Let’s Chat: Engaging Your Community Through Community Dialogues

Abstract

“Public libraries are vital centers offering resources, activities, and other learning opportunities. To best serve their communities, libraries must look outward, beyond their doors, to discover more about their community needs, how community members feel about important topics, and to make connections with local organizations and partners that can help address these issues to achieve a common goal. Community Dialogues are one way in which libraries can more fully engage and learn from the communities they serve.”—A Community Dialogue Guide for NASA@My Library This session will provide an introduction to Community Dialogues, and outline the details of conducting a Community Dialogue, including goal-setting, the planning process (e.g. identifying participants, timeline), discussion topics, staffing, location, program sequence, facilitator tips, and what to do after the Community Dialogue. This session also will recap the valuable information gathered at the Thelma Parker Memorial Public & School Library Community Dialogue and how the library used those results to increase outreach efforts in its community. Community Dialogue resources, which will be shared at this session, can be modified and used by all public and school libraries. Thelma Parker Memorial Public & School Library is the only library in the state of Hawaii selected to participate in the NASA@My Library initiative and was recognized as the HSPLS 2019 Team of the Year for work on the NASA@My Library initiative. Thelma Parker Memorial Public & School Library conducted a Community Dialogue in May 2018 as part of the NASA@My Library program.