From 2020 through 2022, ALA’s Libraries Transforming Communities (LTC): Focus on Small and Rural Libraries project awarded approximately $2 million in funding to 567 small and rural libraries to help them address issues of concern in their communities.
Over the last few months, we’ve been sharing results from a field-wide survey we conducted to understand library partnerships better.
Over the past few months, we’ve been sharing findings from a field-wide survey that asked libraries to tell us about one partnership that worked well for them.
Patrons celebrated Mario Day on March 10 (Mar10) with plenty of Mario-related games, crafts and a photo booth for kids and teens.Â
In previous posts, we shared information about a recent survey that asked libraries to talk about one partnership that worked well for them. So far, we’ve discussed responses to two of our survey’s key questions: Who do you consider your public?
As part of our research in this phase of the National Impact of Library Public Programs Assessment (NILPPA), we developed and administered a survey designed to give library workers an opportunity to talk about their experiences in partnering with community organizations.
The opening chapter of author Renée Watson’s young adult novel “Piecing Me Together” is two simple lines: I am learning to speak. / To give myself a way out. A way in.
At its heart, the National Impact of Library Public Programs Assessment (NILPPA) explores the impact of public programs on the people served by libraries.
The Madison Public Library Naturalist-in-Residence encouraged our community to explore, learn and reflect upon the natural world through accessible nature-based experiences guided by a local naturalist.
Libraries of all types are taking on new roles and responsibilities. Through robust programming agendas, they’re at the center of community-building efforts all across the US. As they do this important work, libraries are increasingly forging partnerships with different groups and institutions within the communities they serve. Working with schools, churches, healthcare providers, and a variety of other organizations, they’re creating joint programming to directly address people’s needs.
The term “community conversation” refers to a mediated discussion among the members of a community. They have been used for a variety of purposes, and research shows that they can be incredibly beneficial.
This program is run once a month by a local cook and educator. She teaches children in grades second through sixth how to cook using our new mobile kitchen cart (Charlie Cart) here at the library. Participants gain culinary skills and use creativity and math skills to bake, cook and create.
Tulsa City-County Library has had a seed library at some locations since 2014 but the pandemic hit just as Tulsa’s spring planting season began. We were completely closed until mid-May 2020. Meanwhile, everybody and their brother had taken up gardening. How could we get as many seeds as possible in Tulsa gardens while offering only curbside service?
Small and rural libraries that received funding from ALA’s Libraries Transforming Communities (LTC): Focus on Small and Rural Libraries initiative often developed conversation series that built on previously established partnerships and existing programming.
Community engagement is a key component to the work of all library types. In fact, knowledge of the community is one of the 9 Core Library Programming Competencies as identified by NILPPA (the National Impact of Library Public Programs Assessment).
Small and rural libraries face a variety of unique challenges. The problem of misinformation is one of them.
Mackenzee Grzesiak, reference librarian at Alpha Park Public Library in Illinois, was watching HBO’s "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver" when she connected her work on the library’s podcast to the episode’s coverage of America’s current mental health crisis.
Deborah Smith thought that the town of Essex, Connecticut was relatively affluent. Her research on the town’s demographics, however, told a different story.
Sulphur, Oklahoma, is a small town of approximately 5,000 people. Its library, Parker Memorial Library, is one out of eight branches in the Southern Oklahoma library system.
