“I want to get started immediately!”
This week Lifetime Arts traveled to southern Wisconsin to deliver two full-day professional development workshops on Creative Aging programming for public librarians working in suburban and rural libraries there.
We began the week on Tuesday in Brookfield where we worked with 26 librarians from the greater Milwaukee area. The next day, we traveled west to meet with and train 17 additional librarians in rural Dodgeville, which is located just south of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin.
Creative Aging programming was completely new to the vast majority of attendees, as it is for many of the hundreds of librarians we have trained in 200 libraries across 25 library systems in 13 states over the past decade.
Eye-opening and Inspiring
The librarians found the curriculum that we presented: ageism; trends and research in the Creative Aging field; intentional social engagement techniques; exemplary programming examples; program implementation; and a hands-on storytelling workshop eye-opening and inspiring:
- “Excellent information on ageism and trends in artful aging!”
- “Ready to get started surveying my community and creating more partnership for older adults.”
- “I want to get started immediately!”
- “How can I get this started as soon as possible?”
Each day was not only packed full of information and best practices, but included an experiential learning component (the storytelling workshop) where the learners were art students for a day, giving them the change to understand what others will experience when they participate in Creative Aging workshops.
These training sessions were sponsored by the South Central Public Library System and the Southwest Wisconsin Public Library System, and were funded in part through a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), which was administered by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.
