
The Oakland Public Library’s Mam Festival. Photo by Khai Pham. WEBINAR—California Humanities will host an informal informational webinar on Wednesday, January 15, 2020 from 10:00 am to 11:00 am about the Library Innovation Lab program. Register here. Are you looking for a challenge? Do you want to develop your public programming skills? Experiment with new programming approaches? Reach new and underserved audiences? Help immigrants feel more at home in your community? Meet like-minded colleagues across the state? If so, our Library Innovation Lab: Exploring New Ways of Engaging Immigrant Communities Through Public Humanities Programming program may be right for you! Library Innovation Lab will provide a “learn by doing” professional development experience for a cohort of 10 programming librarians or library staffers as they research, plan, implement, and assess a new public humanities program to engage a target immigrant population in their community this year. Participants will develop skills, gain confidence, and make connections within their communities and with colleagues across the state. A $5,000 grant to each participating library will provide “risk capital” for experimenting with innovating programming. Participation in the Library Innovation Lab program and cohort is limited to library public programmers. Applications from California public library or library-serving organizations will be accepted until March 2, 2020. Please visit the Library Innovation Lab webpage for more information, including details of the exciting projects implemented previous cohort participants. Thanks for your interest and please share this information with colleagues and associates.