#apologies for cross-posting and any duplication#

Hello all, and welcome to another Wellbeing Wednesday from MCLS! This is the fourth and last Wellbeing Wednesday message for February. If you’ve missed earlier messages and would like to receive them, please let me know.  

I hope you’re doing well this week, and just want to remind you about some things MCLS is doing in partnership with the Wellbeing Lab to help library staff understand and maintain their own wellbeing, and increase their wellbeing literacy. In brief, we have a survey, a webinar, and an offer for the Wellbeing Lab’s Certificate in Creating Wellbeing program, including a scholarship to the program for library staff at Indiana MCLS member libraries. 

First, the survey. Remember that the confidential PERMAH Wellbeing Survey is open through tomorrow, Thursday, February 25. If you haven’t completed the survey yet, I’d appreciate it if you’d take just a few minutes today to do so, for two main reasons.  

• You can learn about your own current level of wellbeing in terms of the evidence-based pillars of Positive emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, Accomplishment, and Health. In other words, you can increase your own wellbeing literacy, based on the science of positive psychology and human flourishing.  
• You can help MCLS get a better sense of library staff wellbeing, as the world continues to change, day by day, week by week. I understand that you may not be up for “yet another conversation” right now to let us know how you or your library are doing and how we might help. So instead, if you’d take just a few minutes and take the survey, we could listen in a different way.  

Next, the webinar. Please join Louis Alloro from the Wellbeing Lab and me on Monday, March 1 at 1pm Eastern (Noon Central; use this link to join the webinar), for an interactive, evidence-based, and thought-provoking discussion based on our PERMAH survey findings, and to learn more about how your library could use the survey internally, or with your community. 

Finally, the offer and scholarship. Remember from last week that MCLS and the Wellbeing Lab are partnering to offer a discount on annual subscriptions to the PERMAH survey, and the Wellbeing Lab’s learning programs. Contact services@mcls.org to get started.  

Watch for details in the March MCLS newsletter and in email from us in the next few days about how Indiana library staff at MCLS member libraries can apply for a scholarship for the Certificate in Creating Wellbeing program that begins April 30 (total program value is over $2,500 per participant).  

We will fund up to 21 individual Indiana library staff to increase their wellbeing literacy and earn this certificate. We are providing this scholarship through grant funds the MCLS Board of Directors established using proceeds from the sale of the former INCOLSA building. Again, for many more details and the application process, watch your email and our website, on March 1. 

Michelle Bradley (Manager of Engagement, Consulting and Training at MCLS) and I will host an Indiana Wellbeing Literacy grant Q&A session via Zoom on Friday, March 5 at 11am Eastern (10am Central). We will email a link to this session in the next few days.   

I hope you’ve found this month’s Wellbeing Wednesday messages useful, and that you’ll consider joining us to learn more about how to promote wellbeing for yourself, your library staff, and your community.  

Be well, 

Scott 

P.S. To learn about a “secret weapon” to worker wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic, check out a brief summary piece with suggestions from Mandy O’Neill, Associate Professor at George Mason University’s Center for the Advancement of Well-Being.