Weekly Digest: Library Love Story, Library Legislative Day, grant and scholarship options and more important info

It’s a big one this week. Thanks for reading the whole thing!

The Library Love Stories are starting to come in!

Keep them coming! Take a peek at responses on the google spreadsheet. If you want to add a story, use the form. Staff AND the public are encouraged to use the form. You might not see your story there immediately.

If you need help promoting the Library Love Story campaign, there’s a toolkit for that! You can always reach Reb at kilde@ifls.lib.wi.us.

You can go to Library Legislative Day

From the WLA: Happy 2023! Now that the New Year has begun, you should make sure to sign up for Library Legislative Day! It’s right around the corner—before you get too busy, go online here: https://wla.memberclicks.net/library-legislative-day-2 and sign yourself up. Signing up is easy.

State aid is a crucial part of the library environment in Wisconsin. In the next months, the legislature will focus on the next state budget, part of which will be determining how much funding will be available for library systems, library contracts, and Recollection Wisconsin.

You can help! Sign up for Library Legislative Day now and join the Wisconsin library community in Madison on February 7, 2023.

This year the morning session will be held at the Madison Public Library. Need somewhere to stay the night before? WLA has worked with the Madison Concourse Hotel and has a block of rooms available. More information about Legislative Day is available at the link above.

Sign up today! Don’t wait!

Grant opportunity

Gearbox Labs has reached out to the WPLC to extend a grant opportunity to Wisconsin Public Libraries. Here’s their message:

Gearbox’s 501c3 organization based in Glendale, WI received a grant from the Vela Education Fund to bring engineering, electronics, and coding education workshops to the state with an emphasis on reaching homeschool students, libraries with an interest in expanding makerspace activities, and teachers. Our emphasis in to work with libraries outside of Milwaukee.

As background, in 2020, we piloted a similar 3 library program with the Monarch System in Sheboygan County at Random Lake, Plymouth, and Sheboygan libraries that reached 50 students – mostly girls and mostly homeschoolers that was well received. Our application to scale this effort state-wide was accepted by Vela Education Fund and we hope WPLC would help us reach these communities. Also, I am a MLIS graduate of UW-Milwaukee.

Out grant’s goals is to go to 7 communities around the state and teach homeschool students, train library staff and local teachers from February to July 2023.

There is no cost to the library. For hosting our workshops, we would provide 5 sets of our engineering, electronics, and coding books and kits to the library for check out and future use in its outreach efforts in the community. Participants in the workshops will receive a free book and kit from us. We would also like to offer the same workshop for educators in the area on an adjacent day – preferably at the library as well. Educators would also receive a free book and kit for attending the workshop.

We are looking for 7 host libraries around the state that would align with this opportunity and give us space to present two, one-day workshops. One day would be offered to homeschool students and library staff and the second would be for local educators and library staff. The libraries must be geographically dispersed around the state and have a room for us to present to up to 20 participants each day.

If interested, contact Peter Haydock at Office +1.414.446.4022 or Cell +1.7, 03.340.9434 or email peter@gearboxlabs.org

Scholarship opportunity last chance: due date is tomorrow

If you have ever wanted to attend a conference, take a course, or have a library inservice for the whole staff at your library, these scholarships are for you! This means YOU!

IFLS has funds from the Department of Public Instruction’s Public Library Team through LSTA funding from the Institute for Museum and Library Services to help us fund scholarship opportunities. Due Date is January 6.

Leah sent out an email with details last Tuesday. If you didn’t get that email, please contact Leah directly at langby@ifls.lib.wi.us.

Coming up on the IFLS calendar

• Thu Jan 19th 2:00pm to 3:00pm – Youth Services Virtual Check-in: Collection Confidential
• Fri Jan 20th 10:00am to 1:00pm – MORE Directors Council meeting (virtual only)
• Thu Jan 25th and 26th 9:00am to 3:30pm – Wild Wisconsin Winter Web Conference
• Wed Feb 1st 10:00am to 3:00pm – Annual Report Workshop at IFLS office
• Thu Feb 2nd 10:00am to 3:00pm – Annual Report Workshop at Rice Lake Public Library

go to the calendar

From Leah for Library Directors

(Not a library director? You can skip this one.) Effective January 1, 2023, the Library Services team at DPI will no longer accept payments for public librarian certification! According to Shannon Schultz, “This exciting development stems from our efforts to increase equity and reduce barriers for Wisconsin’s public libraries, particularly those in small and rural communities. While the dollar amount is small, we hope that the elimination of this fee simplifies the certification process for all directors and staff.”

Please note that this eliminates the need to mail any documents to DPI via the postal service. The certification process is now strictly virtual, and any physical copies and payments received will be destroyed. All forms and documents are currently being updated to reflect these changes. Please be sure to email all certification applications and documents, as pdfs or jpgs, to LibraryCertification@dpi.wi.gov for processing.

As a reminder:

Please send completed Annual Summation Forms and Activity Reports to Leah.

• It is awesome if you do this yearly at the anniversary of your certification date to allow for less stress when your 5 years are up.
• Please send these to Leah via email.
  • If you send attachments of Activity Reports as a word document attachment and don’t sign them, Leah will assume since it is from your email address, you don’t need to sign it.
  • Please complete the forms in WORD as it is much easier than deciphering handwriting. Let me know if you run into any trouble with that.
• I will check these over and send back the signed Annual Summation Forms (via email and I’ll also send a hard copy via courier).

Then, when your certification is due

• send all the completed, signed Annual Summation Forms (NOT the Activity Reports) and your certification form to LibraryCertification@dpi.wi.gov for processing.

Please let Leah know if you have any questions or concerns about this!

Request a free Libby marketing kit!

Complete this survey to be shipped printed promotional materials.

The Great Sunflower Project: citizen science

From Reb: I participated in the Great Sunflower Project for a few years when my kids were younger and we really enjoyed it. I think it would be a great project for a library! There’s no charge to participate.

One Seed – One Wisconsin project update

There are some technical things to be aware of if you were interested in the seed library project, prompted by a question from Cricket LaFond (Clear Lake Public Library). Here’s the info from Tovah:

Jung is a licensed and reputable seed labeler and one that would be directly affected by your “give away”. I think that if they are aware of your plans and don’t have a problem with it, you shouldn’t need a license. Full disclosure with Jung is advised and they could probably do your labeling for you.

It was a pleasure speaking with you this morning.  When you are wanting to do this again, just let me know ahead of time and we can package them up for you and even add library information to the package.  For this round, Jung Seed does not have any issues with the way it was handled.

If you need anything, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Have a great week!