Program Description
Event Details
Along with best practices for disaster planning and emergency management, this course will show you how to know your audience, articulate your value, leverage your assets, and position your library to be an invaluable partner to stakeholders and decision makers before, during and after a disaster and beyond.
This is a two-part series held virtually via Zoom. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing the meeting link for both sessions.
This two-part series qualifies for 3 CE hours. Complete the evaluation survey within 30 days to get CE credit ( https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Y5XYCKY ). Please allow 1 week after completing the survey to receive your certificate.
This session will be recorded and posted on the ACLA wiki. Completing the survey after viewing the recording will also qualify for CE credit.
ABOUT REBECCA:
A native of Baton Rouge, Rebecca Hamilton earned her Master's in Library and Information Science from LSU in 1995. Between 1996 and 2005 she served as the Executive Director/CEO of 3 public library systems in Louisiana and as Associate State Librarian at the State Library of Louisiana. She was appointed State Librarian in 2005 by Lt. Governor Mitch Landrieu. She was reappointed by Lt. Governor’s Jay Dardenne and Billy Nungesser and served as State Librarian until April 2023.
At the State Library, through hurricanes, severe budget cuts & short staffing, multiple recessions, an oil spill, floods, and most significant of all, Louisiana Politics, Hamilton re-organized and streamlined operations and improved services across the board at the State Library of Louisiana. A few of her many accomplishments include doubling the amount of State Aid to Public Libraries, the largest increase in the program's history, overseeing the rebuilding of the State Library’s internal network and backup systems, with virtually no additional resources to do so, and as a result, during the devastating hurricanes of 2008, the State Library never lost Internet connectivity when all other offices in state government, including the State Library’s parent Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism were without Internet, growing the annual Louisiana Book Festival to be named the second best book festival in the world with an attendance of almost 30,000 for the one day festival, securing a $12 million grant to provide temporary library facilities in Louisiana and Mississippi after the 2005 storms which served as the first step for libraries along the Gulf Coast of Louisiana to recover and rebuild.
Hamilton’s commitment to preserving Louisiana’s history extends beyond the walls of the State Library. She is the brainchild and executive producer of a documentary currently in production about the Baton Rouge Music Scene from the late 1970’s to the mid 1990’s called Red Stick Punk.
She’s been called a change agent, a servant leader, a consensus builder, a transformational leader, a mentor to many and an outspoken advocate for staff.
She is currently an Adjunct Instructor for the School of Information Studies at Louisiana State University and also provides private consulting services and training to public and academic libraries, national corporations and private sector industries with a focus in the areas of Disaster Response & Recovery, Emergency Management , Ethical Leadership/Management, Creating a Workplace Culture of Ethics & Accountability, Internal Reorganizations, Fundraising, Navigating Political Risk/Interference, Fraud Prevention and Choosing your Second in Command.