Senior Programing Ideas

While browsing our Professional Collection I noticed two books which are excellent sources for working with our Senior Population. The first is Serving Seniors by RoseMary Honnold and Saralyn A. Mesaros. It's a hands-on guide for libraries with ideas to begin and expand services to the older adults in the community. Some of the topics include: Build a Collection to Serve Senior Adults, Start a Discussion Group, Offer Informative and Entertaining Programs, and Surf the Net with Seniors to name a few. The other book is Elder-Berries, Library Programs for Older Adults. It is filled with ideas for presenting programs at nursing homes, assisted living facillities, or the library. The plans are simple including a brief description, materials and equipment needed, and some helpful hints.

Web Accessibility Initiative

The topic of accessibility of ALD's catalog came up at our last Interest Group meeting. I came across a website of a group that is working on recommendations to improve web accessibility for people with disabilities. Some of it is rather technical, but some of the recommendations are understandable even for non-techies. Take a look here http://www.w3.org/WAI/

Ballot proposal for people with developmental disabilities

There is a proposal on the November ballot, Amendment 51, to increase the state sales tax to provide funds for services for people with developmental disabilities. To learn more about this proposal, you can go to the online version of the election "blue book", which contains the text of the proposal, analysis, and arguments for and against. http://www.state.co.us/gov_dir/leg_dir/lcsstaff/bluebook/2008EnglishVersionforInternet.pdf
Click on the left-hand side on the sections you want to read.

ALA Office for Literacy and Outreach Services

I just returned from the Association of Bookmobile and Outreach Services (ABOS) Conference. While I was there I had the opportunity to meet Satia Orange, who is the Director of the ALA Office for Literacy and Outreach Services (OLOS). Ms. Orange spoke about the many resources that OLOS provides to those serving special populations. She also handed out toolkit sheets that I'll be sure to bring to the meeting on Wednesday. The toolkits are all available online as well. The site also includes links to ALA groups such as GLBTRT, ABOS, CALA, and REFORMA. Here is a link to the OLOS site:
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/olos/index.cfm

Russian Fire-Bird Festival at the Chuchr of All Saints

September 13 I have participated in the Russian festival “Fire-Bird” organized by the Russian Orthodox Church of All Saints. It was the very first such festival and it attracted many Russians as well as many English speakers. I brought books (both for kids and adults) on Russian history, culture and Russian Orthodox Church. And I was able to check out quite a few of them – especially children’s books. I also issued library cards to people from Colorado Springs who did not know they could have ALD cards and check out books from GL. They were very happy to learn that we have a large collection of Russian books which included a good portion of kids’ books, audio-books and DVDs. I also explained to some people who came to the festival from Nebraska (!) how to get Russian books through interlibrary loan. I was surprised at how few people realized they could get our books no matter where they lived! Besides book I brought to the festival ALD handout materials (Deweys, information on the computer classes, Construction Party fliers, etc). And it was really handy, because many people came and ask for this information. In general I am glad I came to this festival: I got acquainted with Father Boris (the priest) and with many other people from the parish (both Russian- and English-speaking) who were either unaware of the Russian collection at ALD at all or were not aware of its size and versatility. I saw many familiar faces of adoptive parents and kids from the REECA camp and I was asked many times whether when we move to the new library we are going to have Russian classes or study groups. Concerning study groups: this question was mainly asked by English speakers who converted into Russian Orthodox faith and who would like to learn Russian and/or practice their language skills.

Time change for the Special Pops meeting

The Special Populations Special Interest Group meeting time has been changed from 8:30 to 8:00 am. Date and location will remain the same:

October 15
8:00 to 9:30 am
Public Meeting Room, Admin Building

Immigrant Integration Grant

Hello,

I wanted to share an exciting program. Spring Institute of Intercultural Learning, SI, our partner for English as a Second Language, ESL, classes, wrote a $5,000 grant to Western Union for an Immigrant Integration Grant for incorporating Library Literacy into the ESL curriculum.

This pilot program will begin with the 8 ESL classes at Glendale and the Glendale Library staff.

SI has hired a reference librarian from DPL, who has also taught ESL classes for them for nearly 16 years, to write up the library literacy curriculum to add to the ESL curriculum with ALD input.

This pilot program began September 1, 2008 and runs through August 31, 2009.

Some parts include: Library Literacy training and library tours for ESL instructors
Pre/post surveys for students on library use and knowledge
Pre/post surveys for GL staff on comfort working with diverse patrons
ALD Lang Lib developing level appropriate library tours and library literacy
instruction
and more.

I will post updates and progress throughout the year on this wonderful partnership.

Cindy McFadden