Your monthly news & updates
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Unlock Your Future Mindset with Strategic Foresight
Following up on the 2017 Futures Conference, I was fortunate to have been invited to attend the Futures School, Powered by Kedge, 3-Day Strategic Foresight designed to “Unlock the Future Mindset.” Our Detroit Futures School was made up of future, futurists from companies, universities and organizations such as UAW Ford National Programs Center, Carhartt, Columbus College School of Design, Purdue University, Capgemini, Whirlpool, 24G, and AAA. The common thread among our very different industries is that we are all experiencing disruption during a time of acceleration which creates amplified volatility. Social, technological, economic, environmental, and political drivers factors related to acceleration are driven by complexity of our environments which magnifies the uncertainty and ambiguity of variables affecting disruption. My fellow futurists are facing the similar issues of these volatile and complex times that libraries across CT and the country are facing. The challenge is that in order to lead our organizations through disruption and acceleration, we need new approaches and mindsets to remain focused on what is next.
That is where Strategic Foresight, an enduring discipline that allows practitioners to create functional views of alternative futures and possibilities comes in. Strategic Foresight provides organizational leaders the ability to navigate an uncertain future through strategy development, disruptive innovation and cultural transformation. We spent 3 days immersed in external environmental scanning; identifying trend clusters and partners; developing strategy scenarios; identifying personal and organization biases; scanning the environments for emerging issues; mapping the probable, preferred and provocative futures of identified focal issues; and designing scenarios and action plans to accommodate our futures into productive outcomes that are essential to creating a culture of future thinkers.
Moving forward, the Division of Library Development consultants will become familiar with Strategic Foresight and will ultimately receive Foresight training and in turn implement the tools in an wide array of activities including designing and executing a DLD scenario based action plan; consulting, including applying Strategic Foresight to library issues; professional development and implementation of the Strategic Foresight skills in DLD’s task force groups, committees and councils.
For more information on Strategic Foresight , feel free to contact me at
Dawn.LaValle@ct.gov
or 860.757.6665
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What the Heck is ACLPD? A Short Quiz for Anyone Interested in Libraries
How much do you know about this statewide organization? Answer the questions below and then check your responses against the answers in the link at the end of the quiz.
1.
ACLPD is an acronym for:
a) Association of Connecticut Library Boards.
b) American Council of Library PhDs.
c) Advisory Council for Library Planning and Development.
d) Association of Connecticut Library Policy Design
2.
True or False: ACLPD reports directly to the Connecticut State Legislature.
3.
True or False: The recently organized Resource Sharing Committee is a permanent standing committee of ACLPD.
4.
True or False:
Members of ACLPD are appointed for life by the State Librarian.
5.
True or False
: ACLPD is responsible for providing advice, perspective, and communication from the library community to State Library staff and the State Library Board.
6.
True or False: Only public libraries are represented on ACLPD.
7.
True or False: Librarians may not nominate friends or patrons to serve on ACLPD.
Click
here for the answers.
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Construction Grants Available for 2018
The Connecticut State Library will be accepting construction grant applications this year from public libraries for library expansion, new buildings, major alterations, remodeling, accessibility, code compliance, emergency preparedness, and energy conservation. Available funding is expected to be at least $6 million.
Library construction grants fund one-half of total project costs up to a maximum of $1 million. All interested libraries MUST submit a “Notice of Intent” form by June 30. Applications will be due by September 1. The new “Notice of Intent” form and other documents explaining the grant program are available on our Construction Grants web page here:
http://libguides.ctstatelibrary.org/dld/construction/constructiongrants. Some of the details regarding the grant program may be revised in late May following the State Library Board meeting.
Please contact Tom Newman, Construction Grants, at 860-757-6573,
tom.newman@ct.gov for more information.
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LSTA Planning Grant Information Sessions
Applications for LSTA Planning Grants will be accepted on a rolling basis every two months, with the next deadlines coming up in June and August. These six-month planning grants will provide up to $5,000 to assist libraries with planning initiatives to explore new services, assess and address the needs of changing population and patron bases, develop partnerships and collaboration, or write new strategic plans or long-range master plans.
All potential applicants must attend an information session about the assessment and planning tools available from the CT State Library as well as grant application instructions, regulations, and fiscal management. Register for the session of your preference at
http://cslib.libcal.com/
.
·
Monday, May 7, 9:30-11:30, Middletown Library Service Center
·
Wednesday, July 11, 9:30-11:30, Middletown Library Service Center
Additional information sessions will be offered bimonthly in the fall and winter. If you would like to host an information session at your library, please contact Maria Bernier, LSTA Coordinator, at
maria.bernier@ct.gov
or 860-704-2204.
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Reminder: The findIT CT project staff will continue to accept updated library holdings files through June 1st. The staff will process and upload the files to the statewide catalog, findIT CT. We are accepting updates on a yearly basis for now.
Note: if your library is part of Bibliomation, CONNcert, Library Connection, LION, or SECONN, we will get your library’s holdings from your network.
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We will be offering a requestIT CT training session on Thursday, May 31 from 10:30 am to 1:30 pm at Otis Library in Norwich. For details and to register visit
https://cslib.libcal.com/event/4141805.
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EBSCO Enhanced Security
We will be implementing secure connections to EBSCO resources in researchIT CT on Friday, May 4. This means that if your library is using or has posted direct links to EBSCO databases in research IT CT, you will need to change the protocol in those links from http:// to https:// after May 4. For those libraries that proxy into EBSCO, see the document linked to below and scroll or flick down to
Proxy Server Updates for more information. Likewise, to learn which web browser versions EBSCO recommends, see the page linked to below and scroll or flick down to
Browser Requirements.
OR:
NOTE: The transition to a secure connection can take up to 24 hours to take effect.
Task Force Meeting
The eResource Advisory Task Force will meet on Thursday, May 24, 2018 at the Middletown Library Service Center, 786 South Main Street, at 9:00 a.m. in the conference room. Information gathered from the focus group sessions conducted in February through April will be a topic for discussion, as well as the electronic resources RFP to be written and released for 2019.
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Development Update
LYRASIS has created a circulation manager for Libraries Online, Inc. (LION) and has added access to the OverDrive collections in Clark Memorial, Durham Public, East Hampton Public, East Lyme, and James Blackstone Memorial Libraries as well as the Essex Library Association to it. Testing of all of the six libraries in each of the three regional library systems is underway, with all but a few libraries functioning correctly at this writing. Each of the libraries also has access to the SimplyE Collection of open source eBooks made available to all libraries in the SimplyE by the New York Public Library.
The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) continues with its Open Bookshelf initiative that will furnish access to open access eBooks to libraries in SimplyE in the future. The Open Bookshelf Curation Corp has selected from titles in the Unglue.it platform and added them to the Open Bookshelf. The recent decision to add Open Bookshelf content to the SimplyE app will inform curators' title selection decisions going forward.
Results from the partnership of the State Library, LYRASIS, and the DPLA have been satisfactory - so much so that the partners agreed to extend the original memorandum of understanding (November 2017 - April 2018) an additional six months, terminating on October 1, 2018.
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Fall Diversity Workshop
Just a heads-up for children's and youth services people! We are planning another all-day diversity workshop for the fall, probably in October. This will be similar to our March 14 Everyone Included program, but will focus on LGBTQIA+ issues. The Executive Director, Robin McHaelen, of
True Colors
has agreed to come and do a program very similar to the program she did at the recent CLA Conference, and we hope to have librarians who are doing LBGTQ programming, and a panel of Connecticut librarians. Watch the goodnightmoon and Speak listservs for more information!
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Professional Development & Training Opportunities – May
Understanding Grant Guidelines & Responding to Requests for Proposals
In person workshop
Monday, May 21, 9:30 am to 1 pm
Middletown Library Service Center, 786 South Main St., Middletown, CT 06457
Cost: Free
Tip Top Tech Training
In person workshop
Tuesday, May 22, 9 am to noon
Middletown Library Service Center, 786 South Main St., Middletown, CT 06457
Cost: Free
For more professional development opportunities,
visit the Division of Library Development’s Continuing Education Calendar at
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Reminder: MLSC Hours – May 2018
A reminder that in addition to 8 am to 4:30 pm, Monday to Friday, the Middletown Library Service Center’s hours for May will include:
Thursday, May 3: Open 8 am to 8 pm
Saturday, May 5: Open 9 am to noon
Questions?
Contact us at 860-704-2200, our main phone number.
Contact Grace or Judy Crooks (
judy.crooks@ct.gov
) to pull general selections of children’s books or
Books on CD in advance of your visit.
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