The Southern Adirondack Library System works with two regional food distribution networks – the Comfort Food Community and Capitol Roots’ Squash Hunger Program – to reduce food waste by rescuing food. The food gleaned from local farms is shared through libraries located in rural food deserts to alleviate the challenges of food insecurity and food access.
The Chatham Area Public Library's Film Discussion Kits each focus on a topic of social justice:Â race, voting rights, gender and sexuality, and environmental justice.
The collection consists of five kits, each containing a DVD and discussion guide with questions, watch-alikes, ways to stream content with your library card, and paper for notes.
Supplies are contained in a plastic ArtBin with a label showcasing the enclosed film. Depending on interest and impact, the collection could adjust and grow in the future.
New Ulm, Minnesota, is located on the northern edge of Tornado Alley, an area of the central United States with frequent damaging tornadoes. The city’s location, between two rivers, makes it especially vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Flooding is growing more common and worse seemingly each passing year, along with tornadoes, drought, hail, and onslaughts of mosquitos and ticks during summer months.
Keene is a working-class community located in New Hampshire, one of the most racially homogenous states in the country. Living as a person of color in a predominately white community can be an isolating experience, but race is an important conversation topic no matter where one lives. Librarian Gail Zachariah of Keene Public Library created conversation programs with the goal of helping Keene residents learn from and understand one another.
Adopt a House Plant was a "plant swap," where people could come and pick up an indoor plant, share cuttings of their own, or drop off a plant they no longer wanted.
In commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the 9/11 Memorial & Museum is offering libraries a free digital poster exhibition, “September 11, 2001: The Day That Changed the World.”
In the mid-1800s, Friendship Quilts were a way to commemorate events and memories, often with a large group of people creating the quilt for a particular person or family. These quilts were often personalized with the signatures of those who made the squares in the quilt.
When you set out to plan a new program for your library, you likely think about content first. What information will you cover? What will the program be named? What are your goals, and how will you achieve them based on your budget and resources? This is the process we have come to know as “program planning.”
Through this online video program, librarians fuse together the power of makeup, art and a love for books. The program requires a makeup artist (this can be a librarian with makeup skills) and a model. The two casually chat about a selected book while getting glam.
It's like a makeup tutorial and book podcast in one!
Public and tribal libraries are invited to apply for NASA@ My Library, a STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and math) education initiative that will increase and enhance STEAM learning opportunities for library patrons throughout the nation, including geographic areas and populations currently underrepresented in STEAM education.
Does your library have a podcast? Is someone you know a blogger? Do you have staff or patrons who are “digital storytellers”?
Creating media content has become easier than ever, thanks to the wellspring of new platforms and free tools. While we can’t forget that major companies like Facebook and YouTube are profit-driven, we can help our patrons navigate these platforms and build their technical confidence while also offering opportunities to explore the “bigger picture”: how what we create affects the world around us.
In collaboration with the Cleveland Seed Bank, The Seed Library at Cleveland Public Library strives to preserve biodiversity and to promote local, heirloom varieties of plants.
Organizing a public outpouring of library love isn't just good for our egos; it can be a smart way to market your library, advocate for funding and much more. So for National Library Lover’s Month (February), the Erie County Public Library contacted publishing houses and authors and had them write love letters to libraries.
Most in-person programs for older adults have been put to a halt for the better part of a year. No worries, however! They can still be done online or by phone, says Jon Kay, director of Traditional Arts Indiana and associate professor of folklore and ethnomusicology at Indiana University Bloomington.
According to the Pew Research Center, “roughly eight-in-ten U.S. adults go online at least daily.” However, many are unfamiliar with the basic ways the internet works, including why certain content ends up in our search engine results.
If you’re like most programming librarians, there’s a good chance that you’ve spent a lot more time online in the past year. As COVID sent library workers scrambling to do their jobs in a little- or no-contact environment, many of us have faced a steep learning curve.
So, how is that going for you? Could you have benefited from some training ahead of time?
For many library workers, 2020 has been a crash course in learning to reach patrons in new ways. But if your pandemic response has included more online programs, you may inadvertently be leaving some people out. One in four Americans has some type of disability.
You've heard of Elf on the Shelf. I've found that the elf is the best low-cost passive program to engage patrons through pandemic times and advocate for our library. My library elf, Tinsel, promotes programming, library services and reading.
The inspiration came from how teachers utilize their elf for classroom management around the hyperactive holiday season. Libraries can use an elf to promote library events and excite patrons with the silly hijinks that the elves get into.
Crafternoon is a program for older adults that meets every other week to encourage community and make creative projects in a low-stress setting. Since COVID-19, the program has been conducted over Zoom with curbside pickup of supply kits.
This particular program was painting a canvas bag with fabric paint and shaving cream.
If you do children’s programming, scientists can be a terrific tool in your toolkit. Space scientists, biologists, engineers — they can all introduce kids to an eye-popping world of discovery. 
