure Pass Program Web Site
LSTA Grant Update, Multitype Collaboration, School Libraries
LSTA Grant Update: Teen Tech Tutors
August 11th, 2008 | Permalink | Comment?

The Brookfield Public Library partnered with Aging Well of Brookfield, Lyons Township High School, and Riverside-Brookfield High School to connect area senior citizens to technology through the Teen Tech Tutors grant. Teen volunteers were trained in computer instruction and working with seniors, then paired up with an older adult for one-on-one tutoring. The pairs met at the Brookfield Public Library or one of the high school computer labs.

There are several resources for learning computers; in fact, the library and high schools have their own programs. However, these are done in groups and can move too fast and be intimidating for those new to the computer. Teen Tech Tutors provides 10 one-on-one interactions for seniors to learn and practice the computer. The curriculum was designed by Lyons Township High School librarians, and covers email, the internet, practice with the mouse, Microsoft Word, and more.

Currently the library is in its second session and served 15 seniors with the help of 12 teen volunteers. The older adults speak highly of their “nice” and “knowledgeable” teachers and get excited by things most us of take for granted, like sending and receiving their first email. We’re hoping to continue this program so long as there are seniors wanting to learn.
LSTA Grant Update, Multitype Collaboration, School Libraries
LSTA Grant Update: Taming the Wild, Wild Web
August 1st, 2008 | Permalink | Comment?

Prairie Grove Consolidated School District #46 recently sponsored a series of technology workshops, tech camps, and teacher technology in-services. These educational services were funded through the FY2008 Library Services and Technology Act grant titled, “Taming the Wild, Wild Web!” They were made available to teachers, staff, students, and all of our community members. Special sessions for our senior citizens were held in partnership with the Cary Area Public Library.

Along with the workshops, the $58,021.00 grant provided all of our libraries with updated and currently relevant technology related resources. The school district was able to purchase interactive white boards, digital cameras, LCD projectors, computers, printers, electronic books, iPods, books, manuals and DVD’s. These materials were made available during the workshops so participants received integrated hands on learning experiences. All the materials have been cataloged and are available for patron check out.

The grant offered several of the workshops during the month of June. Students in grades 5-8 attended three technology camp workshops in the morning. Our adult community members attended sessions in the afternoon. All of our sessions were well attended and participants were thrilled with the presenters and the content of the lessons. The sessions were successful and participants requested additional tech workshops.

Each tech session included the following lessons.

1. Deputizing your Computer: Methods for safe Internet practices. Presented by Lynn Swanson of the Wheeling school district who consulted with our local police departments.

2. Digital Round Up: Now that you have a digital camera, what can you do with it? Presented by Vivienne Porter of C3 Solutions.

3. Steering I-Communications: Basic web design, webley.com, podcasting, and applying basic Microsoft Office features into your electronic communications. Presented by faculty members Scott Martin and Kurt Hinsberger.

4. Roping Internet Goods: Internet selling and buying on eBay. Tips included ways to maintain security and privacy while shopping on the Internet. Presented by Vivienne Porter of c3 Solutions.

5. Taming Web Sites: Exploring safe, reliable web sites and databases. Searched sites included netTrekker, AARP web sites and the online card catalog. Presented by faculty members Scott Martin and Kurt Hinsberger.

6. Corralling Information: To Google or not to Google. Gathering other forms of research available through online databases and search engines. Tips included ways manage your bookmarks and desktop tool and menu bars.

Special thanks go out to our Retired Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP) representative; “Grandma Laurie” who assisted us in creating a schedule that would best fit the needs of our senior citizens. Thank you grant consultant, Linda Spandgrund, for your expert advice. Additional thanks to our technology wranglers, Mike Swanson, Scott Martin, Kurt Hinsberger and John Bowman who provided us with technology expertise before, during and after the grant.

If you have any questions about the grant or any of the presenters, please contact Greg Urbaniak, Sandra Rosner or Mary O’Leary at Prairie Grove Junior High School.
LSTA Grant Update, Multitype Collaboration
LSTA Grant Update: Around the World in Books
July 24th, 2008 | Permalink | Comment?

The Zion-Benton Public Library partnered with Shiloh Park Elementary School for the grant project “Around the World in Books: A Journey Connecting Cultures Through Stories.”

Thirty students from 4th, 5th and 6th grades were selected by their teachers and the school principal to participate in the project where they “visited” all 7 continents in a journey through readings from 16 books and from participating in connected activities. Two librarians from ZBPL went on a weekly basis to Shiloh Park School during the students lunch time.

A Kick-off Party to introduce the grant was held at the library for the participating students and their parents, siblings, school principal and teachers of participating students. Each participating student was given a “Traveling Backpack” with the grant logo on it, the backpacks contained items to be used during their journey. Professional storyteller, Chris Fascione, presented stories from around the world.

The first phase of the project was the Reader’s Workshop Journey. During this time the students listened to readings from a book, then work on individual maps and wrote a journal about their “trip”. Students each had a “passport” with their individual picture and it was stamped for each country visited.

During the second phase, the Storytelling Workshop Ride, students gained storytelling skills and learned to perform for an audience. Bob Kann, professional storyteller, came to the school twice and taught the group basic storytelling techniques. With some practice the students performed storytelling for grades K-2nd at the school. They also took their show on the road and performed for the residents of an area nursing home.

The 3rd and final phase of the grant was the Reader’s Theater Final Destination Performance held at the library. During the third and final component the students rehearsed the scripts selected for the reader’s theater performance with the librarians.

During this final event the students for each grade level (4th, 5th, and 6th) performed a different story. The stories were folktales selected from the United States, China, and India. Teachers, parents and friends were eagerly waiting for the arrival of the participants from their journey around the world.

All the participants received a Certificate for Completion of Journey. A photo slide show was available from all the activities during the journey. Participants were welcomed back and treated with a sampling of foods from around the world. This final event brought to a close the activities of this grant project.
LSTA Grant Update, Multitype Collaboration
LSTA Grant Update: Taking Care of Business
July 14th, 2008 | Permalink | Comment?

The Taking Care of Business Grant was awarded to Kewanee Public Library District (KPLD) in September of 2007. Sixteen Illinois libraries in Stark, Henry, and Bureau counties pledged to collaborate on the project in order to provide for the information needs of job seekers and entrepreneurs in these mostly rural communities. The grant provided funds to develop the business and career collections of all sixteen libraries.

Additional funds were allocated to KPLD for the purchase of core reference materials. DVDs on a variety of business topics were purchased and added to the Black Hawk College East Learning Resource Center collection. Funds also provided for ten educational programs on a variety of business topics meant to support small business and foster an entrepreneurial spirit. A website was developed to promote the project, the library materials, and as an online guide for business and career research.

Economic Development Offices in all three counties also agreed to participate in the project. Along the way, other organizations and individuals joined in the project’s efforts by assisting with promotions on a more individualized basis. For example, an educator at one of the University of Illinois Extension offices, of her own initiative, included information on the month’s programs at the bottom of her out-going emails.

Chamber of Commerce members, as well as one of the Chamber of Commerce Presidents, attended the programs and encouraged others to attend as well. One of the library directors volunteered herself and her spouse to present an additional program on how to buy and sell on eBay, which forty-four people attended.

Library Directors involved in the project reported an increase in collaboration with the business community and their supporting organizations like the Chamber of Commerce. Two of the programs participants are set to launch a new business in Princeton, Illinois, according to the library’s director. The program’s were “helpful in getting them started.”

All of the collaborating libraries rated the community’s perception of the library as a business resource as experiencing an increase. And finally, a workshop was held for the librarians involved to assist in giving them the knowledge and confidence needed to meet the needs of the business community.
LSTA Grant Update, Multitype Collaboration
LSTA Grant Update: Spies and Snoopers Take First Picture of Illinois
June 30th, 2008 | Permalink | Comment?
Beginning in 1936, many airmen took to the skies of Illinois, and over the course of four years photographed the vast farmlands, small towns and big cities of the entire state. However, not everyone appreciated the efforts of the airmen at the time. Many pilots and their crews were considered ’spies’ or ’snoopers’ by their fellow citizens. For example, the attitudes of some U.S. citizens, especially farmers that were negatively affected by farm programs of the era, were candidly expressed in the following Chicago Tribune newspaper headlines:
- “U.S. Hires 13 Air Firms to Spy on Nation’s Farms” (May 26, 1937)
- “AAA Hires Airplane Spies to Discover if Farms Obey Control” (May 12, 1939)
- “Crop ‘Snoopers’ Man Cameras in Checkup by AAA” (April 24, 1940)
(Graphic above 1939 Aerial Survey status map)

In the early days of this first statewide aerial survey, funding was mandated by President Roosevelt’s New Deal legislation through the U.S. Department of Agriculture – Agricultural Adjustment Administration (USDA-AAA). Although the project was well funded, the aerial survey drew criticism and suspicion during the Depression years of the 1930s.

As part of New Deal farm programs, the AAA needed these photographs to determine whether farmers had complied with the AAA’s conservation program. Fear of government control, a perceived invasion of privacy, and unfavorable actions towards some farmers that were not in compliance contributed to the air crews and the aerial survey itself to be seen as a spy mission.

Looking past these negative attitudes the Arlington Heights Herald, a suburban Chicago newspaper, published an article on November 17th, 1939 declaring that the first picture of the entire state of Illinois had finally been completed. The map associated with the article conveyed what year each county was first flown.

During the past decade, the Illinois State Geological Survey (ISGS) has been engaged in an ongoing project to digitize these aerial photographs, place them in a digital archive and distribute them online through the Illinois Natural Resources Geospatial Data Clearinghouse (Illinois Clearinghouse). Funding from the 2008 LSTA grant allowed the ISGS Library to digitize 953 photographs from four additional counties (Alexander, Jackson, Perry and Randolph), and add them to the Illinois Clearinghouse. Through the ongoing collaborative efforts of the ISGS Library and the Illinois State Library (ISL), 62 of 102 Illinois counties are now Internet accessible. (Graphic right 2008 ILHAP digital archive status map)

As the ISGS and ISL work towards completing the Illinois Historical Aerial Photography Archive project (ILHAP), more history about the aerial photograph collection was discovered. For instance, despite learning that the first aerial picture of Illinois was considered complete in 1939, further research revealed that it really took two additional years to get a ‘good’ picture of the entire state.

During the first four years several new and improved aerial photographic techniques had been established and standardized. These new standards led to several thousand photographs being retaken during 1940 and 1941 over counties that were originally completed in 1936 and 1937. The number of photographs taken between 1936-1941 amounts to well over 50,000, but in a majority of cases only the photographic prints from 1938 to 1941 (about 33,000 photographs) remain.

Over the years the original negatives were kept in storage facilities and the original photographic prints were placed into controlled collections used by various government agencies and learning institutions. Initially, the USDA – AAA retained the immense collection of cellulose nitrate film negatives but transferred the collection during the 1960s to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) for safekeeping. Because of their chemical composition, nitrate negatives are considered unstable when stored improperly.

Nitrate negatives require climate controlled storage areas that remain cold with low relative humidity. After a fire destroyed 15 million feet of motion picture film at a NARA storage facility in 1978, NARA decided they no longer wanted to store nitrate-based film. They quickly implemented programs to protect the national aerial photograph collection by copying the original large format nitrate film onto much safer, small format acetate film. In some cases the original negatives were disposed of after the duplication process, and unfortunately the negatives for the early Illinois photographs were among the casualties of the program.

Many of the resulting small format duplicate negatives are of poor quality and produce unusable photographic prints. Now the existing contact prints made directly from the original negatives are the only reliable high quality images that Illinois has as a record of its first statewide aerial picture.

In March 2001 the ILHAP project was initiated at the ISGS to digitally capture these existing original prints. The objective is to create digital surrogates of the existing paper prints using exacting standards and make the resulting digitized images Internet accessible to an expanded audience of users. The ILHAP project has been experiencing the opposite problem with funding and acceptance than the AAA program experienced in the late 1930s. The original aerial survey was completed through federally mandated funding but the survey was not always cast in a good light. Now, there is an overwhelming interest and desire by the public to view these aerial time capsules but securing funding to complete this archive has been, and will continue to be, a challenge. As we charge ahead, the hope is to complete the statewide archive so that once again we will have that first picture of Illinois available for all to see.

ILHAP web address: http://www.isgs.uiuc.edu/nsdihome/webdocs/ilhap/
LSTA Grant Update, Multitype Collaboration
LSTA Grant Update: Bringing History to Life
June 25th, 2008 | Permalink | Comment?
The Odell Public Library District brought history to life for the students and adults of Odell and its surrounding communities! Ten nationally recognized historic impersonators visited Odell Grade School for an afternoon school assembly, followed by evening programs at the Odell Grade School for the general public on each scheduled date.
- Abraham & Mary Todd Lincoln on Wednesday January 9
- Mark Twain on Wednesday February 6
- Thomas Jefferson on Wednesday February 13
- George Washington on Monday February 25
- Amelia Earhart on Wednesday March 5
- Theodore Roosevelt on Wednesday March 12
- Benjamin Franklin & Betsy Ross on Wednesday April 2
- Franklin D. Roosevelt on Wednesday April 9
- Thomas Edison on Monday April 21
- Harriet Tubman on Monday April 28
The “Bringing History to Life” grant was designed to instill the love & learning of American history to the students of Odell.

“By bringing different historical impersonators who did fun and engaging performances for the children, we were hoping that the kids would have both a fun and educational experience that they would always remember!” said Eric Colclasure, Director of Odell Public Library District. “The library and schools were very excited about the grant, & home school students and families were elated with the programs!”

To prepare the students for each of these programs, the library purchased documentary videos, which were played in the classrooms just days before each impersonator was scheduled to visit the school. In addition, the library purchased juvenile & adult biographies of each person being represented.

Colclasure said, “We were very happy with all the speakers—not only were their resumes outstanding but their performances were second to none!” Below are some of their qualifications:
- B.F. McClerren from Charleston, Illinois portrayed Abraham Lincoln in a re-enactment of the Lincoln-Douglass debates on C-Span. He has performed as Abraham Lincoln since 1990 & his wife, Dorothy, has performed as Mary Lincoln since 1994 & has twice won the Mary Lincoln Look-Alike Contest in Hodgenville, Kentucky (Abe Lincoln’s birthplace).
- Warren Brown from Manteno, Illinois won the Studs Terkel Humanities Award in 2000 & has performed throughout the Midwest as Mark Twain, including performances at the Mark Twain Birthplace Historic Site in Florida, Missouri. His program has been endorsed by the Illinois Humanities Council, the Illinois Arts Council, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
- Bill Barker from Williamsburg, Virginia has performed as Thomas Jefferson for over 20 years. He has appeared as Jefferson in programs airing on ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, The History Channel, and C-SPAN. He has performed at the Palace of Versailles, the White House, and throughout the U.S. and Great Britain. He has also been featured as Jefferson in such magazines as Time, Atlantic, Philadelphia, Readers Digest, and Southern Living.
- Mark Collins of White Sulphur Springs, Texas has performed as George Washington for several years. He is exactly the same height and size as Washington, & has played Washington in The History Channel documentary “The Revolution” and made an appearance in the movie ““National Treasure: Book of Secrets.”
- Ann Birney of Hutchinson, Kansas has performed as Amelia Earhart since 1995. In March of 2000 she became the first person to do an historical performance for the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, where she was described as “what living history should be—accurate, natural, evocative, and accessible.”
- Gib Young of Huntington, Indiana has performed as Theodore Roosevelt. Young has traveled throughout America for the past several years, and has been photographed with the last living sculptor of Mount Rushmore.
- Ralph Archbold of Philadelphia has performed as Benjamin Franklin. Archbold has performed for over 10,000 audiences over a 30-year career and performed as Stephen Colbert’s sidekick in Philadelphia just 2 weeks after his Odell performances. He has been designated the official Benjamin Franklin of Philadelphia. His realistic portrayal and stimulating performances have won him appearances on: The Today Show, Good Morning America, The CBS Constitutional Gala, The Disney Channel, A&E, The History Channel, and on all major television networks.
- R.J. Lindsey of Chicago has performed as Franklin D. Roosevelt and Thomas Edison for several years. As an educator Lindsey taught speech and theater for twelve years. As a theatrical professional Lindsey has appeared on stage and television. His television credits include: She Stood Alone, Fatal Judgment, and Will. Stage roles include: Harvey, Miss Lonelyhearts, A Thousand Clowns, and The Crucible. Lindsey has created over 20 other characters, including such luminaries as Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman, Thomas Paine, and Johann Sebastian Bach. Lindsey earned a Masters degree from Illinois State University and is a member of Actor’s Equity, the Screen Actor’s Guild, and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.
- Kathryn Harris of Springfield also happens to be the director of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield, in addition to portraying a vast array of historical characters. Although she has had no formal theatrical training, her thorough research and attention to detail have allowed her to bring to life black women such as Tubman, Mary Todd Lincoln confidante Elizabeth Keckley, wife of President Lincoln’s barber Phoebe Florville and Sarah “Sadie” Delany. Sadie was one of two centenarian sisters and eyewitnesses to American history who share their observations—from the reconstruction of the South to the Civil Rights era—in the play, ““Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters’ First 100 years.”
Because some of the performers did the library a favor and flied via “coach fare” instead of first-class, the library was able to provide some additional programs to Evenglow Nursing Home in Pontiac in the mornings prior to their afternoon & evening performances. Colclasure said, “The nursing home residents truly enjoyed the Amelia Earhart, Teddy Roosevelt, Benjamin Franklin, & FDR performances!”

The grant was a collaboration of the Odell Public Library District, Odell Grade School, St. Paul Grade School (which bused its students to the afternoon assemblies at OGS, and the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum. As part of this grant, the library took 2 buses carrying 91 passengers to the Abraham Lincoln Museum in Springfield in Springfield on Saturday May 17.

Home school parent Jina Shawback wrote a card to the library stating, ““Thanks so much for all the excitement, fun, entertainment, & education you and the grant provided our family with. All 5 of us truly enjoyed the bus trip & museum. The living history will stick much longer than our history text books! You did great work & we appreciated it!”

The Odell Public Library is located at 301 E. Richard St. in Odell. Please call the library at (815) 998-2012 for more information; to look at program photos, visit the Odell Public Library District web site & click the ‘Library Photos’ link.

Funding for this grant was awarded by the Illinois State Library (ISL), a Division of the Office of Secretary of State, using funds provided by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), under the federal Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA).
LSTA Grant Update, Multitype Collaboration, School Libraries
LSTA Grant Update: Literacy in the 21st Century
June 20th, 2008 | Permalink | Comment?

I’m really looking forward to the start of the 2009 school year because the students at Woodruff seemed to have fallen in love with the library as the 2008 school year ended. Well, that may be a little over the top, but their attitude toward the library and myself really did change as the year progressed.

The Woodruff High School Library was awarded an LSTA grant that funded a project designed to support intensified efforts at Woodruff to increase student literacy; and the grant funds enabled us to provide books with which the students connected strongly. Word of mouth recommendations brought students to the library who had “never checked out a book here before.” The Literacy in the Twenty-first Century project truly did position the school library as an educational anchor of the Woodruff community (LSTA goal #1), and by the close of the school year students everywhere seemed to know who I am because the school library had established a stronger presence.

Materials purchased with grant funds have enabled the library to develop a collection that adequately meets the needs of our current populations. We have developed a collection of popular YA titles that has really engaged our students. Once the new purchases began to arrive we had a continual flow of students checking books in and out of the library. In the past we had had a reputation for not having many good books, but “customer satisfaction” increased as we obtained additional titles as well as multiple copies of the most popular ones. In addition, we introduced materials in formats that were new to collection, including graphic novels (some in Spanish), 23 Playaways, and a collection of fiction and non-fiction titles in Spanish.

Posters that we displayed in various places in the school, including the school cafeteria, helped us in our goal of establishing a culture of reading at Woodruff. We purchased some from the American Library Association and had several made at the Alliance Library System office that feature author and speaker Mawi Asgedom.

We involved the majority of Woodruff students in activities centered on the autobiographical book Of Beetles and Angels: A Boy’s Remarkable Journey from a Refugee Camp to Harvard, by Mawi Asgedom. Copies of the book were provided to all English teachers, and many students read the book in class while others read the book on their own. Excitement was generated because students were moved by the book, and so they were eagerly looking forward to the author’s scheduled visit in March.

Their enthusiasm was well founded because Mawi held everyone’s complete attention in the auditorium at assemblies for both the juniors-seniors and the freshmen-sophomores. Following the assemblies, Mawi visited over lunch with faculty members and selected students in the library. Many students expressed the desire to have Mawi come back sometime so all were pleased to learn that Mawi would be with us again. He returned in May to present a workshop for a small group of Woodruff students that was designed to motivate students to set and achieve goals and which was followed by an all-school assembly.

Peoria Public Library partnered with the Woodruff Library to form reading circles facilitated by Dianne Happ from Lakeview Library that met at lunchtime. We also held a special book club meeting for the book Twilight that was facilitated by ISU interns. We have learned a lot through this experience and are planning for even greater success in the future.

Grant activities also included staff development at Woodruff and the provision of resources that will enhance our literacy efforts. Professor Bill Ducett and colleagues from Illinois State University provided input in the development of a professional collection related to literacy. With donations from ISU and purchases with grant money we have over 15 titles in the collection. Dr. Carl Heine from the Illinois Math and Science Academy presented a workshop in February to introduce Woodruff staff to the 21st Century Information Fluency resources. We purchased a digital whiteboard and three LCD projectors that will enable us to present digital fluency training both in the library and in classrooms using IMSA’s online resources.

This LSTA grant award has enabled the Woodruff High School Library to make a marked improvement in both its collection and in library programming much more quickly than would have been possible otherwise. We are grateful to have been able to obtain so many resources.

Submitted by Pat Martin, Woodruff High School librarian
LSTA Grant Update, Multitype Collaboration, School Libraries
LSTA Grant Update: Here’s the Evidence, School Librarians Help Students Achieve
June 19th, 2008 | Permalink | Comment?
Here’s the Evidence, School Librarians Help Students Achieve was a pilot project sponsored by The DuPage Library System and the North Suburban Library System and funded by an IMLS-LSTA grant.

Based on work done by Dr. Violet Harada in Hawaii, the mission of the project was to show how school libraries impact student achievement on the local level by developing training methods and activities that can be used today and in the future and positioning school libraries as an educational anchor in their learning community.

The project goals were to teach school librarians to PLAN strategically; DELIVER effective messages to different audiences and DEMONSTRATE how to influence student achievement and the school community.

The grant grew out of the need to take the Illinois Study (Powerful Libraries) which showed the value of school libraries to student achievement in the aggregate and customize it to the individual school level. In addition, with the Illinois State Board of Education starting a review process of its learning standards, it is important to show the connections between the school library and other school learning issues.

The staff for this grant consisted of Pamela Kramer (DLS), Sharon Ball (NSLS) project directors; Dr. Elizabeth Marcoux, University of Washington, Lead Trainer; Stephen Mongelluzzo, First Communications, trainer; Dr. Gail Bush, National Louis University, Dr. Barbara Fiehn, NIU; Donald Adcock and Christine Balsano, Dominican University, academic consulting partners.

The cohort consisted of 28 school librarians, 14 from DLS and 14 from NSLS. There were 9 elementary, 8 middle school, and 11 high school librarians. These individuals were asked to participate based on their prior experiences with collaboration and their potential to influence the future of libraries in their communities.

After three full days of training in December 2007 and January 2008, cohort members developed collaborative projects with teachers. They were told to start “small.” Their interactions with students didn’t need to extend over a long unit; rather they could work on a piece of the project with teachers. With the help of the academic partners, who were ready at any time to provide coaching, suggestions, and guidance, the cohort members developed ways to measure their impact on student learning. A fourth training session was held in April, after most of the projects were completed. This session taught cohort members how to take the information they had collected and turn it into “messages” for different stakeholders. More than two-thirds of the cohort members indicated that their level of communication with stakeholders had improved. While the largest number of interactions was with other teachers, half of the cohort increased their levels of communication with the administrators and school boards.

When asked what changes had occurred, cohort members cited
- collaboration as the catalyst for learning
- assessment resources were more on the radar
- integration of library with classroom improved
- more awareness by teachers that librarians are being looked at differently
- importance of starting with the end in mind, for self and teachers.
Cohort members impacted all grade levels from 2 through 12. They all replied “yes” when asked if they plan to use the “process” again. One said, “I won’t go back to the old way. The grant holds me accountable.”

When asked how participation in the grant made a difference in their school and library, cohort members reported that:
- they became a catalyst for action
- they gained influence
- the library places assessment in the forefront
- library staff gained more credibility. “I am not just and extra.”
- “I am thinking differently about what I purchase, not just that I like it, but how kids will use it.”
As in other studies when teachers and librarians need to collaborate, a big challenge is always TIME. Other school responsibilities, coordination with other teachers, communicating with them are all time consuming. But the most challenging for this cohort was finding a way to measure their impact and customize their work to student and teacher needs.

Cohort members said that the best part of being in this project was the sense of community it built with other school librarians networking/collegiality. “It opened doors,” “I never knew if I was effective before but with assessment I do!” “Thanks to this grant I am growing. It’s exciting.”

All of the data from the cohort evidence folders still needs to be examined and collated into more useful data. That will be followed by a complete report and then by articles in state and national publications. The grant managers are seeking ways to develop real sustainability.

The Community of Practice (CoP) which was created by NSLS for the cohort will remain open for continued communication and conversation. Cohort members will be invited to networking meetings and be offered message and communication critiques from our communication’s trainer (pro bono). The grant managers are exploring how to develop a one day workshop to “take on the road” to spread the word about both the strategic planning process and the communication issues. There will be follow-up contacts and surveys to see how well cohort members are applying the information.

The whole grant project was exciting and stimulating, but what might be the most rewarding are some of the unexpected consequences some cohort members experienced. One was asked to serve on her school’s Student Improvement Plan (SIP) committee. Another, with the other elementary librarians in her district was able to use skills learned to communicate to her school board the importance of libraries. They got their aides back! Still another has found ways to impact a whole social studies department after working with just one teacher.

Publicly, we want to thank the Illinois State Library, a Division of the Office of the Secretary of State, for funding Here’s the Evidence using funds provided by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), under the federal Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA).

Submitted by Pamela Kramer (DLS) and Sharon Ball (NSLS)
LSTA Grant Update, Multitype Collaboration
LSTA Grant Update: ACES: Access Creates Excellent Students grant
June 13th, 2008 | Permalink | Comment?

Homer Township Public Library continues to search for new opportunities to expand its services, collections, and programs to enhance our community as a whole.

The Library is proud to have received support and funding for our ACES: Access Creates Excellent Students Grant. This innovative program reaches beyond traditional library walls providing onsite access to library resources for students enrolled in area afterschool facilities. In order to advocate the pleasures and importance of reading, this outreach program offered a variety of fun literature based activities. Primarily programmatic, children have been entertained with tall tales, juggling, a participatory kitchen band and played with poetry. They have planted seeds, made slime, played La Loteria, a Mexican bingo game, checked out materials of their choice on the bookmobile and been supplied with a deposit collection of books which were changed out every other week.

Homer Township Public Library believes that engaging children with stimulating and creative literature based activities brings not only increased quality to time spent after school but will encourage the love of reading and lifelong learning.

ACES is featured at YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/homerlibrary
Other Homer Library grant information is at: www.homerlibrary.org/grants.asp