FYI,

Although this isn’t specifically youth services related, I’m sharing this opportunity with you. Please share it with your library administration and colleagues in other departments.

Library facilities are critical infrastructure in the best of times. Climate change promises to increase the critical nature of library facilities to build community resilience and well-being. Climate change is predicted to bring more severe and frequent storms, an increase in the number of heat waves, and regionally specific hazards that will all have different social, economic, public health, and other adverse impacts on historically marginalized or underserved communities. Library facilities for the future will need to adapt in the face of these predictions to utilize indoor and outdoor spaces to increase our capacity to meet community needs. This summit is designed to introduce the prioritized responses to climate hazards in the built environment to aid libraries with future facility plans and to position libraries for state and federal aid designed to invest in community resilience.

The summit agenda will be released in September when registration opens. The keynote speaker is Rebekkah Smith Aldrich, Executive Director of the Mid-Hudson NY Library System, with another session by Matthew Bollerman, Executive Director of the Hauppauge Public Library (NY). Rebekkah and Matthew are the co-creators of the national Sustainable Libraries Initiative.

Every State Library from NJ to Maine will be participating in this summit. Registration will be free for all public libraries in participating states.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact ...@njstatelib.org" style="color: #2199e8; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.3; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Michele Stricker, NJ State Library’s Director of the Library Development Bureau.

  All the best,