When you think of health programs in public libraries, you probably think of people. But public health includes the environments in which we live, which includes the animals around us. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has an entire website devoted to Healthy Pets, Healthy People, and this is the topic we will explore in this month’s blog.Â
In this messy, fun, hands-on program, tweens and teens dare to design and devour delicious doughnut dioramas alongside local police officers.Â
Using doughnuts, candy decorations and basic supplies, teams create freestanding structures that are judged in categories like creativity and engineering.Â
The event was designed to ease relations between local teens and police with humor and treats.Â
Go Outside & Play Day was a launch event to promote our new Sport Port equipment-sharing collection of circulating youth sports equipment.
YMCA mobile programming, Y on the Fly, provided outside games, activities and snacks on the library lawn to celebrate and promote Sport Port.Â
Blog post author Allison Wysong is a children's librarian at Tacony Library and a participant in Cohort 6 of the Skills for Community-Centered Libraries trainings.
Although we're headlong into the winter holidays, today we want to discuss a different community celebration that took place this autumn.
I wanted to involve the community in a craft that would minister to others. Knitting and crocheting came to mind, but we would need a small and simple project for beginners.
I decided on a baby blanket for stillborn babies. With this project, patrons could make as large or as small a blanket as they wanted, and families of still born babies would receive something warm and soft to wrap around their babies.
The Pottsboro Area Public Library prioritizes events that create buzz in the community, enhance our image as an innovator, and build relationships with businesses and other partners. Our recent Cocktails & Coloring event accomplished all three.
These goals are important because we have reimagined the library’s role in our small town and have to fight the image of what the library used to be. We like to surprise people.
In the month of March, Activate Elgin’s March into Health programming, led by Gail Borden Public Library District, moves our whole community. In this celebration of National Nutrition Month, we facilitate more than 30 free wellness events for all ages and interests.
New research by a San Jose State University scholar finds that most health programs offered by a major U.S. public library system are developed through community partnerships. San Jose Public Library not only works with partners to develop programs offered at the library, they also participate in regional health campaigns. Keep reading to learn how they do it, and to get inspired to try something new at your library!Â
Our library has partnered with our local Wood River Parks and Recreation Department to offer a weekly children's program for kids (ages 5 and younger) that combines gymnastics and motor skills with literacy.
The library provides staff and a story for story time; the parks department provices the gymnastics equipment and space for the little ones to play.Â
“Students are too busy nowadays.” I’m sure we’ve all heard it. So here are a few tips — from my own experience and crowdsourced from other very helpful librarians — to break through the haze of busy-ness and reach students.
This six-session pilot program encourages creativity — and interest in library services — for elementary- and middle school-aged children through open-ended art projects such as Watercolor Resist Paintings and Continuous Line Monsters.
We offered this program in collaboration with the organization Phoenix Family, which provided us with access to their existing after-school program and art supplies.
In June 2017, the Mechanicville District Public Library kicked off a community farmers market on the library’s front lawn. Throughout the summer, on Mondays from 4 to 7 p.m., hundreds of people came to stock up on vegetables, pasta, eggs, honey and other goods from local farms.
For a community with a 16.3 percent poverty rate, a market delivering fresh, local goods at affordable prices was a game-changer, and it also gave local farms an opportunity to sell their products.
On Saturday, July 22, we hosted a Can-Unity building event to wrap up our summer library program. The summer's theme was architecture, so we thought it was fitting to end with a community building event.
The night before, local organizations created incredible structures made entirely from cans, boxes and bags of nonperishable food items. Participating organizations gathered and donated all of the food that was used in building their structures.
College & Me is a multi-series offering — provided in partnership with the local Utah State University Extension office — that provides a comprehensive view of how individuals can prepare to attend college. Open to teens and adults, the class covers basic steps to searching for scholarships and financial aid, along with some application tips and FAFSA best practices.
My library planned an online guided tasting of four craft beers led by a local brewmaster. The library hosted the virtual presentation and the brewery provided the program content and the beer flight, which participants could choose to purchase in advance with curbside delivery.
As librarians, we are passionate advocates for makerspace programming. We share with teachers and students how makerspaces engage and develop critical thinking and problem solving skills. Our school library has supported many makerspace programming events, from Makerspace Monday to our monthly Makerspace challenge.
Beginning in the early 1970s, colleges and universities across the U.S. (and beyond!) started developing campus wellness offices and initiatives. Today, these units have become nearly ubiquitous.
A partnership between a public library and a school district seems like a no-brainer, right? After all, we both have the same basic goals when it comes to students: to create and nurture in them a love of learning. However, many libraries – particularly small, rural libraries – don’t actually have much of a relationship with their school district.
There are plenty of reasons for libraries to collaborate. Partnering with other organizations and people increases your resources, increases your reach, promotes creativity, models teamwork for others, and helps your community work toward common goals. Lest we forget, libraries have a lot to offer our partners, too; we are trusted, well situated for exposure and usually pretty competent in marketing our programs and services.
Joe Shemtov is a special collections coordinator and primary source specialist and a participant in Cohort 1 of the Skills for Community-Centered Libraries trainings.Â
