Interested people can contact Melanie Welch at mwelch@ala.org. 

Thanks!

Sarah Ostman

ALA Public Programs Office

*****

Hello,

I’m Melanie Welch, a project director in the Public Programs Office at the American Library Association (ALA). I’m reaching out to request your participation in a planning project. ALA is launching this project to explore ways to expand public library services for new Americans – that is, refugees, immigrants and displaced persons. ALA’s goal in this planning stage of the project is to create a comprehensive agenda for national distribution of service models, professional development for library workers, alignment of best practices and correlation to existing methods for program outcome measurement.

We are assembling a group of public librarians and their community partner organizations with experience in providing services to new Americans to participate on a National Advisory Team for the project.

We will select 8 librarians and 8 community partners to join the National Advisory Team. Each advisor will receive a $500 honorarium, and the main activities will occur from June-November 2018. The duties of each librarian advisor/library partner on the team will be:

1. Participate in monthly conference calls to share expertise, provide insight and feedback, propose content and contribute knowledge to project evaluators and ALA staff.
2. Conduct independent research as needed and report back to the team to assist in landscape review, focus groups and stakeholder meetings. This research will be needed to identify 1) existing replicable service models for new Americans at public libraries nationwide; 2) existing resources, grants and initiatives to help facilitate strong library programming; and 3) gaps in service that could be ameliorated by the creation and distribution of library best practices.
3. Attend one in-person, full-day stakeholder meeting in September (date TBD, location planned for Chicago or Washington, DC). Travel expenses will be covered by ALA. 
   
   To be considered as an advisor, please email a resume and one paragraph biography (max 300 words) to me at mwelch@ala.org by Thursday, May 31. Please also feel free to forward this message to anyone you think would make a good candidate for this opportunity. 
   
   Thanks very much,
   
   Melanie Welch