The PEARL (Promoting and Enhancing the Advancement of Rural Libraries) Project has been successful in helping Texas rural librarians reach out to groups and organizations in their communities and to raise visibility of and appreciation for their libraries. Community outreach plans, designed to identify and fill a need in the community, are at the heart of this unique model. The process is supported by an actionable template which leads participants from community assessment, through strategic planning, to implementation, and concludes with evaluating outcomes. This webinar, co-sponsored with WebJunction and the Association for Rural & Small Libraries, will explore the outstanding results achieved by participants in the PEARL project and share how community outreach plans have led to unexpected outcomes and some surprising results.

Presented by: Barbara Blake, Outreach Coordinator for the PEARL Project, University of North Texas; and Louise W. Greene, Association for Rural and Small Libraries, Board Member, and PEARL Mentor.

Start time: 2:00 Eastern / 11:00 Pacific

Tweet: #wjwebinar

Archive viewing options:

• View full Archive (combined archive of audio, chat, and slides)
• View slides (pdf)
  
• View chat (xls)
• See follow-up article Public Library Outreach Makes Magic

Related Resources:

• PEARL website
• Community Outreach Plans, including:
  • Crockett County Public Library (pdf)
  • Pittsburg-Camp County Public Library (pdf)
  • Cochran County Love Memorial Library (pdf)
  • Deaf Smith County Library (pdf)
  • Post Public Library (pdf)
  • Bertha Voyer Memorial Library (pdf)
    
• Successful Community Outreach: A How-To-Do-It Manual for Librarians, from Neal-Schuman Publishers
  
• UNT College of Information (Yunfei Du, Yunfei.Du@unt.edu, PEARL Principal Investigator)