Advanced eCourse: Outreach and Marketing for Underserved Populations

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Libraries exist to serve the entire community, but there will always be segments of our community that are more difficult to see, hear, and reach. In this twelve-week course, you’ll look through a lens of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion to explore how you can identify underserved populations and ensure they have equitable access to your programs and services.

The challenges we’ll address lie not only in identifying and working with community members, but also in ensuring buy-in from library administration and key community stakeholders. You’ll learn to approach all aspects of outreach by embracing differences and working to provide a sense of community that promotes equality and access for everyone.

You’ll learn concrete strategies to ensure that all library users (and potential library users) see themselves represented in the library. We’ll start by defining who is underserved in your community; then, we’ll move through assessment and needs all the way through building rich, meaningful programs. You will dig beneath the surface to see how you can reflect the needs and values of your communities through the lens of diversity.

Through your participation in this course, you will:

  • Explore the importance of outreach and how it benefits underserved communities
  • Discover ways to get buy-in from library administration and key stakeholders
  • Identify outreach opportunities that respond to diverse community needs
  • Plan outreach activities that engage diverse and underserved community members

Kimberli Buckley has been a Senior Community Library Manager with Contra Costa County Library for the last seven years. She has over 15 years of experience in the library field and she especially enjoys planning programs and working with teens. She has a passion for teaching and is currently a lecturer for San Jose State University’s School of Information MLIS Graduate Program. Kimberli has done extensive work on serving homeless patrons at the library and is a strong advocate for homelessness awareness. She also teaches classes that focus on adulting & life skills. She is the author of an upcoming book, published by ALA, on teaching life skills at the library that will be out in 2022. Kimberli loves to be creative when it comes to library programming and uses her inner unicorn to bring her ideas to life.

If you have questions or requests regarding accessibility, contact us at ce@ala.org or at 312-280-5100.

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