MEET THE MINNESOTA BRAILLE AND TALKING BOOK LIBRARY

Presenter: Catherine A. Durivage, Library Program Director of the Minnesota Braille and Talking Book Library.

The Minnesota Braille and Talking Book Library has recently moved to NE Minneapolis, so please discard any flyers or handouts with the old Faribault address.

The National Library for the Blind and and Print Disabled (NLS) started in 1933. MBTBL is one of 55 regional libraries. It is administered by State Library Services. It is paid for by Minnesota state funds and Federal Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) grant money from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Materials are available in audio that are not commercially available in that format. NLS and each regional library create their own materials. Listening is limited to eligible patrons who apply for copyright reasons.

Who is eligible? It's broader than you might think:

• The visually impaired
• Anyone with a reading disability-dyslexia, etc.
• Anyone not able to focus or hold a book due to disability
• Institutions such as hospitals, assisted living, and public libraries can have an account created for them.

How do patrons apply?

• Fill out the application.
• Get certification by an authority-list of authorities is online - not necessarily a doctor anymore-could be a nurse, therapist, social worker, or public librarian.
• Get a parent or guardian's signature if under 18.
• Fax, mail or email application.

What services does MBTBL offer?

• Books and magazines - Braille and large print- delivered by US mail
• Reference and readers advisory
• A growing collection of foreign language materials-new international treaty allows them to collect materials from other countries
• Music scores and music instructional materials
• Machines that read currency (vibrates for privacy)
• Audio books on cartridge with special player provided-sent in the mail-can put up to 24 titles on a single cartridge now- don't have to wait for someone to return the cartridge anymore-patrons can keep them as long as they want, but can only have so many at a time
• Speaker and headphones for player
• List of new books in audio, braille and online each month
• Downloadable audiobooks similar to Overdrive/Libby
• Radio Talking Book- online stream and archives- mobile apps- can used on Alexa devices- newspaper reading offered- newspaper customized by location
• Inter-library loan from other regional NLS regional libraries
• Young adult and childrens' materials
• Coding of many materials for sex, violence, strong language- non-coded materials are listed as "unrated"
• NFB newsline- newspapers and magazines- carries Minnesota, national and international newspapers & magazines- phone and online- iOS app- working on Android app
• Responds to patron requests by mail, email and fax

The Braille and Audio Reading Download online service (BARD) is NLS's equivalent to Overdrive/Libby. Patrons can download directly from computer via BARD or use a mobile app. They can download to their own flash drive or to a talking book cartridge. Audio files are compressed to download faster. BARD Express is a Windows-only download which is more user-friendly than the web or app version and makes it easier to download files. Patrons can both download and listen within the BARD Express software. The BARD mobile app is available for Android, iOS, Amazon Fire. It is compatible with iOS and Android assistive technology features.

 What's next:

• Using synthetic speech for breaking news and other time-sensitive materials (not to replace all materials read by a person)
• Wifi access for audio player- early 2025- download from BARD to device- could push titles to patrons in the future
• Listening to audio directly on Alexa-enabled devices
• New outreach materials with current address

 What can your library do?

• Apply to an institution account and get sample players for patrons to try out- can't have access to entire collection for copyright reasons.
• Distribute flyers and handouts
• Report any DVDs with described audio tracks so that MBTBL can add them to their catalog

• Webinar Recording
• Presentation
• NLS Handout

--Andrea H., GLCL

HEALTH LITERACY AND LIBRARIES

Health literacy helps achieve health equity and remove health disparities by combatting health misinformation. The library is a trusted source of information that can be part of it. 

Start with a needs assessment of your community. Find out what languages are spoken.

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Latinx communities and health literacy:

Incorrect info about COVID was spreading in the Latinx community in Kansas City. The University of Missouri-Kansas City Library decided to create a podcast that people could listen to on their phone- health topics in Spanish by health care providers plus online resources. They promoted it on social media, Apple Podcasts, Whatsapp, etc.

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Health literacy and older adults:

by 2040, over 25% of population will be over 65. Seniors may have multiple medical conditions such as hearing, visual, cognitive impairment, etc.  They often start below basic literacy and may live alone and can't go outside, or they are in facilities without anyone to help with searching the Internet. Busy medical professionals can only spare a short amount of time to talk to them.

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Ideas for health programs: 

• Weekly counseling groups- cancer, etc.
• Collaborate with cultural organizations.
• Check out cooking utensils and have healthy cooking programs- can be intergenerational
• Yoga and Tai Chi
• The National Library of Medicine has training and funding for programs. Talk to them about offering programs for the public.
• Training and brochures for senior living assistants and Meals on Wheels volunteers.
• Rice St. library will be having a public health nurse and community health worker come in. 

Ways to guide patrons to correct health information:

• LibGuides
• Directing people to unbiased information - don't get into a debate.
• This article explains how to evaluation health stories and how to determine which sources are trustworthy.
• Programs teaching teens how to identify misinformation.
• Select speakers that provide valid information-Do your research- have a meeting with staff- make sure they aren't trying to sell anything.
• Help ESL patrons find materials in other languages.

More information: 

• Presentation
• Handout
• Chat Transcript

-Andrea H., GLCL

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.