FYI: The Public Libraries Podcast

Our guest for this episode is Sara Zettervall. Sara is the founding consultant and trainer for Whole Person Librarianship, which applies social work concepts to library practice. She also works at Hennepin County Library as the community engagement librarian for East African refugees in Minneapolis.

Our guest is social worker Jean Badalamenti, the Health and Human Services Assistant Manager at the Washington, D.C. Public Library. In her role with the library, she leads system-wide initiatives in a variety of areas. Since 2014, she has been developing programs, creating partnerships, and training DCPL staff to support customers experiencing homelessness. She also manages DCPL’s library at the...

PLA's Brendan Dowling hosts a conversation with Lainey Mays and Christopher Connelley of the HarperCollins Library LoveFest team, and an interview with Juliet Grames, whose first novel, "The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna," will be released in the Spring.

The United States has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the western industrialized world and studies show that children of teen parents are less prepared for school, perform less well, and have a higher dropout rate than other children. As many librarians know, it is challenging enough to get teens into the library for teen-specific programming, add a baby to the mix and it becomes nearly...

Our guest is Elizabeth Fitzgerald, director of the Culinary Literacy Center at the Free Library of Philadelphia. The Culinary Literacy Center is the first kitchen classroom in a public library in the United States. Here we discuss the Culinary LIteracy Center, why culinary literacy is important, how libraries can offer this type of programming, and more.

We talk with Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Community Resource Manager at the Denver Public Library, Elissa Hardy about the emerging trend of employing social workers in public libraries, serving persons experiencing homelessness at the library, making the library and inclusive space, training library staff, and related issues.

This episode focuses on Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, EDI for short and features three guest who've been working tirelessly in this arena. Amita Lonial leads our conversation. Amita, (she/her/hers) is currently the Principal Librarian for Learning, Marketing, and Engagement at San Diego County Library. She also currently serves as the co-chair for the PLA Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Task...

We talk with Carolyn Martin and Sally James about providing Health Information Services and in particular evaluating health news. Carolyn Martin is a librarian who is the Consumer Health Coordinator for the National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NNLM) Pacific Northwest Region. Sally James reads health news critically and gives grades to stories and news releases as a part of a team at the nonp...

We talk with John Spears, Director of the Pikes Peak (Colorado) Public Library about challenges and opportunities in serving patrons experiencing homelessness at the public library, educating the public, tensions in the community, efforts to expand initiatives, and more.

In this podcast, we discuss Graphic Medicine, which can be defined as the use of comics (graphic narratives) in health sciences education and patient care. Our guests are Susan Squier and Ellen Forney. Susan Squier is Professor Emerita of English and Women's Studies at Penn State University, where she taught graphic narratives (comics!) to graduate students. She is now Visiting Fellow at the Freie...

We talk with Nicholas Higgins, director of Outreach Services at the Brooklyn (NY) Public Library. Higgins, author of the latest book in the PLA Quick Reads series, shares wisdom gleaned from his years of experience providing library service to incarcerated persons; provides a thoughtful perspective on the American criminal justice system and shows how to provide the absolute best service to this g...

Librarian Kyra Hahn shares her experiences navigating the intense bureaucracy of the Federal Public Service Student Loan (PSLF) program and provides tips, advice, and explanations that can make the process easier for applicants.

PLA's Brendan Dowling Talks with Eric Motley, Executive Vice President, The Aspen Institute about his new book, "Madison Park: A Place of Hope." Motley shares stories from his childhood and about the place he was raised, an African-American community established by freed slaves, and elaborates on how those experiences shaped his journey all the way to the Bush White House.

In this episode we discuss providing the best library service for your LGBTQ community with our guest Joel A. Nichols. Joel is the author of the winner in this year's "Public Libraries" magazine feature article contest, for the article "Serving All Families in a Queer and Genderqueer Way," which you can read at www.publiclibrariesonline.org. He is an administrator for data strategy and evaluation...

We talk to Megan Sullivan, writer and college professor (Boston University) about her book, "Clarissa's Disappointment: And Resources for Families, Teachers and Counselors of Children of Incarcerated Parents" about how to best serve this group, the author's own experience with parental incarceration, and more.

We talk with Gillian Robbins and Caitlin Seifritz librarians in the Business Resource & Innovation Center (BRIC) at the Free Library of Philadelphia about the BRIC and new ideas for updating the library model of providing services to business, entrepreneurs, and nonprofits.

PL Online Assistant Editor Brendan Dowling talks with author Michael Callahan, author of 2015’s “Searching for Grace Kelly.” Michael is also a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and a former deputy editor at Town and Country and Marie Claire. His new book, “The Night She Became Miss America” was released in April, 2017.

PL's Brendan Dowling talks with author Yoojin Grace Wuertz about her recently released novel "Everything Belongs to Us."

PLA's Project Outcome (PO) is a free online toolkit consisting of surveys, a survey portal, and an interactive data dashboard that helps librarians measure the outcomes of their programs and services. Join us as we discuss this project with Emily Plagman, PO's Project Manager and Samantha Lopez, Project Coordinator.

Larra Clark Deputy Director for the Public Library Association and the American Library Association's (ALA) Office for Information Technology Policy (OITP), talks with Marijke Visser, Associate Director at OITP, about ‘Ready to Code” a new ALA initiative in partnership with Google, that aims to investigate the current nature of coding activities in public and school libraries for youth and broaden...

PLA's Kathleen Hughes talks with Erin Hoopes. Erin is head of the Free Library of Philadelphia's Philadelphia City Institute Branch. We talk with her about an initiative she spearheaded at the Free Library, a Teen Social Justice Symposium.

We talk with Jeffrey Fisher, author of the latest book in PLA's 'Quick Reads' Series "Building and Operating a Digital Media Lab." Topics include creating the right space; arranging funding; hiring and training staff; buying the correct equipment; writing policies and procedures, and more.

PLA Deputy Executive Director Larra Clark talks with John B. Horrigan of the Pew Research Center about his report, "Digital Readiness Gaps," which finds that just over half of American adults have low levels of readiness to use digital tools as they pursue lifelong learning.

Kathleen Hughes, PLA Manager Publications, talks to Holly Hibner and Mary Kelly about weeding library collections, awful library books they've discovered, and more. Holly and Mary have recently released a book in PLA’s Quick Reads series, entitled “Weeding Manual.” In addition, they are cofounders of the popular blog Awful Library Book (awfullibrarybooks.com) and co-authors of the book “Making You...

Kathleen Hughes, PLA Publications Manager talks to Sonja Skvarla, the founder of A Social Ignition. Founded in 2012, A Social Ignition was conceived while Sonja was helping various groups fulfill their missions in the field of post-prison reentry. She developed a curriculum of entrepreneurship and professional development and offered it to the Oregon Department of Corrections. Today, A Social Igni...