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:
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
