Colorado State Library at CALCON17

The Colorado Association of Libraries Conference (CALCON) is an annual opportunity to meet, learn, and connect with library professionals from around our region. This year’s conference will be held at the Embassy Suites Conference Center in Loveland, October 12-14.

Staff from the Colorado State Library will be at CALCON17 to present sessions (see the schedule below), volunteer behind the scenes, and help out at the CSL booth in the exhibit hall. If you see one of us, please say hi!

Professional events like CALCON can be highly rewarding and energizing. In order to help you get the most out of your conference experience we have created this visual guide for planning, sharing, and reflecting on your learning.

[Click image for a downloadable pdf]


Schedule of CALCON Sessions by CSL Staff

See also: the full Schedule At-A-Glance

Thursday October 12, 2017

Resources, Resources Everywhere (Roundtable Discussion)

Amy Hitchner

Thursday, October 12, 2017 at 10:15 AM

What is a library resource? Books and DVDs are certainly resources, but so are meeting rooms, garden beds, telescopes, coding expertise, and much more. If you can share it with your community, then it’s a resource! Let’s talk about the kinds of resources that your library is sharing and those that it could be sharing. In the process you might find another library that wants to partner with you, or you might be inspired by some amazing new ways that other libraries are sharing. Let’s think big together about resource sharing!

Audience members will:

  • Identify examples of resource sharing within their own libraries that go beyond interlibrary loan
  • Be inspired by examples of resource sharing at other libraries
  • Identify some potential resource sharing projects or partnerships
  • Engage in conversations about resource sharing with their peers at other libraries

For the Love of Google

Christine Schein

Thursday October 12, 2017 at 12:45 PM

Join this fun and interactive session for tips and tricks you can’t afford to miss. We will explore a few Google Easter eggs to boot! From Google Gravity to Google form tips, you are guaranteed to learn something “Google new.” Let’s be collaborative in our learning together – participants will have a chance to share their favorite Google tips too.

Presentation Learning Outcomes:

  • Attendees will learn of the many Google (G Suite) tools that can be used for learning, productivity, and collaboration.

The Demographic Challenge and the Age of Discovery

Debbi MacLeod and Nicolle Steffen

Thursday October 12 at 12:45 PM

As Colorado continues to grow, it is experiencing a fundamental demographic shift. Join us to better understand this shift and how it will affect your library. Learn about “the age of discovery” where adults are finding new interests and rediscovering old ones. You will identify challenges using a holistic approach that will better prepare your library, brainstorm creative solutions with fellow attendees, and leave with strategies and ideas you can use.

Presentation Learning Outcomes:

  • Understand the demographic shift happening in CO
  • Understand how older adults view themselves
  • Develop strategies for addressing this shift

Making the Most of Your Data: Creating Ripples in Your Community

Amanda Foust, Amanda Armstrong, Anne Kemmerling, Johanna Ulloa, and Tova Aragon

Thursday October 12, 2017 at 12:45 PM

Library staff across the nation are becoming data-savvy library leaders after attending the Research Institute of Public Libraries (RIPL) events and the online peer network and online community of practice that supports research and evaluation efforts. Join us for a panel discussion with RIPL alumni and members of our online community as we discuss how the RIPL experience has created positive change in their libraries. Participants will leave the session with a greater understanding of how to use data in their libraries and the different ways they can engage in the community of practice.

Presentation Learning Outcomes:

  • Participants will leave the session with a greater understanding of how to use data in their libraries and the different ways they can engage in the community of practice.

Removing Barriers to Access: Eliminating Fines & Fees for a Win-Win for Your Library & Community

Beth Crist, Janine Reid, and Meg DePriest

Thursday October 12, 2017 at 12:45 PM

Librarians have debated both the philosophy and financial role of charging fines and fees for late, lost, and damaged materials for decades. The topic is still critical today as fines and fees pose a significant barrier to library use, especially for low-income families. Come to this interactive session to explore research on the benefits of eliminating fines and fees (including its low impact financial effect), learn from a public library director who eliminated overdue fines in her district and has tracked the positive effects for 2 years, and engage with colleagues on challenges and benefits to eliminating fines and fees.

Presentation Learning Outcomes:

  • Explore findings from professional literature about the perceived and real benefits and drawbacks to eliminating overdue fines and fees for lost and damaged materials.
  • Hear from a library director who very successfully eliminated overdue fines in her library district and has carefully tracked the effects for two years.
  • Engage in discussion with fellow participants on challenges and benefits to eliminating fines and fees.
  • Come away with research and strategies for making a compelling case for eliminating fines and fees at their libraries.

Plains to Peaks Collective: Increasing access to your unique heritage through the Digital Public Library of America

Leigh Jeremias

Thursday October 12, 2017 at 2 PM

The Colorado State Library has created a Colorado and Wyoming Service Hub of the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA). The DPLA is an online portal that brings together collection information from libraries, archives and museums from around the United States and makes it freely available to the world. Join us to learn about the Plains to Peaks Collective (PPC) technology, how you can participate in the initiative and what it can do for your institution by showcasing its unique digital collections.

The Power to Delight: Providing extraordinary service

Christine Kreger and Kieran Hixon

Thursday October 12, 2017 at 2 PM

People everywhere (including our patrons) have seemingly unending choices when it comes to deciding where to take their business. Consequently, customer experience can make or break the relationships we have with our communities. In this session we will share concrete tips from non-library service champions, and brainstorm ways to provide extraordinary service in our own organizations. Come prepared to share your own service stories, both good and bad, from within your library and beyond, as we work together to develop new rules of service designed to delight.

Presentation Learning Outcomes:

  • Understand the importance of extraordinary services in libraries
  • Discuss what excellent customer service looks and feels like
  • Explore specific strategies for providing extraordinary service
  • Brainstorm ideas for empowering themselves, their staff, and their colleagues to delight our patrons

Getting to a Culture of Yes: Realizing the Possibilities of Yes

Rebecca Russell and Sharon Morris

Thursday October 12 at 2 PM

How can you shift your mindset to turn a negative interaction into a mutual win-win? Join us for this fun and highly interactive session. Share and learn techniques for shifting from no to yes, and plan for how to reinvigorate interactions among peers, administrators, patrons, policies and programs. Walk away with ideas to proactively add value and joy within your respective library communities.

Presentation Learning Outcomes:

  • Attendees with share and learn techniques for shifting their respective library cultures using yes, and to position themselves to proactively add value within their library community.
  • Attendees will discover at least 3 ways to go from good enough to unexpectedly amazing.
  • Attendees will walk away with confidence that they can create more possibility, and less conflict, in their library interactions with peers, patrons, and administrators.

When You are Engulfed in Flames: Recognizing and overcoming job burnout

Jean Marie Heilig

Thursday October 12, 2017 at 3:15 PM

Job burnout is a response to stress that leaves you feeling hopeless, powerless, despondent and overwhelmed. But, don’t despair you can do something about it! During this session you’ll learn this doesn’t happen overnight. Our bodies and minds do give us warning signs, and if you know what to look for, you can recognize it before exhaustion and ineffectiveness set in. Discover if you are at risk or are experiencing job burnout and learn what you can do.

Presentation Learning Outcomes:

  • Attendees will discover if they are at risk for job burnout.
  • Attendees will have the ability to identify the warning signs of burnout.
  • Attendees will gain the skills needed to prevent and/or overcome job burnout.

Friday October 13, 2017

What does the rest of the world think of us?

Jacqueline Murphy, Claudine Perrault, Clark Becker, Connie Rule, and Katherine Correll

Friday October 13, 2017 at 9:45 AM

Ever wonder what decision makers think about libraries? Is our role as civic conveners more important than ever in our increasingly polarized political climate? Last Spring, in a partnership with the Aspen Institute, we assembled statewide non-library leaders ranging from Governors’ Office staff to rural school superintendents to identify strategic opportunities presented by the state’s public libraries in response to the educational, workforce, economic and technological transformation taking place across Colorado.

Come learn what we learned from those outside of libraries, about how libraries can be leveraged for healthier communities throughout Colorado.

Presentation Learning Outcomes:

  • Understand broader scope of libraries role as civic conveners.
  • Learn how to frame conversations with funders and decision makers.
  • Leave with tools from the Action Guide to make community engagement easier for staff and trustees.

Workplace Bullying: words can hurt more than you think

Jean Marie Heilig

Friday October 13, 2017 at 11:15 AM

Remember being bullied in grade school? The tears, fears, and anxiety of facing bullies may have shaped who you have become today. Do you ever wonder what happened to those bullies? It’s sad to say but many have grown up and are now creating havoc in our libraries! This engaging session will show you how to remain calm and stay strong when coping with the bullies you work with or serve in your community.

Presentation Learning Outcomes:

  • Attendees will acquire the skills needed to deal with difficult personalities.

High school diplomas at the library? A different approach to Adult Education Services

Viviana Casillas, Teona Shainidkrebs, and Gene Hainer

Friday October 13, 2017 at 2:15 PM

This session showcases an alternative resource in adult education: offering high school diplomas to adults through scholarships to the Career Online High School (COHS). Learn about COHS and how libraries across the country are offering this powerful resource. Hear how two public libraries made the decision to offer this service, and find out about budgeting, implementation, challenges, learning opportunities, evaluation, and success stories. Attendees will also learn how the State Library can support to libraries, regardless of size, in offering this resource to their community. Make a difference in customers’ lives, support their needs, and create long-term advocates. It can be done!

Presentation Learning Outcomes:

  • Understand how to implement this program at their libraries to support their communities.
  • See how each library system can create a unique implementation plan, with the common goal of having students graduate from the program.
  • Get ideas about how to partner with other organizations offering GED/diploma programs as alternatives for those who don’t qualify for COHS.

When a patron needs more than a book: Transformation has no due date

Sharon Morris and Kieran Hixon

Friday October 13, 2017 at 3:45 PM

Have you accidentally helped a library patron transform? Are you ready to be an intentional champion for your library users? Join us as we explore services that make all the difference. Together we will share stories of extraordinary library moments and identify common ways library staff help people grow and learn in transformative ways. Walk away with an understanding of how libraries change lives and gain ideas for what you can do to provide more meaningful library services. Together we will discover how to shift libraries from places of transaction into spaces for interaction, and transformation.

Presentation Learning Outcomes:

  • A clearer understanding of how “libraries transform”
  • At least three tips to facilitate deeper learning and growth with those in their libraries
  • A plan for specific strategies they can practice when they return to their libraries

Saturday October 14, 2017

Changing Lives: Creating Public Library Partnerships with Correctional Libraries

Erin Boyington and Teresa Allen

Saturday October 14, 2017 at 8:00 AM

The incarcerated in Colorado’s youth and adult correctional facilities are some of the most appreciative library patrons anywhere. 97% of them will be released someday, and many struggle with basic information needs. The key to helping the incarcerated successfully reenter society is library outreach. Join us to learn about forming partnerships with correctional libraries and to discuss how you can support your future patrons today.

Presentation Learning Outcomes:

  • Put business cards in the hands of public librarians and discuss ideas to create public library/correctional library partnerships to serve the incarcerated in Colorado.

Look at me when I’m talking to you! Getting ahead by improving your listening skills

Jean Marie Heilig

Saturday October 14 at 11 AM

In our high-tech and often stressful world communication is becoming more important than ever. If this is true then why are so many of us such poor listeners? Becoming a better listener will allow you to become more productive, avoid conflict, improve accuracy, and build better friendships and careers. During this session you will discover how good your listening skills are and what you can do to improve them.

Presentation Learning Outcomes:

  • Attendees will discover if their current listening skills are effective.
  • Attendees will improve their listening skills to become more productive and build better friendships and careers.

In Service of Hope: Empowering our patrons to achieve their goals

Christine Kreger

Saturday October 14, 2017 at 12:15 PM

“The capacity for hope is the most significant fact of life. It provides human beings with a sense of destination, and the energy to get started (Norman Cousins).” In today’s tumultuous environment, libraries are continuously developing services designed to meet the needs of the communities we serve. But what if libraries focused on directly impacting our communities by creating a culture of hope?

Join me for an interactive workshop exploring how we can align and/or create library services designed to empower our patrons to achieve their individual goals, to experience the power of hope, and to potentially transform our communities.

During this session attendees will:

  • Recognize hope as a basic human need
  • Explore the relationship of goal development and hope
  • Investigate the Essential Values Pyramid in relation to hope (https://hbr.org/2016/09/the-elements-of-value)
  • Brainstorm specific services and strategies to match all levels of the Essential Values Pyramid in order to provide hope and change lives.

Did They Learn? Getting Direct Evidence across Library Types

Katie Fox

Saturday October 14, 2017 at 12:15 PM

Across library types, we offer programming focused on learning–whether that is teaching early literacy skills at storytimes, exploring new software with adults, or helping students identify reliable resources. But how do we know if our participants actually learned? Often we ask them if they think they learned. But we can get better evidence of learning from evaluating what they can do or understand after the program. In this hands-on session, we’ll explore how to evaluate participant learning directly, through identifying and collecting the information you need, finding patterns, and using that information to share successes and refine future programming.

Presentation Learning Outcomes:

  • Participants will be able to identify learning goals for programming and generate ideas for gathering direct evidence.

Bonus! CALCON Photo Contest

While you’re at CALCON17, enter the Colorado State Library’s photo contest for a chance to win a free registration to next year’s CALCON 2018.

To enter:

  1. Stop by the Colorado State Library’s booth to pick up a sticker for your conference water bottle.
  2. Take a selfie with your water bottle and sticker, PLUS State Librarian Gene Hainer somewhere in the photo.
  3. Upload your pic to Twitter with the hashtags #COCALCON17 and #WheresGene.
  4. The winner will be randomly selected from all entries.
Amy Hitchner
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