Author: Tamar Kirschner

Seguimos Creando Enlaces Conference: Long-lasting Connections

Post author By Tamar Kirschner
Post date May 25, 2023

The 11th Annual Seguimos Creando Enlaces (We Continue Creating Connections) conference was back in person with 167 attendees at the San Diego Central Library on Friday, May 12th, 2023. Creando, for short, is a free, binational conference, sponsored by CALL, that fosters community connections and cultural diversity in public, academic, and special libraries, bringing together libraries from both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border to share best practices and build more inclusive library spaces. Conference sessions are proudly presented in both English and Spanish and include live interpretation.

This year’s conference theme was “Open Minds, Open Doors – Mentes y Puertas Abiertas”, and opened with a keynote presentation from beloved children’s author and illustrator Yuyi Morales, as well as featuring 2Spirit storyteller Juan Reynoso. A catered lunch from the locally-owned Empanada Kitchen was hosted by the San Diego Public Library Foundation and Friends of the Library. Workshop sessions included topics around advocacy for intellectual freedom, equitable programming and access for all, highlighting innovative and inspiring projects for communities of color, immigrants, refugees, LGBTQIA+, Spanish speakers/ESL resources, digital equity and binational collaborations.

2023 Creando Attendee feedback:

Me gusto la diversidad de las presentaciones ese año. (I liked the diversity of the presentations this year.)

The live interpretation really makes it possible for everyone to connect with each other and become educated on the fantastic library work happening on both sides of the border.

Wonderful content, really impactful presentations!

Many of the presentations showed examples of leveraging community interest and skills to be more inclusive and showcase strengths. The library was shown as being responsive and facilitating groups to see their contributions as important.

I immediately reported out to our Latinx Advocacy Team and discussed how collaborating with Spanish-speaking community organizations is best practice.

Special appreciation goes to the small group of dedicated committee members, who put much time, talent, vision and heart into this incredible event: Veronica Andrade, Adriana Huertas, Ana Villalpando, Sarah Hoeffel, Laura Kirkland, Leslie McNabb, Mayra Turchiano, Orquidia Contreras, Patrick Sullivan, Erika Esquivel, and Eric Castro.

The committee meets virtually, and committee members can be located anywhere. We begin planning in July. If you think you might be interested in joining the 2024 Creando committee, and would like more information, please contact Tamar Kirschner.

Tags community partnerships, programming, seguimos creando enlaces

Libraries

Building Better

Post author By Tamar Kirschner
Post date May 12, 2023

Is your library in the midst of a building project? Are building codes a foreign language to you? As libraries around the state gear up for Building Forward infrastructure projects and grant proposals, it’s a good time to learn more about understanding and managing library spaces.

California Libraries Learn (CALL) invites you to join us for a lunchtime workshop with Carlos Baffigo on Thursday, May 18, at noon: Building It Right – Building Codes and Standards.

Specially tailored for library supervisors and managers (but open to all levels of library workers), the “Building Basics for Libraries Continued” webinar series introduces fundamental concepts and terminology of construction, building management, and building maintenance as they relate to the library environment.

You will find recordings from the entire series on CALL Academy at:

New to using CALL Academy? Check out this guide to help you create a CALL Academy online learning account.

Libraries

On-ground Workshops

Post author By Tamar Kirschner
Post date May 8, 2023

The supported research was well presented. Great, confident presenter who has worked a variety of fields… I enjoyed the group activity to better learn our personal thinking styles. Also, it was nice to meet other library staff from libraries across SoCal.
-Participant quote

In April, CALL responded to requests for more professional development opportunities in the area of trauma-informed librarianship with our first ever on-ground workshops. Dr. Elizabeth Wahler, who is the Director of the School of Social Work at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and founder/owner of Beth Wahler Consulting, brought Managing Patron Challenges Through a Trauma-Informed Lens to four locations across the state. Dr. Wahler’s wealth of experience working with both individual and large library systems across the country to assess the psychosocial needs of patrons and address staff challenges in dealing with those issues ensured that this training was highly informative, insightful and helpful for those in attendance.

Attendees reported that being able to get together face-to-face and work interactively in groups was especially impactful, and that they appreciated some much-needed focus on their own secondary trauma as library workers. As one workshop participant raved, “The whole thing was outstanding.”

Participants at all four workshops were clear that they want more training opportunities that support library workers in the increasingly stressful aspects of their daily work life and that they were hopeful that their library leadership would have additional opportunities to attend this type of training, as well. The CALL Team heard you loud and clear. Stay tuned in the coming months for more trauma-informed service training targeted at administrators and management, as well as additional self-care strategies for library staff.

In case you weren’t able to attend this round of in-person workshops, you can check out Dr. Wahler’s related recordings in CALL Academy: