Stephanie Gerding's blog

TechSoup and GrantStation are pleased to present a special offer for eligible U.S. public libraries, nonprofits, and charities to help you win more grant awards with access to an online grant database, targeted grant research, and insider strategies. Connect to thousands of federal and state grants and other funding opportunities with a specially discounted membership to GrantStation.

Our Digital Storytelling Challenge has only a few days left. We've shared lots of learning this month (all archived here) with webinars, tweet chats, and blogs.

Happy Spring! In case you missed our newsletter this month, you can view it online, and you can also sign up to make sure it is emailed to you next month. Find out about our upcoming free webinars, our monthly survey, and our library in the spotlight.

At TechSoup, we’re dedicated to providing your library, nonprofit or charity with the resources it needs to tell its story. Participate in our interactive trainings all month to learn valuable production techniques, then create your 90-second video or five-image slideshow, and enter it to win. Your stories inspire others, so let's share them! 

If you were to turn off all the electricity to your organization's offices, what would happen? Could you still operate your library or nonprofit? Join our webinar for a discussion about taking your organization virtual and what you can do to become less dependent on internal IT and in-house systems.

Do you want to find ways to make it easier and cheaper to set up, improve, or simply maintain your public library computers or training lab?

If you haven't already subscribed to our monthly newsletter, you can sign up here. We'll email you (usually the first Wednesday of each month) and let you know about all kinds of TechSoup news, including software donations, free webinars, free resources and success stories. We usually try to put at least one librarian in the spotlight to share their insights and how they've handled common issues with library technology. 

We've been surveying the library community to get feedback on the Edge Initiative's beta benchmarks. Beta Benchmark 9 focused on libraries sharing their best practices and expertise. The new version of the benchmarks was just released, strengthened by your feedback! A bit of tweaking and consolidation happened so that Benchmark 9 is now Benchmark 6. There have been a few changes to the indicators, however the core benchmark remains the same. 

We have lots of interesting online learning opportunities coming up. Our webinars are always free and include fantastic speakers. Get your questions answered! See our events page for full listings. Leave us a note in the comments if there is a topic you'd like to see offered or a speaker you'd like to recommend. Hope to see you there!

What's happening with apps in the library world? Many libraries are designing apps to extend access to their own services and others are creating applaudable programming. Libraries are providing online access to previously closed collections, demonstrating how to download ebooks on the go, and integrating apps provided by library database vendors to allow for vetted research from mobile devices.