What Do Older Patrons Need?: Understanding Creative Wellbeing in Later Life with Jon Kay

To register for this webinar please follow this link: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/1930660380545650191?source=Michigan. Sessions are free and available only to members of the Michigan library community. Registrants will receive instructions and a link to attend the session directly from PCI after they register.

People over the age of sixty-five now outnumber those under the age of five for the first time in human history. Nevertheless, more older adults suffer from feelings of loneliness, boredom, and helplessness. However, older adults who maintain or adopt an art or music making practice often experience greater satisfaction in their lives.

This webinar is ideal for those who serve older patrons to understand their needs and how libraries can better serve them.

In this interactive and informative program, attendees will learn:

• how the arts support the wellbeing of older adults
• how creative practices increases social engagement in later life
• how art and music making supports intergenerational bonds
• how creative endeavors provide elders with a sense of purpose

Instructor: Jon Kay directs Traditional Arts Indiana at Indiana University, where he also serves as an Associate Professor in the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology. He is the author of Folk Art and Aging: Life-Story Objects and Their Makers (2016), and the edited volume The Expressive Lives of Elders: Folklore, Art, and Aging (2018). He is the lead author of Memory, Art, and Aging: A Resource and Activity Guide (2020). Kay has produced more than sixty exhibitions, and thirty documentary films on a range of arts related topics. In 2020, he was awarded a Bicentennial Medal for his service to Indiana University.

PCI Webinars are recorded and available to members of the Michigan library community in the Library of Michigan's Niche Staff Skills Academy about a week after they air. New webinars will be in the New category for several weeks. You do not need to register for a webinar in order to view it later in the Staff Skills Academy.

This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the Library of Michigan.