Summary

I just want to explain my thinking for some of the programming and budgeting in this blog.  I have worked on my reservation for the last 6 years in various capacities.  I know there is a lot of collaboration between entities in budgeting, and planning.  Different groups want to do outreach, but they don’t have the facility, or the man power.  I plan several events a year for my tribe and I have the various departments asking to participate or contribute to the event.  The Cultural Department has done puppet shows at our events...for free.  They take care of various displays around the reservation, so they would probably include the library.  They could set their own themes and timelines as well.  The development group on the reservation sponsors food, drinks and dessert for events regularly, and has been known to donate prizes and raffle items.  The Recreation Center really has the movie night event in my program, and piggy backing on it would be a ‘no’ cost way to enhance the kids’ experience.  We do have a Temporary Assistance For Needy Families (TANF) office on our reservation.  The woman who oversees the program is looking to contribute to tribal events, and coordinate with what is already being done.  Her program works on building families, supporting those in need, and prevention programming.  The tribe also really does pay for the mailing and copy costs of its various entities, so I can reach out to members as often as I would like as long as the content is official business of the library.  I don’t have to budget for these things I mention above, which means that I can stretch my budget further to enhance my programs.

Also, I worked as the first employee of the school library when it opened.  The budget was given for the upstart, and whatever wasn’t used rolled over for operating costs.  I used some of that budget for things like easels, curriculum books, core competency class sets, and art supplies...  My point is that I feel that anyone working in that situation with the tribe would have whatever resources they needed to run successful and solid programs.  The budget was the most difficult part for me because I have never worked for a public library or school, so have not felt the squeeze of state or federal budget problems.

This assignment was fun and I enjoyed taking my time on it.  I will most likely keep it after the assignment and modify it to include all my projects for the SLIS program.  I had to spend a lot of time learning to use blogger.  My last blog was in wordpress, but I found blogger easier to use.  I had to spend time designing the layout, learning how to install gadgets, and labels.  After I was several posts in I realized none of my pictures were downloading, which meant I had to learn how to save everything as a jpg and repost it.  I had to erase all my previous posts!  It ended up looking better this way because I could download it into the post without my design and spacing getting changed.  This all took almost as long as the assignment, but I realize what a good skill this is to have.  I am proud of this assignment, and I know I will use this and the other skills I learned in this class in whatever work I do with children.