Order Outreach Materials and Attend a Webinar to Prepare for Tax Season

Your library probably receives at least a few questions about taxes during the tax season. State Library Services is working again with Prepare + Prosper’s statewide outreach campaign, Claim it! to provide your library with free resources and a webinar in December.

Order outreach materials from Prepare + Prosper for your library to help individuals find out if they qualify for the federal Earned Income Tax Credit and to help them locate a free tax preparation site. Place your order to receive these free materials in time for tax season.

Libraries in the nine-county metro area: order your 2019 Tax Season Outreach Materials through the online Prepare + Prosper order form.  

Libraries in Greater Minnesota: order your 2019 Tax Season Claim It! Outreach Materials through the Prepare + Prosper online order form.  

Prepare + Prosper and State Library Services will host a webinar for libraries with resources and information to help you during the 2018 tax season. The webinar will take place on Tuesday, December 18, 11 a.m.-noon. Please register for the Taxes 101 for Minnesota Libraries webinar today. Then, on December 18, join the meeting for Taxes 101. Please contact Emily Kissane (651-582-8508) if you have questions or would like to request a reasonable accommodation to participate in this event. Note: MDE requires a two-week advance notice in order to provide the requested accommodation and requires a 48-hour notice in order to cancel a requested accommodation.

Explore the New American Indian Collection

State Library Services and the Office of Indian Education at MDE have partnered to develop a resource list of authentic and appropriate materials for teaching the K-12 Minnesota Language Arts Standards pertaining to American Indian Tribes and communities. In addition, a core collection of the approximately 100 list titles has been created and is being housed at three libraries around the state. The collection is featured on partner library Lake Agassiz Regional Library’s website. In addition, the collection is available at Anoka and Scott County libraries, and statewide via ILL through MNLink. The project committee includes Hannah Buckland, formerly of Leech Lake Tribal College and now with Hennepin County Library; Dr. Sarah Park Dahlen and her students of the St. Catherine University MLIS program; and Dr. Lisa Von Drasek of the University of Minnesota’s Kerlan Collection. For more information, including a list of titles and a guide to ordering them, please contact Leah Larson (651-582-8604).

Accelerate the Work of Small Libraries

The Institute of Museum and Library Services has launched a new special initiative, Accelerating Promising Practices for Small Libraries (APP), and is accepting grant applications now through February 25, 2019. This funding opportunity is designed specifically to strengthen the ability of small and rural libraries, archives, and related organizations to serve their communities. Awards sizes range from $10,000 to $50,000, and there are three grant categories: Transforming School Library Practice, Community Memory and Digital Inclusion. For more details, please read the notice of funding opportunity and attend an informational webinar on either Tuesday, December 18, 2-3 p.m. (CST) or Wednesday, January 9, 1-2 p.m. (CST). Recordings of the webinars will also be made available on the IMLS website. For information about how to participate in the webinars or to access the webinar recordings, see the IMLS webinar page.

Partner through Podcasting

A couple of our talented team members recently visited the St. Cloud office of multitype library system Central Minnesota Libraries Exchange (CMLE) to record podcasts for CMLE’s Linking Our Libraries series. Leah Larson spoke about Interpersonal Skills, and Emily Kissane shared tips for Creativity. Stream or download their talks—and many more—today. If you have a topic of interest you’d like to share through a CMLE podcast, contact the friendly folks at CMLE soon.

Think Small Updates Texting Service for Parents of Young Children

Think Small’s new texting initiative, ParentPowered Texts, has been updated. The goal of improving literacy and pre-reading skills for children aged birth-5 has been expanded to birth-8 years of age. Parents receive three customized text messages each week. The family-centered tips include messages that encourage parents to read to their children promoting work on letter recognition. Texts are available in English, Spanish and Somali. More than 5,000 families are currently enrolled in the program throughout Minnesota!

Think Small ParentPowered Texts provide continuous support to parents throughout the year. The information covers multiple areas of a child’s development—social-emotional, health, literacy and math skills. All messages are based on the child’s birth date, which guarantees timely, developmentally appropriate content and advice.

Think Small can supply your library with bookmarks and other materials to promote this useful service. 

Contact Diana Neidecker, Think Small Community Engagement Coordinator, for more information.

Visit the STAR Net STEM Activity Clearinghouse

The Space Science Institute’s National Center for Interactive Learning (NCIL) provides interactive STEM exhibits, programming, and training to public libraries through its Science‐Technology Activities and Resources Library Network (STAR Net). Through its STEM Activity Clearinghouse, librarians and library staff can find nearly 200 high-quality, vetted STEM activities that are ideal for use in a library setting. Users can sort and filter activities using many different parameters—including cost, difficulty, age level and content area—and can utilize training videos, bibliographies and multimedia resources for many of the activities. Their Universe of Stories Clearinghouse Collection, which features 81 activities that would tie well into the 2019 Collaborative Summer Library Program theme.