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November 14, 2017
Taxes 101 for Minnesota Libraries
The
2018 tax season is right around the corner! What questions do you have
about the upcoming tax season? What resources or information would be
helpful for your library?
Join
a tax conversation on December 13 at 11 a.m. with the Minnesota
Department of Revenue and Prepare + Prosper to get your questions
answered and to learn about important updates.
Join the Taxes 101 webinar on December 13. The call-in toll-free number is 1-888-742-5095, and the conference code 492 064 9083.
Although registration isn’t required, if you do register for Taxes 101, you’ll be able to submit a question in advance so the presenters can address it during the webinar.
Please contact Emily Kissane (651-582-8508) for further information.
Order Your Library’s 2018 Tax Season Outreach Materials
As
you may know, tax time is an important moment in the lives of low- and
moderate-income individuals and families. That’s why every year,
Prepare + Prosper works with libraries across Minnesota to distribute
outreach materials about free tax preparation and the Earned Income Tax
Credit. Order your free materials soon in order to receive them for tax time.
Libraries in the 9-county metro area: order your materials through the online Prepare + Prosper order form.
Libraries in Greater Minnesota: order your materials through the Prepare + Prosper online order form.
Please contact Emily Kissane (651-582-8508) for more information.
Supercharged Storytimes for All ‒ Coming Soon!
Building on the Online Computer Library Center's (OCLC) successful WebJunction Supercharged Storytimes pilot project,
a free and openly accessible training program for library trainers,
staff, and storytime practitioners will soon be available. The program
will kick off this November and run through April 2019.
This winter, the WebJunction team will update the program’s core curriculum with
early literacy expert Saroj Ghoting. New expanded materials will cover
foundational early literacy concepts and ensure that Supercharged
Storytimes for All aligns well with Every Child Ready to Read. The
curriculum designers will also work with The Campaign for Grade-Level Reading
to add training on effective community outreach to children and
families from diverse backgrounds to the program. Additionally, the
course will include instruction on using the Public Library Association's (PLA) Project Outcome evaluation tools to capture the community impact of programming and services.
Once
the core program curriculum has been updated, WebJunction will offer
Supercharged Storytimes for All in three different ways, detailed on the WebJunction website. Keep up to date on project news and details on how to participate in Supercharged Storytimes for All through WebJunction’s e-newsletter Crossroads.
This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services [grant number RE-95-17-0085-17].
Calling All Kid Filmmakers!
The
90-Second Newbery Film Festival is an annual video contest that impels
kid filmmakers to make movies that creatively tell the entire stories of
Newbery Award/Honor-winning books in ninety seconds or less. Making the
film is a fun, creative and multi-faceted educational exercise that
ties directly into reading, writing and media literacy standards. Kids
cooperatively adapt, write, storyboard, produce, direct, costume, act,
film, and edit their own movies.
Public
librarians, school librarians, homeschool parents, and teachers are
encouraged to work with their kids to make movies. Inspiration and more
information, including how to submit films, can be found on the 90-Second Newbery website. Work with students should begin soon; the deadline to submit films is January 12, 2018.
Don’t
forget to mark your calendar for the fourth annual Minnesota screening
of the year’s best entries on Saturday, February 1, 2018, 3-4:30
p.m., at Hennepin County Library – Minneapolis Central. For more details,
please contact Jen Verbrugge (651-582-8356).
State Library Services 2018-2022 LSTA Plan Approved
We are pleased to make available our recently approved LSTA 2018-2022 Five-Year Plan. An overarching focus of the plan is to connect Minnesotans with information and resources through libraries, and we’re looking forward to working with libraries and other partners to achieve our goals. The plan identifies areas for competitive grant-making as well as statewide initiatives. Please don’t hesitate to contact Jen Nelson (651-582-8791) if you’d like more information about the new plan.
Call for Submissions
Do
you have poetry, short fiction, or art that you’d like to share? Would
you like to be part of a Pressbooks anthology of creative works by our
Minnesota library community? Now’s your chance!
Project
leaders will accept all submissions provided they are your original
work and have not been published or performed for profit in other
venues.
The
anthology will be an open Pressbooks publication made available on the
Pressbooks platform. If not otherwise stated, all submissions will be
granted a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license.
The deadline for submissions is Friday, December 15, 2017.
Please contact Rachel Wexelbaum (Collection Management Librarian, St. Cloud State University) or Bridget Reistad (Librarian, Lake Superior College) if you have questions or submissions.
Letters About Literature National Essay Contest
Letters
About Literature asks any student reader to write a letter to an author
describing how his or her work touched their life in a personal way.
Authors can be of any genre or time period and can come from any
country.
The
national contest focuses on reader response and reflective writing and
has three competition levels: Level 1 for students in grades 4-6; Level 2
for students in grades 7 and 8; and Level 3 for students in grades
9-12. State level judges choose the top essayists from each of the three
competition levels who will advance to the National Level Judging.
Prizes will be awarded to the top three winners of each competition
level.
A
panel of national judges for the Center for the Book in the Library of
Congress will select one National Winner per competition level to
receive a $1,000 cash award. The judges will also select one National
Honor per competition level to receive a $200 cash award. January 12,
2018, is the deadline for all three levels. For official guidelines and
entry forms, please visit the Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library website.
New Exhibit Opportunity
The
National Center for Interactive Learning (NCIL) at the Space Science
Institute (SSI) is seeking eight library and museum partner sites to
host the inaugural national tour of the interactive traveling exhibition
Discover Exoplanets: the Search for Alien Earths, made possible through
NASA’s Universe of Learning.
Public libraries and small museum partners in rural areas and those
serving rural populations and underrepresented groups are especially
invited to apply. Read the application guidelines, and then apply for the Discover Exoplanets Library & Museum Exhibition Program by January 5, 2018.
STARnet Eclipse Project Results
The
2017 Eclipse Project, conceived by three astronomers, paved the way to
the single largest distribution of free eclipse glasses in the United
States. Now dubbed as the "Super Bowl of Eclipses," public libraries
played a key role in the success of the event by helping to distribute
nearly 2.1 million pairs of eclipse glasses to their communities in
addition to conducting nearly 35,000 science programs before and after
the eclipse. Download the Solar Eclipse project results for more information. Congratulations and thank you to all participating libraries!
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