Taking a Walk with the Library: StoryWalk®, Walking Book Clubs and More
Is programming space limited or at a premium in your library? Take your programs outside with a walking program.
Join us for a webinar with Charlotte Mecklenburg (N.C.) Library, Gail Borden Public Library District (Elgin, Ill.), and Let’s Move in Libraries! to learn how libraries of all sizes can incorporate walking into programs for all ages.
This session will focus on how these libraries developed their StoryWalk® and Walking Book Club programs, including lessons learned, with a brief overview of other walking programs ideas, like local history walks.
Participants of this session will:
- Brainstorm ideas for a plan to incorporate walking into programming, based on what has worked in other libraries
- Determine barriers and corresponding strategies for developing outdoors programs, including working with partners and dealing with weather
- Outline an assessment strategy for outdoors and passive programs like a StoryWalk®
Resources
Emily Nanney has worked in Charlotte Mecklenburg Library (CML) for 20 years. Since October 2018, she has been the education leader providing strategic oversight for programming and educational partnerships. Nanney previously held positions in children’s services including coordinator, manager and librarian. She was a 2018 Randolph Caldecott Selection Committee member, served as a member of the 2015 PLA Leadership Academy, was the team lead for the ALSC Institute, and project coordinator for the LSTA StoryWalk® Grant in 2018 for CML. Nanney holds an MLIS from the University of South Carolina and a BA in elementary education from the University of North Carolina-Charlotte.
Danielle Henson is the community collaboration coordinator at Gail Borden Public Library District (GBPLD) in Elgin, Illinois. Henson engages to connect community and the library as they rise to fulfill their GBPLD mission: "the library where imagination & transformation flourish, fueled by the power of community." She is the library liaison to, and co-chair of, Activate Elgin (AE), a community wellness coalition; chair of the AE annual district-wide free wellness programs March into Health, reaching thousands of community members with fun and healthy programs for all ages and interests. She is also co-creator of GBPLD’s Walking Book Club, Team Read Community Run/Walk Challenge and supporter of the Mayor’s Walk Challenge and Walk with the Mayor programs.
Dr. Noah Lenstra, MLIS, is an assistant professor of Library and Information Science at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where he directs Let’s Move in Libraries. He is the author of Healthy Living at the Library (2020, Libraries Unlimited), and received (with colleagues from Wayne State and University of Oklahoma) a three-year grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to study how small and rural public libraries address health and wellness through public programs. He is a member of the Public Library Association’s Promoting Healthy Communities Advisory Group and blogs for ALA's Public Programs Office.
