Community Partnership Fundamentals

***BEFORE YOU REGISTER FOR THIS WEBINAR PLEASE REVIEW IMPORTANT REGISTRATION INFORMATION BELOW***

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New to partnerships and don't know where to start? Do you need a refresher or are you interested in some tips? This webinar will show the basics of how to develop successful community partnerships that can help you attract new patrons, create new programming opportunities, and make resources and information available to your community. Panelists will discuss best practices and tips for building community partnerships, and will offer a short workshop segment towards the end of the webinar to provide more tailored suggestions depending on the type of partnership(s) you are seeking.

Learning Outcomes

At the conclusion of this webinar, participants will be able to:

Understand the importance of partnerships and identify what makes a good collaboration;
Know how to successfully build community partnerships from scratch; and
Identify the different levels of partnerships and decide their best course of action.

Who Should Attend

This webinar is intended for any public library staff with an interest in community outreach with the purpose of community engagement and collaboration, including programming.

Panelists

Alfredo Gutierrez Alcantara (he/him) is the outreach coordinator on the outreach services team at the New York Public Library. Alfredo believes in reaching our most vulnerable and hard to reach patrons through creative outreach, resource sharing, and community partnerships. He holds a BA in English and American Literature from NYU, with a concentration in creative writing, and received his MSLIS at Pratt Institute. Alfredo was born and raised in the Bronx and advocates for the best borough whenever possible. When not doing outreach, you can find him on long bike rides or tending to his many plants.

Adriana Blancarte-Hayward (she/her/ella) is the senior manager of outreach services at the New York Public Library. She earned her MSLIS at The Palmer School of Library and Information Science, and holds a BS in information science engineering from ITESM in Mexico. A former library volunteer and ESOL library student, she has been with the New York Public Library for over nineteen years. Connecting communities and partners with library services, resources, and information is her passion. She loves to travel and learn new languages.

She currently serves as ALA councilor-at-large and on several REFORMA committees. She received the 2020 Dr. Arnulfo D. Trejo Librarian of the Year (LOTY) Award. Most recently, Adriana was a member of the ODLOS Services to Refugees, Immigrants, and Displaced Persons Subcommittee. She is also past-president of the REFORMA Northeast Chapter (2019–2020), alumna of Coro's 2016 Immigrant Civic Leadership Program (ICLP), and past-president of the New York Library Association Ethnic Services Roundtable (2013–2014).

Important Registration Information

Log into or create your ALA eLearning account

An ALA eLearning account is required to register. Don’t have an account? Create one for free by going to the “Log in” menu located at the top right corner of your screen. No membership is required to create the account. If you encounter any issues registering for this webinar, then please email ce@ala.org for assistance.

Redeem your signup code to complete your registration

Once you’ve registered for this webinar, a signup code will be added to your ALA eLearning account and emailed to you. Find the signup code on your signup code page, then redeem it on your account’s dashboard to complete your enrollment in this live webinar.

Review the ALA eLearning FAQ if you need more information.

Accommodations

This live webinar will be captioned in English (United States). Zoom desktop client or mobile app is required to access captions.

Attendees using screen readers are advised to turn off speech prior to joining the Zoom event because PLA webinars make extensive use of chat functionality. Attendees who find chat distracting may wish to disable it in the Zoom event, as PLA moderators will verbally highlight important topics raised in chat and chat transcripts will be provided post-webinar.

If you have a physical or communication need that may affect your participation in this webinar, please contact us at plawebinars@ala.org or 800-545-2433 ext. 5PLA (5752) at least two weeks prior to the webinar. Without prior notification of need, we may not be able to provide appropriate accommodations for the live event.

Archived Recording

If you're unable to attend this live webinar, an archived recording will be available to all registrants typically within 1–3 business of the live event. Access to closed captions will be provided in the webinar recording.

Tech Requirements

This webinar will be presented using the Zoom platform. Please review Zoom technical requirements and support information, and test your connection.

Once you've joined the webinar, there are two ways to connect your audio: via computer (VoIP) or via telephone. No microphone is required. PLA works with its webinar platform provider to assure the highest quality audio is being delivered to attendees. However, variables over which PLA has no control—such as the speed of your Internet connection or traffic on your local network—can affect the end quality of the webinar audio delivered by your computer. Each webinar’s audio is also available by telephone via a toll number, so we recommend you have access to a long-distance enabled phone as a backup in case you experience audio issues with VoIP. If you do encounter any problems during the webinar, you will receive a link to its archived recording within a week of the live event and can review anything you missed.

Contact

This webinar is presented by the Public Library Association (PLA), a division of the American Library Association (ALA).

Questions about this webinar? Please contact us at plawebinars@ala.org or 800-545-2433 ext. 5PLA (5752).