MCLS has made an investment in Indiana Libraries by providing scholarship funds for staff from 28 libraries to attend ALA/Harwood Public Innovator training over the past two years. We are committed to continuing to support these libraries in this important work.
In this spirit, in September we invited up to three people from each of those 28 libraries to an all-day, free, “Community Engagement Reboot” workshop. This workshop was limited to those libraries who have attended either an in-person or virtual ALA/Harwood Public Innovators Lab through MCLS. It was an opportunity to meet in person with other Indiana Public Innovators, share information about community engagement activities, get advice from others who have been in the trenches, learn more about integrating community engagement into organizational culture, and learn how to make it stick with staff.
Community Engagement Reboot was held on September 28 at the Brownsburg Public Library in Brownsburg, IN. Our keynote speaker was Cindy Fesemyer, Director of the Columbus, WI Public Library, and iSchool at UW Madison instructor of “Creating an Engaged Library.” Cindy was trained in community engagement using Harwood Institute techniques and learned other community organizing tools in her previous career managing non-profit organizations.
Participants also heard from:
Cyndee Landrum, CEO of the Evansville Vanderburgh Public Library on “The Value of Engagement”
Monica Casanova, Head of Public Services at the Allen County Public Library on “Civic Dialogues and Lessons Learned”
Scott Sandberg, John W. Anderson Library, IU Northwest on “An Academic Library Engagement Story”
In addition, MCLS engagement staff led participants through some interactive activities.
Cindy Fesemyer - Columbus Story-Indiana 2017.pptx 
Cindy Fesemyer - Community mapping exercise.pdf 
Cindy Fesemyer - Program partner worksheet.pdf
Monica Casanova - Civic dialogues and lessons learned.pptx
Scott Sandberg - An academic library engagement story.pptx
Kahoot quiz: Is it engagement or is it outreach? 
(Note: You'll have to create a log-in for Kahoot in order to access the quiz.)
MCLS on-site community engagement training for libraries
ALA toolkit and current/upcoming Libraries Transforming Communities webinars
