Nonprofits are everywhere. Wherever you are located, it's likely that there are numerous nonprofit organizations at work in your community that you've never even heard of. In 2009, the Hayward (Calif.) Public Library merged with another city department and took on the city's community grants program. They found that in this city of 150,000Â there are over 2,000 nonprofit organizations!Â
Together, Area Agencies on Aging and Councils on Aging constitute the public infrastructure designed to support America’s older adults. As such, they are natural partners for public libraries seeking to develop programs that lead communities “on the path to healthy aging,” as the ALA Health Literacy Toolkit puts it.
The Connecticut State library's Health Library Initiative is one of the our Division of Library Development (DLD) Strategic Focus Plan "Seven Literacies" — a key element of the Division's LSTA Five Year Plan. The initiative consists of strategic partnerships; ongoing health webinar offerings; professional development workshops, and online health and wellness resources.
Just over a year ago, my branch of Baltimore County Public Library started doing monthly outreach visits at the Charles Hickey School at the Maryland Juvenile Detention Center for Boys. We do regular outreach to all the other schools in our area, we thought; why not bring library-led reading and discussion to this one, too?
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.
At its heart, the National Impact of Library Public Programs Assessment (NILPPA) explores the impact of public programs on the people served by libraries.
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.
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.
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.
Laurel (Del.) Public Library is, as assistant director and head of circulation Wenona Phillips explains, an untraditional library. But it wasn’t always this way.
Library workers see the impact of public programming every day, but what characterizes a good public program? ALA and Knology, a social science research nonprofit, are working to answer this and other questions through the National Impact of Library Public Programs Assessment (NILPPA).
Through our evaluation of ALA's Libraries Transforming Communities (LTC): Focus on Small and Rural Libraries initiative, we’ve seen libraries reach out to their publics to assess needs, host discussions about pressing issues, and expand their roles as community centers.
Jackie Mills is a partnerships pro; she established library partnerships way before it was a trending topic. “Partnerships and collaboration are the future of libraries,” she says. “If the pandemic has taught librarians anything, it’s that libraries don’t exist within four walls anymore.”
It can be hard to reach new segments of your community with the library doors closed. How can your library use the community partnerships you already have to reach patrons during the pandemic? What new community relationships can help you promote library offerings during this difficult time?
For the Gwinnett County (Ga.) Public Library (GCPL), one of the answers has been food banks.
