HOMELESSNESS TRAINING BY RYAN DOWD

Ryan Dowd is the executive director of a large homeless shelter who also gives training to libraries, police departments, nonprofits, hospitals and other organizations around the world.

90% of homeless people have mainly economic issues and are homeless for less than a year. Most issues are caused by the 10% who are chronically homeless.

Common issues of people living in chronic homelessness:

• Schizophrenia-18%
• Bipolar-19%- manic phases can be very disruptive
• Traumatic Brain Injury-53%
• Substance abuse-72%
• Personality disorder-79%- can look just like "being a jerk"
• Trauma-100%

The most vulnerable can be most challenging - it's not intentional "meanness". Trauma increases the risk of violence by 900%. It leads to PTSD, which 100% of chronically homeless have vs. 29% of military veterans. 

Trauma changes the brain- causes flight-or-flight response from the amygdala when in conflict- it's like a guard dog protecting the person. People with PTSD are anxious all the time- even before anything happens. PTSD causes people to misperceive threat stimuli and have emotional dysregulation.

The first 5 seconds are the most important- you don't want to activate the amygdala.

What causes activation vs not:

• Danger vs. safety
• Disrespect vs. respect

Respect is the most effective strategy. 

Body language best practices;

• Place your body at angle as if there was a 3rd person there-- shoulders at 45%.
• Switch between looking at feet and eye contact.
• Lean in.

Introduce yourself and say hello in this order:

• Say "hello".
• Offer your first name.
• Ask their name.
• Shake their hand, if you feel OK with that.

No one gives them these tiny courtesies.

Compliance:

• Test for compliance- are they willing to work with me?
• Ask them if they can talk somewhere else- if they do, that's a good sign- audiences create problems -sense of disrespect will be amplified.
• Don't rush-it may take longer than you like, but it's better than escalation/calling the police.
• Compliance increases compliance.
• If they don't comply, give them 100% attention -red flag- may need backup.

The final takeaway-empathy is the answer.

• Register here to attend the training for free.
• Handout.
• Additional courses-part 2-5 of de-escalation, crisis series, special populations and special situations.

--Andrea H @GLCL

BEYOND BOOKS: ADULT LIBRARY PROGRAMS THAT WORK!

Jen Carson is the director of the LP Fisher library in New Brunswick, Canada, a contributor to Programming Librarian, and the author of Get Your Community Moving: Physical Literacy Programs for All Ages. 

Getting started with adult programming:

• What is an adult? Are you being inclusive of people with physical and intellectual disabilities?
• Make a list of all the programs your community would like organized under different categories.
• Do you have patrons who can help each other with projects?-e,g, a sewing circle.
• Local businesses love to talk about their speciality- can have a business conference for free.
• Start at the bottom to get buy-in- the people who will actually do the work- talk to staff & volunteers- they may have a different spin on the activity. 
• Next, move to the top for permissions- boss, senior management - find funding, staff, extra coverage, volunteers- show how the programming follows the library's strategic plan.
• Cover your back legally-e,g. liability waiver for risky activities, food handling certificates. 
• Some experts are happy to talk about their area of expertise for free. Use Facebook interest groups to find presenters.
• Dig to get grants!
• Make sure patrons are OK with being physically touched and photographed.
• Intergenerational programming for the win!
• Make sure programs are not cultural appropriation and check whether an activity should only be presented by a member of a certain group. 
• Can you do digital/in-person hybrid programming?
• Make sure staff and volunteers are trained. 
• Evaluate! - update based on comments and try again. 

Publicity:

• Figure out which patrons are using what media at what time of day- non-profits can do radio PSAs for free.
• Talk to people at the desk!
• Canva is a great program for publicity materials.
• Advertise on Nextdoor.

For lots of cool programming ideas, check out the slides and programming idea Google Doc:

• Recording
• Slides
• Audio transcript
• Chat transcript
• List of  programming ideas from the webinar and chat.

--Andrea H. @ GLCL

GUIDESTAR PRO

Guidestar is a database of over 2 million nonprofit organizations. The Pro version is now available at George Latimer Central Library using the URL guidestar.org/ipl- no username or password required. There is a free version available (creating a username and password is required), but it is pretty much limited to name searching. 

Guidestar is linked at sppl.org->Digital Library->Foundations & Grants. 

Guidestar is meant to be used more broadly than Foundation Directory, which is mainly used by nonprofits looking for grantmakers.

Guidestar can be used by:

• Prospective employees looking for a nonprofit job.
• Volunteers looking for a position.
• Individuals looking for an organization to donate to.
• Individuals looking for assistance.
• Nonprofits looking for similar organizations to compare themselves to. 

Have you ever given money to an organization via Facebook for a friend or family member's birthday? If so, you've used Guidestar, as the nonprofit information comes from them. 

Guidestar Pro facts:

• Can filter by geography, organization, financials.
• Subject areas are the same as Foundation Directory.
• Can break down by population served.
• Can search by different IRS designation- nonprofit, public charity, foundation, social welfare organization, etc.
• Includes defunct orgs and ones that lost their status-they can by excluded from a search.
• Can limit to orgs that provide DEI info to Candid.
• Info is self-reported--nonprofits get different seals of transparency based on how much information they share. 
• Can sort by revenue, gross receipts, assets, etc.
• Guidestar doesn't generate a list of organization the way Foundation Directory does. 
• Nonprofits can claim their profile for free, but they still have to pay to access Guidestar.

Since the Foundation Center and Guidestar merged to become Candid in 2019, they have been working on a unified platform that would combine Foundation Directory, Candid and more.

• Handout
• Promo kit
• Recording

For questions, email Networkmail@candid.org.

--Andrea H. @GLCL

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT MAPPING RESOURCES

There's an amazing range of information available online in map form from the federal government. This presentation by Ryan Mattke, head of the University of Minnesota Map Library, covers some of the most useful sites. 

USGS EarthExplorer:

• Aerial maps
• Can search by drawing a polygon- will search for all maps that cover that area.
• Requires a free username and password to download maps.
• Not all maps are orientated with north at the top, but they can be rotated.
• Can bulk download maps and put them together in a mosaic.

USGS Topoview:

• Can search for historical maps, no account required.
• Can search by zip code and limit by date.
• You can download part of a map, but you will lose margin information that can be useful, such as the publisher, purpose of the map, etc.

USGS Historical Topographic Map Explorer:

• Can load multiple maps on the same screen- it automatically scales them correctly-e.g. put together old maps of Minnesota counties to show how the whole Twin Cities looked in the past.
• Has historical maps, but is not being updated, the latest maps are on Topoview.

USDA Web Soil Survey:

• Helps determine appropriate land use.
• Can draw a square or polygon, then click on "soil map" tab, and get a report on the soil of that area.
• Can download as a .pdf with map and data.

National Geologic Map Database

• Maps of all sorts of geologic features- bedrock, metals, earthquakes, paleontology, etc.
• Click on "Map catalog" to search.
• Not all maps can be downloaded-several options for those that can. Click on "more info" to download.

More cool mapping tools:

• USGS Streamer- trace rivers upstream and downstream.
• US Census On The Map- shows where people travel going to and from work.
• Climate Mapping for Resilience and Adaptation-drought, heat, etc.
• NOAA Historical Map & Chart Collection-nautical charts.
• Geographic Names Server- find places that don't exist anymore-useful for genealogy-international.

Map searching tips:

• Think about who would create the data and why-city, county, country.
• Viewing the attribute table is a good way to figure out what data is included in the data layer.

Check out the slides and try your own searches:  

• Webinar recording
• Slides

--Andrea H. @GLCL

MAPPING PREJUDICE PROJECT

 We attended a session by the Mapping Prejudice Project at the EQS Symposium on May 18th. Background: Mapping Prejudice Project identifies and maps racial covenants in partnership with communities across the state of Minnesota and the nation. Racial covenants are clauses— a couple of lines of text— that were embedded into property deeds to keep people who were not white from buying or occupying homes. The project, which is continuing, has been creating a map of the Twin Cities that shows all the covenanted properties. Check it out at Maps & Data. Some details that stood out to us:

• The project to map racial covenants began as an experiment at the University of Minnesota in 2016.
• The covenants were nothing less than racism backed by institutional control, and they limited the opportunity for non-white families to develop generational wealth and a higher quality of life.
• While reading covenants and collecting data, volunteers of Mapping Prejudice have had a space to learn and share the truth about covenants, which has had the powerful result of producing positive change.
• The oldest covenant found in the Twin Cities is dated 1910, when the cities were mostly integrated. By 1940, the covenants had transformed the cities into the segregated areas we are currently familiar with.
• Racial covenants have been illegal nationwide since the passage of The Fair Housing Act in 1968, and even though they are no longer enforced, most are still on the property deeds.
• Just Deeds is a coalition of cities in Minnesota working to discharge racial covenants from property deeds. The term discharge is used to convey that while racial covenants will be removed from property deeds, the goal is not to destroy or hide evidence of racial covenants. Learn more about the City of Saint Paul's work in the Just Deeds Initiative here. 

--May V. and Terrie M.

SECRETS OF THE SUPER SEARCHERS

Chris Brown is the Government Documents Coordinator at the University of Denver and the author of Mastering United States Government Information: Sources and Services.

Getting started with government information searching;

• Limit to a domain by adding "site:.gov" to a search. Keep in mind that the federal government also uses .com (usps), .mil. .us, and .org at times, and some states/cities use ".gov".
• Make a list of what government agencies would care about the question, then search that particular agency- e.g., "site:dea.gov".
• Use data catalogs to get started- what stats are being collected by who- data.gov, census.data.gov (used to be American Factfinder), etc. 
• Hathitrust has a catalog of historical statistics from 1925.
•  Guide to U.S. Government Publications (known as Andriot) can help you find old SuDoc stems.
• Historical Statistics of the United States.
• Statistical Programs of the United States Government.
• MetaLib

Although most government information is online, some things are hard to search for. It may be best at times to refer patrons to paid databases that make searching easier. The University of Minnesota has the following, which patrons should be able to search in person:

• Historical Statistics of the United States Online- newer stats than the print version and more search options.
• ProQuest Congressional- allows you to search both congressional and executive publications.
• ProQuest Legislative Insight- the best for searching for legislative history- every bill version, all Congressional Record references in full text, reports (legislative intent), hearings, committee prints, presidental signing statement.
• HeinOnline - makes it easy to get to Congressional records.

Specific questions:

• How do you find grandpa's census records?
• A:  Only the Census data is available as government information. Census data is the collected info, records are the individual forms- the latter you can only see up to 1940 for privacy reasons- you have to have Ancestry Library or something similar.
• How do you find old federal regulations before they started publishing the Federal Register in 1936?
• A:Search Andriot for SuDoc stems or try the Monthly Catalog of US Government Publications (goes back to 1895).
• How do you search for legislative history?
• A: If you don't have the ProQuest databases, hard to find. The last page of each public law has a brief legislative history. Public law libraries may also have resources. The Legislative Reference Library has legislative history for State of Minnesota laws. 
• How do you find patents?
• A: Pre-1976 patents are not full-text in uspto.gov- have to search Google Patents. 
• How do you search the National Archives?
• A: There are two ways- the National Archive catalog- find out where the records are-and the Access to Archival Databases- search in specific collections by name- find famous people, relatives.
• How do I find if a building is in the National Register of Historic Places? 
• A: https://www.nps.gov/subjects/nationalregister/database-research.htm#table
• How do I find government web sites that no longer exist? 
• A:  Use the Wayback Machine or End of Term Web Archive.

 

• Webinar recording
• Slides

--Andrea H. @GLCL

SECRETS OF THE SUPER SEARCHERS II: STATISTICAL BOOGALOO

Susanne Caro of  New Mexico State Library shares her tips and tricks for statistic searching with federal government web sites.

Susanne's go-to sources for statistics:

• The Census 
• Congressional Research Service reports-good for background info.
• Historical Statistics of the United States- if you need to go back in time a ways.
• Statistical Programs of the US Government- somewhat a replacement for Statistical Abstracts, which is no longer being published by the government (ProQuest has a paid version)-a place to find out what department collects which stats. 

Strategy questions before you get started:

• What agencies have the info?
• What level of info do I need?
• How far back do I need to go?
• What tool will point me in the right direction?
• Can I contact the agency for questions ? (Usually you can)
• What limits are there to access?

Tips and tricks:

• Look at the reports that come with the statistics for context.
• Terms change -e.g., the term STEM was created in the 2000s. Questions asked and the way data is collected also change.
• If you are not sure, contact the agency to confirm what data is available.
• Make sure to check what is NOT included!
• Statistics may no longer be collected due to budget cuts. Only the Census, which is required by the Constitution, will never be cut.
• Look for a codebook or other area that defines terms- each agency may have different terminology- e.g. "educational attainment" for what degrees people have.
• Check what dates are covered.
• You may have to combined tables to get your data-e.g. if you want vaccination rates by political alignment, combine 1 table vaccination rates and 1 table with political party affiliation.
• URLs are often standardized so you can change the year in the URL for another year's data.
• Keep in mind "point of view"-e.g., EPA will deal with pesticides as an environmental problem, USDA as an expense for farmers. 

Some of Susanne's favorite web sites:

• FRED- a lot of great economic data.
• BEARFACTS- personal income and gross domestic product.
• NCES DataLab- a lot of ways to combine educational statistics (requires free registration).
• Data.gov- large number of searchable datasets- just the data with no reports for context.
• Census Bureau Upcoming Releases-- check what datasets are coming soon to census.gov.
• OMB Historical Tables- past budgets of the United States.
• Bureau of Labor Statistics- economic and employment data.
• CDE- Crime data.

Whether or not you watch the webinar recording, you can get good practice by downloading the slides and trying some of the searches. The handout has a list of what departments collect which statistics.

• Webinar recording
• Slides
• Handout
• Recording of part 1 of the series

--Andrea H. @GLCL