Each year, the Nebraska Library Commission awards Continuing Education and Training Grants to Nebraska libraries to provide funding for staff to attend conferences and training sessions. In 2011, the NLC awarded grants to several librarians to attend the Public Library Association Conference in Philadelphia. Attend this session to learn more about the grants and to hear these librarians talk about their experiences at PLA.

1. March 28, 2012
Reflections on PLA 2012

2. Robin Clark
Sump Memorial Library
Papillion
robin.r.clark@gmail.com
402-597-2042

3. PLA 2012
• March 13 – Preconference – Dig Deep to Understand What your
Community Needs and Wants.
• On the move is good. Getting to where you need to go is best. This
preconference introduced the basics of conducting a community
needs assessment. Topics included trend spotting, GIS mapping and
lifestyle analysis, benchmarking, and appropriate roles for Trustees
and staff in a community needs assessment.
• Presenters: Catherine Alloway, director, Schlow Centre Region (Pa.)
Library; Nancy Davis, managing partner, The Ivy Group Ltd.,
Springfield, Pa.; Pam Fitzgerald, executive partner, The Ivy Group
Ltd., Charlottesville, Pa.; Marc Futterman, CIVICTechnologies,
Pasadena, Calif.; Rob Lesher (organizer), director, Adams County
(Pa.) Library System

4. Additional Sessions Attended
• March 15 –
• Commando Diplomacy: Building skills and Tolerance for having Difficult Conversations and
Making Real Progress
• This session introduced finding the best path through the minefield of internal politics to help staff
develop well-honed communication skills. Presented the art of navigating difficult conversations
with ethical integrity and confidence. One of the presenters was a union negotiator and had some
very interesting tips to take conversations to a more positive place.
• Tell Me Something I Don’t Know: Meaningful Community Engagement
• Presented a look at practical, affordable, enjoyable techniques for garnering civilian input without
surrendering professional judgment. How to reach the right stakeholders, ask the right questions,
and elicit ideas that expand everyone’s thinking about our community and our library.
• Creating a Vibrant Organizational Culture at Your Library
• A comprehensive plan for developing a more innovative, resilient, positive and unified mindset for
staff.
• Saying Yes to the Community
• A case study from Durham County, North Carolina. Presented a strategic planning process that
began with staff visioning, progressed through best practices tours of libraries and the posting of
those ideas online, culminating in a future search conference involving 150 community members
and the whole staff.

5. Additional Sessions Attended
• March 16
• Black Belt Libraries: Maximizing your Building’s Effectiveness in Keeping Your Library Safe
• Ideas to make our building safer by seeing it through the eyes of a library security expert who has
seen it all.
• Sustainable is the New Strategic
• Programs and services must be sustainable. This presentation introduced a powerful four-step
process to determine the long-term sustainability of any current or proposed library offerings. A
plus for realigning services, initiating a planning process, or planning facilities.
• With Friends Like These . . .
• Libraries need Friends groups more than ever to raise money and to advocate for better funding. A
panelist of librarians and a successful Friends group leader talked about how to do it right.
• Losing My Religion: Crafting Meeting Room Policies that Keep You in Charge and Out of Court.
• This workshop discussed the Frist Amendment principles and legal precedents that underlie these
challenges and provide practical guidance on crafting meeting room and other library policies that
keep the library in charge while preserving user’s access and Frist Amendment rights.

6. PLA Attendee: Cecelia Lawrence,
North Platte Public Library
Conver-Station, Thursday, March 15, 2012 8:15am
Help! I am not a Social Worker by Carolyn Davidson Brewer
Are you being asked more and more by your users for social service help? Wonder about
best practices for dealing with mentally ill users? Let's talk about it!
• Carolyn’s background: Masters degree in Social Work, Master of Library
Science degree, Private Investigator’s license. Currently working as the
executive director of the North Texas Library Partners (home of the North
Texas Regional Library System)
• National Association of Social Workers: Code of Ethics and the ALA Librarian
Code of Ethics are extremely similar
• Real Life at the Library pretty much boils down to dealing with the bulk of our
regular library patrons without issue, and then there is the other 10-20% of
our library patrons who cause libraries and their staff, nothing but grief.
• For those who cause us problems, the solution to better interactions is to
recognize which patrons are: The Angry; The Medicated or shall we say Non-
Medicated; The Self Medicated; The confused; The Child and the Child-like;
and The Truly Dangerous

7. PLA Attendee: Cecelia Lawrence,
North Platte Public Library
AM Session, Friday, March 16, 2012 8:15am
Transforming Public Libraries from Institutions of the Industrial Age
to Change Agents for the Networked Society by Rolf Hapel
This session will focus on new models for developing the public library and innovative
practices implemented in Danish libraries will be presented. Also discussed will be the recent
development of a Danish Digital library infrastructure, based on Service Oriented
Architecture and Open Source Software, and the impact of digitization on the physical space.
Learn how the new main library was developed through a participatory process using co-
creative and user-driven methodologies in engaging the community.
Rolf Hapel has worked in four Danish cities as librarian, deputy
manager and director; becoming director of Aarhus Public Libraries
(AaPL) in 1994. He is since 2006 director of Citizens’ Services and
Libraries (CSL). Rolf Hapel has been chairman of numerous steerings
groups, committees and international advisory boards, is author of a
number of articles published in the library press and frequently speaks
internationally on library related issues.

8. PLA Attendee: Cecelia Lawrence,
North Platte Public Library
Transforming Public Libraries from Institutions of the Industrial Age
to Change Agents for the Networked Society by Rolf Hapel
You can view this 81 slide presentation (totally worth it!) off of the
PLA conference website.
The focus of the presentation were to look at these three topics of
conversation:
• A future for Digital Library Services
• Innovation in Services
• The Library as a Space

9. PLA CONFERENCE 2012
Mary Jo Mack
John Stahl Library
West Point, NE
maryjo@wplibrary.com
402-372-3831

10. Being the Best:
Stories from the Best Small Libraries in America
• What does it take to be an innovative library without a
big budget or staff?
• Once you get there, how do you sustain that level of
success?
• The 2008-2011 winners of the Library Journal Best Small
Library in America award share stories about the
innovative programs, partnerships and services that
helped their libraries rise to the top.

11. Winners of the Award
• 2008 winner: Chelsea District Library, Chelsea, MI
www.chelsealibrary.org
• 2009 winner: Union County Carnegie Library, Union, SC
www.unionlibrary.org
• 2010 winner: Glen Carbon Centennial Library, Glen
Carbon, IL www.glencarbonlibrary.org
• 2011 winner: Naturita Community Library, Montrose, CO
www.montroselibrary.org

12. Greg Mickells
Assistant Library Director
Lincoln City Libraries

13. Getting e-Content to Your Customers
Ebooks in 2011
• 35Million Checked out
• 17 Million holds
• Ebook sales exceeded
physical paperbacks and
hardcovers
• 17% increase in eBook sales

14. eReaders 2009 - 2012
• 2009 Adult owned eReaders 2%
• 2010 Adult owned eReaders 5%
• Dec 2011 to Jan 2012 eReader ownership increase from
18%-29%
• 16.6 M eReaders sold in 2011(up from 12M in 2010)
• 44.6M tablets sold in 2011 (up from 18M in 2010)

15. Mobile is the biggest part
of the revolution

16. Will publishers become obsolete?
Will our new providers be
Amazon,
Apple or
even Google

17. Matthew R. Williams
Library Director
Kearney Public Library
Conference goals: In light of our wonderful new
facility and programming spaces I wanted to learn
more about adult programming, brush up on meeting
room policies, and become renewed and inspired
about community service.

18. Sessions Covered
• Reaching for the Future: You Got to Take the Risk
to Get the Reward. Speaker: Shelley Walchak and
staff from Colorado Anythink Libraries and the
public library in Telluride.
– Creativity and innovation to show our relevancy.
• Maximizing the Impact of Programming: Getting
the Most from Your Efforts. Speakers included
one from the Tribeca Film Institute and the
program person from Telluride.
– Taking programming to the next level by using
community partnerships.

19. • Young Adult Programs That Work.
• Losing My Religion: Crafting Meeting Room
Policies that Keep You in Charge and Out of
Court. Speaker: Vicky Baker, Mid-continent
Public Library

20. PLA pre-conference attended by Steve Fosselman, Grand Island
Thank you NLC for helping me attend!
(information cut/pasted from http://ourlibraryplace.com/elearn/)

26. Define the Problem

27. Data and Options