Library instruction is like acting: There's a live audience, in person or online; you may be doing a one-shot, limited engagement, or play to the same crowd repeatedly over the course of a term; and you usually expect reviews. Most important, instruction is like acting in that you're playing a role, and it's crucial to prepare your performance before you go on in order to shine and connect authentically with students. Your Craft as a Teaching Librarian: Using Acting Skills to Create a Dynamic Presence -a revised and expanded edition of The Craft of Librarian Instruction-captures how acting techniques can sharpen your instructional skills and establish your teaching identity, enliven your performance, and create an invigorating learning experience for your students. It's divided into three entertaining sections: Prepare and Rehearse: Centering yourself, physical and vocal preparation, mindfulness, and avoiding stage fright Perform and Connect: Role playing, identity, action/reaction, and information literacy Reflect and Sharpen: Assessment and adaptation Chapters feature exercises to explore on your own or with a colleague, question and answer sections to help you identify potential challenges and solutions, and tips on deepening your teaching skills. A glossary of acting terms and a "learn more about it" bibliography provide additional context for the methods and techniques presented. Your Craft as a Teaching Librarian can help you personalize and characterize your teaching presence and help those with little to no teaching experience, instructors dealing with shyness or stage fright, and more experienced librarians in need of a refreshed perspective, adding an undeniable star quality to your instructional performance.

Libraries have a distinctive role to play in the small business ecosystem and can effectively partner to complement existing business services in the community. A nationwide initiative that launched in 2020, Libraries Build Business (LBB) aims to build capacity in libraries offering programming or services to local entrepreneurs and the small business community, prioritizing low-income and underrepresented entrepreneurs. And libraries have already begun to transform communities, with programs ranging from one-on-one business consultations, classes, and workshops to networking and equipment lending, as the many initiatives spotlighted in this book demonstrate. Serving as powerful models of how libraries and their staff can advance innovation and economic growth on any budget and scale, these examples will inspire you to plug into your own community while guiding you through the nuts-and-bolts of making it happen. You'll learn the value to libraries of getting involved in entrepreneurship development; how libraries are integrating equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) into their efforts, working to create more inclusive business communities and, in turn, cultivate a vision for justice in communities across the country; vivid case studies of more than two dozen programs representing a cross-section of urban, suburban, and rural libraries, such as Entrepreneurship Academy, a training program; a 6-month business incubator targeting the formerly incarcerated; empowering street vendors, a consulting service with local business experts; and a makerspace for business; best practices related to budgeting, partnerships, staff, outreach, evaluation, sustainability, and other core components; and information about additional resources to support your work.