Going Straight to the Source with Senior Advisory Boards (SABs)

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

Teen advisory boards have been utilized throughout the library profession since the early 2000’s. It is uncommon, however, to hear of a senior advisory board. Senior advisory boards, or SABs for short, are boards made up of senior community members who help shape library programs and services for seniors. According to the United States Census Bureau, nearly 60 million people in the United States are 65 or older, which accounts for 17.7% of the country’s population. Librarians often wonder how we can best serve this growing population. How about going straight to the source! In this webinar, you will learn more about Medford Public Library’s senior advisory board, how it was formed, what its goals are, and how you can form your own senior advisory board.

Learning Outcomes

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

• Form their own senior advisory board for their community;
• Understand the importance of library services and programs dedicated to senior patrons, or patrons 65 and older; and
• Understand the importance of involving senior patrons in decision-making for the public library.

Who Should Attend

This webinar is intended for public library staff responsible for programming and services for seniors.

Panelists

Zoey Mills (she/they) is one of the managers of adult services at Worcester Public Library in Massachusetts. Zoey has been a librarian for over ten years, having spent a majority of her time in Southeastern Pennsylvania libraries. Having moved from Philadelphia, PA to Boston in 2022, she now considers herself a Massachusetts librarian (as she tends to sprinkle “wicked” into her vernacular). In her spare time, she likes to explore restaurants and breweries with her partner and spends way too much time and money on paper crafts.

 

Important Registration Information

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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.

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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).