Best Small Library in America 2015: Belgrade Community Library

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A webinar with the Belgrade Community Library, winner of Library Journal’s 2015 Best Small Library in America Award.

With just six staff members serving a community of 12,700 outside of Bozeman, MT, the Belgrade Community Library won this year’sLibrary Journal Best Small Library in America Award. This award, cosponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, was created in 2005 to encourage and showcase the exemplary work of libraries serving populations under 25,000. What is Belgrade’s secret award-winning sauce? With a robust volunteer base, they have reimagined library services and aggressively developed new outreach efforts to meet the community’s changing needs. The result is intense engagement and support from the community and an impact beyond Belgrade’s borders through leadership to small libraries throughout the state. Learn how to replicate and adapt Belgrade’s ambitious outreach efforts on a small-library budget.

This webinar is hosted in collaboration with the Association for Rural and Small Libraries and Library Journal, and will include an overview of the nomination process and details for next year’s award (Deadline: September 9).

Presented by: Gale Bacon, Director, Rebekah Kamp, Children and Youth Services Librarian and Keiley McGregor, Public Services Librarian, all at the Belgrade Community Library; and Meredith Schwartz, Executive Editor, Library Journal.

Tweet: #wjwebinar and @RuralLibAssoc

Crafting a Successful Adult Education Program for Small Libraries

This webinar, presented in collaboration with the Association for Rural & Small Libraries, showcases successful adult education opportunities for patrons who lack a GED, or other high school equivalency.

No matter how small a community you serve, your library can provide vital, successful adult education opportunities for patrons who lack a GED, or other high school equivalency. When the Shreve Memorial Library (LA) decided that its small, rural part-time branches should be equipped to serve patrons with the same level of instruction and resources offered in the full-time branches, the first ever Rural Adult Education Program was born. Join us to hear how the library’s Adult Education Coordinator devised workable, affordable and manageable strategies to launch the program in small libraries; learn about solutions and alternatives that can be adapted to any budget, workforce, workspace and public need.

This session was presented as a preconference at Association for Rural and Small Libraries 2014 and has been adapted to fit within a 90 minute webinar.

Presented by: Debra Kavanaugh, Librarian, Adult Educator, Researcher, Curriculum Developer, and most recently, Adult Education Coordinator, Shreve Memorial Library, Louisiana.

Tweet: #wjwebinar and @RuralLibAssoc

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SALS 2014 Executive Summary

Executive Summary of SALS 2014 Survey Responses

Library staff and trustees were asked to complete a satisfaction and use survey as required by the SALS Plan of Service 2012-2016.  One hundred thirty people completed the survey (forty-three staff, sixty trustees, twenty-seven directors). Here are some of the survey highlights.

98.23% of the respondents are satisfied with SALS services.

99.12% of the respondents find SALS services to be valuable and relevant.

SALS services rated the most used and most valued:

value & satisfaction graph

  • Delivery/Interlibrary Loan/Resource Sharing
  • Polaris/Automation
  • Central Library Services
  • Continuing Education and Consulting

SALS will continue to provide web based and/or face-to-face (your house or ours) consulting and continuing education to ensure all staff, volunteers and trustees receive the training they need to provide good customer service to their communities.

Continuing Education in 2016 will highlight strategic planning, orientation to SALS services, community based planning, early literacy, technology and social media, marketing and Polaris.

Continuing Ed Graph

The full survey and responses are available here.

Remarks

The SALS Board of Trustees approved a new hire to assist member library staff in outreach services and marketing.

SALS and the Crandall Public Library purchased two consortium wide genealogy databases.

Crandall Public Library, working with the SALS member library directors, continues to support eContent for every library in our system.

Delivery services and resource sharing continue to be very important to the membership.

SALS staff needs to work harder to promote all SALS services to the membership – trustees, directors and front-line staff.

The Construction Grant and the Technology Challenge Grant continue to be popular and well received.  Excellent building improvements and new programs were generated by these grant funds.

The Joint Automation staff continues to be an invaluable resource to the membership.