Disability Awareness Training

Another great session, this one focused on updating our understanding of interactions, communications, services and resources for people with disabilities.

According to the 2006 Canadian Census every seventh person has a disability.  One of the new terms/concepts for me was the idea of aging into disability.

From a survey:
What is helpful

• Accessing catalogue from home
• Home delivery
• Plain language
• Staff accessing shelves on my behalf
• Being given extra time
• Staff open to various communication modes

What are barriers

• Physical environment
• Time on computer
• Standing in line or carrying items
• Crowded public seating
• Cognitive demands
• Asking for help and feeling like I take too much time
• Confusing signage
• Patronizing, impatient or insensitive staff

Universal Design
Fix the environment, the issue or barrier in the environment (not the individual)

Principles of Universal Design

• Equitable Use
• Flexibility in Use
• Simple and Intuitive
• Perceptible Information
• Tolerance for Error
• Low Physical Effort
• Size and Space for Approach and Use

Diversity is normal

Take time to do more research on these topics:

• Person First Language
• Cognitive Disabilities

Safety, Security, & Self Defense

The session began with a video from Ohio State "Run Hide Fight"


 There are four sections to the comprehensive training plan as implemented by Eastern Washington University.

1. Safe environment
2. Self defense
3. Workplace safety
4. First aid

1. Safe Environment Training
They hired an outside consultant (Joe Fithian) to run a 7 hour training session.
2. Self Defense Training
Brought in someone from the Police department for ~2 hours
3. Preventative Measures
Situational awareness, plan of action,
3b. Workplace Safety Training
Police came in to analyze service points and workspace to assist in recognizing dangers and opportunities, such as escape routes, hiding places, and self defense options.
4. First Aid
Fire department, but could have brought in training from a variety of sources including hospital, or Red Cross

They distribute detailed building plans with exits marked and icons for the locations of First Aid Kits, Trauma Kits, and Disaster Kits.

In dangerous situations it's useful for everyone to recognize use the same code word or physical action like pulling on an ear a l'a Carol Burnett.

Policy to not verify students work status, schedules or other personal information via the phone.

Program:
2-4 times a year employees are invited to attend a safety session.  This is made up of a video and discussion.
Once a year or so for first aid training.

They have also hosted training for emergency and law enforcement personnel. They did it when the library was closed and the librarians were able to volunteer to be the victims.   This included classroom instruction for the personnel, then increasingly difficult scenarios.

This was a fascinating session and I have a lot of information to digest and training to implement.

Energized for Excellence

Health and Productivity Expert Michelle Cederberg:

She is an energetic and energizing speaker combining wit and wisdom. Here are my somewhat disjointed notes.  I'm definitely buying her book.

We all have excellence! Attack today with boldness. The energy within is a renewable resource Referred to her book "Energy Now"

Also referred to the book "First Things First" by Stephen R. Covey (the table below is adapted from this book).  How are you currently spending your time? Reprioritize! You can always find time for what you think is important. Move your growth tasks into obligations.

Urgent and Important Obligation	Important not Urgent Growth
Not Important but Urgent Distraction and Deception	Unimportant not Urgent Waste

When it's hard to say no. Answer the request with a pause and the words "That sounds like a great idea. I'll get back to you in 24 hours."

 Physical, emotional, mental health = high performance

 "Stress does not like salad"

And there's another book by Michelle "If Your Life Sucks It's Your Fault" she describes it as a book that people buy to give away...

MESH: Move, Eat, Sleep, Hydrate
Move: Do more than is normal for you. Incremental improvement. Go big or go home doesn't work. 
Eat: bite sized changes
Sleep: do it
 Hydrate:
 and
Slow down, pause, rest

There's a difference between Mind Full and Mindful

Prioritize your time
Protect your time
Power-up using MESH (Move, Eat, Sleep, Hydrate)
Pause and Breathe

 Small steps count. Do the work

Design Thinking for Libraries

We begin with the keynote address on Design Thinking.

This was a great, inspiration talk by Dan Buchner of the Peter Lougheed Leadership Institute, Banff Centre. Very encouraging for collaborative, user centered, culture of yes thinking and leadership. Here are my disjointed notes.

Keep the change video from Bank of America an example of Design Thinking.

Putting people first is the basis of Design Thinking.

What are people's priorities, problems, interests. Design thinking is biased towards action, human centered, collaborative, iterative, learning. It's the 'try it' mentality.

Check out designthinkingforlibraries.com and get the downloadable .pdf.  Graphic below is from the site.

To start the problem solving process, frame an opportunity statement. This statement must follow this criteria:

1. 7 to 10 words 
2. Free of jargon 
3. Free of criteria 
4. Affirmative in orientation 
5. Identify the owner of problem 
6. Include action verbs 
7. Include objective or goal 
8.  Start with the word: How do we ..... Or In what ways might we..... Or How we might .... 

Design thinking is all based on listening. Listening without preconceived ideas or preferred outcomes. Asking open ended questions that do not lead the respondent. Interviewing: Focused, interactive.   Watch expressions of interviewee.   What don't they say?   What do they value?   What gets them energized?   Don't listen for affirmations.   Look for things that are challenges.    Avoid judgements.   Listen for things to help reframe.   Stay curious.  Start broad and go deep.

One person asks the questions, one person observes the interview The observer tracks what is observed and what is discussed

 Example:
What do you like about where you live
What is important to you about the place where you live, what do you value
How did you find the this place

The question was: Selecting an apartment to rent/house to buy

Though the speaker didn't have time to go into it he did suggest that hand in hand with design thinking is the concept of Empathy Mapping.  There's a fairly good blog post at http://www.copyblogger.com/empathy-maps/ on the concept.

Wonderful speaker, definitely one that I'd recommend to any conference planner.

PNLA, Missoula 2009

Favorite Sessions:

Flickr & Digital Image Collections @ Your Library – Jason Clark & Bonnie McCallum, Montana State University: http://www.lib.montana.edu/~jason/talks.php

A terrific session, it covered why they chose Flickr, how they did it, and why it works. I learned a LOT and now need to update my own photos to include geotagging, better descriptions; internal links back to collections/sets, links out to my own pages, and improving search engine indexing. I had no idea that Flickr had statistics for my account. This was probably the most informative/useful session I attended.

Free Yourself from Copyright and Get Creative with Creative Commons – Connie Strittmatter and Rene Tanner, Montana State University

This was another solid session. It included information on what Creative Commons is, is not, and how it works. They showed the youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=io3BrAQl3so and I highly recommend it. Other useful links include: http://www.creativecommons.org, and http://wiki.creativecommons.org/FFAQ


My one indulgence was dinner at Ciao Mambo, http://www.ciaomambo.com/ an AMAZING Italian Restaurant on Higgins Ave. in Missoula. I totally recommend the Quattro Formaggio Ravioli and the Zeppolis (bite sized pizza dough, deep fried like donuts, dusted with powdered sugar and served with dipping sauce…)