A free webinar, “The R.O.A.D. I Travel: A Program Model for School Libraries,” will explore how an Indianapolis middle school library partnered with other organizations to develop an innovative genealogy unit for eighth-graders. The program was recently recognized with ALA’s 2014 Sara Jaffarian School Library Program Award for Exemplary Humanities Programming.

Presenting the webinar will be AASL President-Elect Leslie Preddy, school librarian at Perry Meridian Middle School, and Suzanne Walker, children’s services consultant at the Indiana State Library. They will discuss how they created and implemented “R.O.A.D. (Research, Observe, Analyze, Discover) I Travel” in partnership with the Indiana Historical Society in 2013.

Over one semester, librarians assisted nearly 500 eighth-graders in researching their family histories online and in historical newspapers on microfilm, while historians and preservationists taught the students preservation and interview techniques. The unit culminated in a project fair, where students displayed videos, scrapbooks, student-made family cookbooks and demonstrations of unique family hobbies.

The webinar will be held at 2 p.m. CDT Wednesday, Oct. 8. Register online at bit.ly/jaffarian2014.