Topic List

Library Services

• Essential 21st century library services
• Future-focused librarianship
• The ins and outs of library program funding
• Designing a new library service
• Library program planning
• Assessing your community to meet their needs
• Incorporating technology into beloved programs: Storytime, book club, and beyond
• Privacy in the modern library
• Device lending: Designing a program and managing it for success
• See also: Digital Equity | Technology

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Digital Equity

The basics

• Digital equity 101: Let’s get started
• Understanding the digital divide
• Digital inclusion: The core library service
• So “equity” is a bad word: Now what?

Individual impact

• The foundations of digital literacy
• 21st century digital skills
• Students and digital citizenship
• Digital wellness and healthy online behaviors
• How to teach digital literacy to students and patrons
• How to build digital skills and foster independence in our communities
• Setting up our students for virtual learning success
• Connecting our patrons with the opportunities of remote work

Systemic impact

• Libraries and digital inclusion today
• Digital equity 201: Envisioning the future
• Writing & implementing a digital equity plan
• Digital navigators & Tech mentors
  • Designing a digital navigator program
  • Training your digital navigator team
  • Managing a digital navigator program beyond year 1
  • Aren’t my staff already digital navigators?
  • Supporting the OG digital navigators: Empowering library staff and avoiding burnout
• Device refurbishment
• Funding digital inclusion work
• Tomorrow’s digital inclusion: Solving the digital readiness gap of the future

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Technology

The basics

• Tech in libraries: Operations and services
• Broadband 101: Let’s get started
• Fearless tech: How to talk to pros without feeling left behind
• Trends, issues, and current events in technology and the online world
• Anchor institutions: What it means, and what we owe our communities

The future

• Where does your computer lab go from here? Transforming to meet today’s needs
• Emerging technologies
• Watching the horizon: The future of tech in libraries
• Today’s tech, tomorrow’s policy: Decisions that will impact libraries

Dive in deep

• Managing a technology collection
• Broadband 201: Taking charge for libraries
• Not for sale: Relationships with vendors and tech pros
• Using library values to navigate a tech field without ethics
• Privacy online and in the modern library
• Hotspots and device lending
  • Mobile wifi hotspots, SIM cards, smartphones, etc.
  • Chromebooks and LTE-enabled devices
  • iPads and tablets
  • Launchpads and other early literacy or child-oriented devices
  • Libraries of things: Yes, we check out “stuff”
• Library kiosks and remote access stations
• Artificial intelligence (AI) and large language models (LLMs)
• Virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality (AR, VR, MR)
• Maker carts, Maker crates, and other small footprint Makerspace solutions
• Managing a public wifi network
• Publishing revolution: Self-publishing, print on demand, e-book ease, and the future of the marketplace
• Internet content filtering
  • Note: A specialized version of this topic is available for educational partners such as school district IT or concerned legislators, or parent-based communities such as PTAs and Facebook groups. It builds common ground and explains what libraries and schools are doing to ensure every child has the opportunity to learn and grow in a safe environment. This can be a volatile subject, but I’ve built strong bridges across ideological differences regarding filtering before. I believe it can work for you. Please contact me to discuss your priorities and situation.

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Leadership

Big picture

• Values driven leadership
• Lead from where you are
• Developing a vision
• Strategic planning: What to consider in your library’s 21st century strategic plan
• Writing & implementing a technology plan for your library
• Municipal digital equity plans: How to write them, how to implement them

Management

• Build your dream team: Hiring, developing, and letting go
• Empowering library staff and avoiding burnout
• Employee-driven achievement and professional development in teams of all sizes
• Leadership accountability makes the world go round

Strategy

• Communicating with partisan stakeholders and tough audiences
• How to sell your politicians on library values
• It’s how you say it: Vocabulary to avoid politics
• Building allies out of detractors
• Surviving the siege: What’s never up for grabs

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