Partnerships are a key component to fostering and strengthening our library communities. They take time, but once you have them, those partnerships can grow into a wealth of resources and shared commitment. Where do you start and how do you build a sustainable, reciprocal relationship? Last year my library received a grant to create an inside play space for young children (0-5 years) and their caregivers. Prior to the pandemic, our children’s programs were not highly attended and library staff tried a number of things to both meet the needs of the community and their schedules. For the grant, we decided we needed to take an active role in meeting our community’s organizations and take the initiative to form relationships. We created a community asset map using Google Maps. We focused on identifying schools, businesses, non-profits, and so on. From there, we narrowed down our initial contacts to those who…
Tag: community
Partnerships Make the (Library) World Go ‘Round
A school library builds on partnerships with public libraries, independent bookstores, and non-profits. Learn how to form your own partnerships for collaboration and synergy.
Growing Together with your Community
Libraries often need to overcome barriers in order to provide services to those who need them most, but how? There’s no specific answer that will work for every library, so instead we suggest focusing on the idea of planning library services as a growing experience. By this we mean that success is easier to find when we consider the uniqueness of our individual communities and tailor our offerings accordingly, essentially growing our offered services to be more of what our communities want, as opposed to planning exclusively around what we might think they need. The suggestions below include specific examples of ways to employ this mindset, and we hope that they can aid other youth services professionals (especially those looking to reach underserved families) in their planning process. Research and Repeat Growing with your community involves research, and lots of it! Luckily, research includes everything from sitting down at a…
It’s a Beautiful Day in Your Neighborhood: Creating a Serviceable Service Map
My system is rethinking, relaunching, and rediscovering what our community and neighborhoods are like right now, and how the library can fit into our local communities. It feels like the perfect time to start this work, as our neighborhoods have been pretty closed off the last couple of years to keep us safe. I warned my staff when our fiscal year started in October, that pretty much all they would hear from me this year is the word: Resetting. And that word is perfect as a launch to reset yourself in the community, and reconnect.
Toolkit for New Americans: Interview with Nadege Vilsaint, Executive Director for Prosperity Social Community Development Group, Inc.
Image courtesy of Nadege Vilsaint
Serving Underserved Communities: EDI in Action
This year, the Library Service to Underserved Children and Their Caregivers Committee transitioned our Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) goal. We started with providing authentic resources, then moved to empowering library (and library adjacent) staff to hone, develop, and take action on their advocacy skills. Above all, we’re providing support and different ways to interact with our resources, like presentations, chats, and our monthly blog posts. Over the past 18 months, we developed vibrant toolkits to help connect library communities with resources for different underserved populations.
Overwhelmed by: Advocacy
Our committee, Library Service to Underserved Children and Their Caregivers, is part of Priority Group 1: Child Advocacy. We are dedicated to lifting all library staff up to advocate from any position for underserved children and their caregivers. In our toolkits and blog posts, we detail the process of researching your community, listening to your community, and comparing the needs to your current and potential library services. The later piece of evaluating your own organization is crucial for conducting outreach, programs, and services to underserved communities. We have two committee members, Erika Lehtonen and Melody Leung, who have worked together to create a list of tips when conducting advocacy through an equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) lens. Spend time understanding your organization and the people in it. No matter if you are a library director, school librarian, public librarian, library staff, or in library adjacent industries; concentrate on building relationships…
Big Acts of Kindness
I think the phrase “small act of kindness” is interesting. How can any act of kindness be considered small? What does “small” mean? Small to whom? In a recent blog post, I highlighted the ways ALSC, as an organization, has delivered on our core values. I’ve also highlighted some of the ways in which I’ve seen members of our ALSC community share with one another this year. Now, similarly, through an ALSC lens, I’d like to list some of the big acts of kindness I’ve seen: Being the staff member tasked with monitoring the @wearealsc Twitter is sometimes challenging, but it’s so worth it when I see our community exchange ideas and encourage one another in and outside of #librarylife. From a “good luck” tweet on an upcoming job interview to a “that looks amazing” tweet when someone bakes a yummy looking pie– these are big acts of kindness to…