Below are the headlines from the 7/31/2020 - 📢 Nic News Weekly:

• Nominations for WLA Awards 2020
• WLA Legislative Newsletter: Fall Election Dates, Budget Discussions, Broadband Bills and More
• Quarantine Increased to Four Days
• Two New Grant/Scholarship Opportunities
  • Scholarship: 2020 Strategic Planning Cohort for Small Public Libraries
  • Grant: 2020 WLA Leadership Development Institute
• Continuing Education
  • Racial Justice Challenge: August 3-7
  • REALM Project Update Webinar
  • HR Issues in the Time of COVID-19
  • Job Center of Wisconsin for Job Seekers
  • Healing Reading Trauma: Rebuilding a Love of Reading Through Libraries for Liberation
  • How to deal with problem behaviors related to COVID-19: Ryan Dowd's 1-Hour Live Webinar
  • Virtual Training on BadgerLink Resources: Recordings Now Available

Below are the headlines from the 7/24/2020 - 📢 Nic News Weekly:

• Be Ready to Help Patrons Prepare for the InfoSoup Update
• Closed Captioning Library YouTube Videos
• COVID-19 Recovery Resources Guide
• Upper Midwest Digital Collections Conference Call for Proposals
• Rural Libraries Invited to Apply for Digital Access Grants
• Register for September 23-24 Tech Days
• The Public Library's Role in Elections: Voter Education in a Post-Truth Era
• Lead the Way: Libraries at the Heart of Community Engagement
• PLA 2020 Virtual Conference: Available On-Demand

During the COVID-19 stay home orders, Whatcom County Library System kept staff whose library work couldn't be done from home busy by having them work from home to close caption the many videos on the WCLS YouTube channel. Getting this closed captioning done to make the videos accessible to more patrons had been on the system's to-do list for a long time, but they hadn't had the staffing to take up the project. It was a great way to keep staff busy from home during the closure, and they are proud of the fact that (almost) all of the videos they are creating about library services are now accessible to those who are hard of hearing. (They are still working through some of the backlog.)

If you still have library staff who can't return to their normal schedules 100%, this might be a good project for them to take up. 

Below are the headlines from the 7/17/2020 - 📢 Nic News Weekly:

• Register now for Trustee Training Week 2020
• Three Things You Can Do to Promote Anti-Racism Efforts In Your Library
• COVID-19-related Cybercrime: Microsoft Takes Legal Action
• Marketing Materials for the "New" InfoSoup Coming this August
• Transition Planned In-Person Adult Programs to a Virtual Environment
• Antiracist Collection Development & Programming for Middle School & High School Youth (InfoPeople Webinar)

According to a recent blog post by Microsoft, cybercriminals have been "taking advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic in an attempt to defraud customers in 62 countries around the world. Our civil case has resulted in a court order allowing Microsoft to seize control of key domains in the criminals’ infrastructure so that it can no longer be used to execute cyberattacks."

Because this issue directly affects our librarians, we thought it important to relay the following information regarding these phishing attacks. Read more below for a highlight that has been pulled from the article...

Below are the headlines from the 7/10/2020 - 📢 Nic News Weekly:

• Annual Report Summer Programming Update
• Opportunity Out of Adversity: Digital Access in Rural and Small Libraries
• Professional Development: Digital Bytes in the Time of COVID-19
• Tips for Leading Productive Meetings with Microsoft Teams
• Resilient Communities: Libraries Respond to Climate Change
• Mini-grant Opportunity: Support Health Insurance Enrollment in Your Community
• IMLS Opens Library Grants for National Leadership, Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Programs
• Simple Animations in Canva for Social Media Posts

The Institute of Museum and Library Services is now accepting FY 2021 proposals for National Leadership Grants for Libraries (NLG-L) and the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian program (LB21). 

Applicants have through October 2, 2020, to submit their two-page preliminary proposals.

Resilient Communities: Libraries Respond to Climate Change, an initiative of the American Library Association (ALA), will help libraries engage their communities in programs and conversations that address the climate crisis.

The pilot program project will fund film screenings, community dialogues and related events based on local interest in 25 public and academic libraries in 2020, and it will fund the creation of a suite of free programming resources about the climate crisis that will be available to all libraries. 

​Public and academic libraries are invited to apply between July 1 and August 28, 2020.

Learn more and apply here.

Below are the headlines from the 7/2/2020 - 📢 Nic News Weekly:

• Take Action with Collection Reflection
• REALM Project Updates: Round 1 Results Available and Test Set 2 Announced
• Webinars in July from NEWI
• Customer Service Training Videos