I have (much more successfully) done this at every other juncture in my life, including the (final) family move to Maryland, three colleges, and a dozen jobs. I took what I liked about myself and refined the details. As for the not-so-likable elements, I trashed them. I knew there was a better me just waiting to be born. With our new library opening in less than two months and my transfer to the new building coming next week, once again I’m in a time of transition and I’m redefining who I am as a teen librarian, a peer, a supervisor, an advocate, and a friend.

Many of the responsibilities I have at my current library are following me to the Gum Spring Library. My biggest responsibility is that of page supervisor. I took over that role in December 2011, when the person who’d been supervising the four pages had to take an emergency leave. My own supervisor helped me ajust to my new role, though many of the job’s nuances I learned as time progressed. To help out my successor, I’ve created a document that describes the duties (official and unofficial) of a page supervisor. I also used this opportunity to reflect upon what I’ve learned. In effect, I gave myself a performance assessment. I’ve already begun working on a new document on the training and supervision of the pages who will arrive in February.

Much of what I’ve learned while supervising pages transfers neatly into my role as a teen volunteer coordinator. My goal is to teach our young volunteers about the library, encourage them to work and play there, and give them a solid opportunity that builds both their character and their resume. I know I let some of our teen volunteers fall through the cracks in my old branch’s very busy volunteer program. Instead of giving each of them the personalized attention they deserved, I let a few simply sign in, do their tasks, and then leave. Even if that was the kind of experience they’d expected, it wasn’t what they deserved. Teen volunteers should be nurtured to view the library as a “third place”: a place to keep organized, fun, and safe, and mostly importantly, to be proud of. As I train my replacement and the new Gum Spring teen volunteers, I’ll be sure to keep the number of volunteers at a manageable level. That way, my peers and I in the Teen Center can create meaningful relationships with them, and instill a sense of responsibility and of place in them.

As I sit at my desk, contemplating which documents, folders, and ARCs to get rid of and which to take to my new library, I’m doing the same thing with my role as a teen librarian. We are rarely given an opportunity to reinvent ourselves, but when we are, we owe it to ourselves and to those we work with to take a moment to reflect on ways that we can improve.

Gum Spring opening day collection

Fresh Paint charts the development of teen services at a new public library in an underserved community. Gum Spring Library will be Loudoun County’s (VA) eighth branch and will serve more than 100,000 residents. It’s one of the county’s largest public-private partnerships.

Nashville Mayor Karl Dean came up with the idea for the partnership in 2008 as he looked for ways to leverage the city’s resources. “Through this partnership, I believe we can create world-class libraries in our schools,” said Dean said at the time. Through Limitless Libraries, NPL has helped modernize and expand school collections by weeding out outdated books and by using the city’s purchasing power to efficiently acquire new material. Additionally, students and teachers have near-instantaneous access to NPL’s entire collection, plus several local university collections. School-issued student IDs are used as city library cards.

Strong foundation for a bright future

Because of Limitless Libraries, all of Nashville’s high school collections are up to the state standard of nine items per student with audiovisual resources in every school and key purchases made, including ebooks and the online resource Rosen’s Teen Health and Wellness. Easier than ever before, students and teachers can access all of NPL’s databases. In addition, about 200 ereaders were purchased, so every school librarian can check them out to students. School librarians feel empowered by the added attention that their programs are receiving. Nashville students can now tap into the city’s collection of more than 1.5 million items, which can be delivered straight to their schools. During the 2011–2012 school year, more than 97,000 items were sent to Metro Nashville Schools by courier. Even more encouraging, 25,000 students registered as NPL’s patrons, and 15,000 of them were first-time public library users.

Nashville’s 74 elementary schools were added to the program this school year, making Limitless Libraries available in all 128 of the city’s traditional schools. There are plans to create hardy collections of audiovisual and English learner materials for elementary school students, and NPL recently teamed up with Follett to create a 2,500-item ebook collection. Additionally, the city is funding a longitudinal study of the program, in which the library will be working with education researcher Keith Curry Lance and his partners at RSL Research Group.

The beginning stages

From the get-go, a partnership seemed like a win-win situation. NPL already had an efficient, centralized collection development and procurement system, and librarians began identifying ways to work this system into high school libraries. It was clear that improvements to school libraries could easily be made by sharing resources and providing students with access to more learning materials.

Nashville Mayor Karl Dean

As a first step, a steering committee was convened, I was appointed to head up the project by Donna Nicely, who at the time was NPL’s director. We met with administrators from the public library, Nashville’s Metro Schools, and the mayor’s office. There’s no denying that the partnership demanded flexibility from every entity as each area would be required to do things differently. NPL and the school libraries were accustomed to operating in silos. But everyone involved agreed on the end goal: to provide students with the best possible library experience with ample selection choices.

Concerns in the implementation process included public librarians who worried about whether staffing levels could handle the additional responsibilities of such a program. At the same time, high school librarians expressed concerns over being “taken over.” With a clear vision, strong leadership, and a collaborative mindset, the groups worked together to overcome these obstacles. NPL has received additional staffing, and high school librarians see nothing but benefits from the partnership.

Next steps

As a next step, high school media specialists were recruited for a pilot program. During meetings hosted at local schools, school librarians had the chance to express needs and concerns. Everyone worked together to find solutions for many valid concerns, including how the school library collections would be modernized. As an example of that collaborative spirit, both NPL and school library personnel worked together to weed outdated books off shelves. They manually pulled the books, boxed up the discarded titles, and, together, scrubbed the empty shelves. In meetings attended by both school and public librarians, they agreed not a single book would be purchased unless everyone agreed.

To help with the process, Karen Lowe was hired as a consultant to help create guidelines for the weeding and purchasing decisions. Lowe is a veteran school library media coordinator, a college instructor, and the author of the definitive article on collection assessment, “Resource Alignment: Providing Curriculum Support in the School Library Media Center” (Knowledge Quest, November­–December 2001).

In the second semester of the 2009–2010 school year, we thoroughly assessed the school libraries’ collections. We tossed out antiquated or irrelevant titles and settled on what items to add. The city library also purchased 50 netbooks for the schools to lend to their students and teamed up with Ingram Digital to pilot 400 ebooks. Since the schools were now pooling their purchasing power, they were able to negotiate deeper discounts from vendors. There was also an increase in the number of vendors that schools did business with, and new arrangements were made for their orders to arrive processed and shelf-ready, which had never been done before. School librarians were thrilled that all that was required was to simply unpack the books and place them on the shelves.

Photo by Gary Layda

Through the roof

The first four months of the program were truly remarkable. All of the pilot’s initiatives were accomplished, and a strong relationship with the school librarians was established. By the end of the pilot program in May 2010, circulation at all high school libraries had improved. The most significant increase was at the Pearl-Cohn Entertainment Magnet High School, an inner-city school, where circulation improved by an astonishing 286 percent.

Weeded items, such as Little House on the Prairie and The Little Prince, were replaced with culturally relevant, engaging materials—many of which were in nonprint formats. Suddenly, school library collections became the hottest ticket in school. School librarians also discovered the power of audiobooks to attract students, especially reluctant readers and those who read below grade level. Audiobooks, especially Playaways, became huge hits, and school librarians have been quick to notice the difference they’ve made in many students’ lives. “One student comes in a couple of days a week with her Exceptional Ed teacher,” said a media specialist. “She does not like to read, but now she loves Playaways. She’s on her second book in three days.” And here’s what another high school librarian reported: “New seniors were faced with reading Metamorphosis. They were a bit behind. One borrowed the book on CD, the other [borrowed] the Playaway—and were they ever thankful.” Before the joint program got rolling, our school librarians never had the funds to purchase these types of resources.

School librarian Alison Maliszewski and seventh grader, Brandon Muñoz from Goodlettsville Middle School, Nashville, TN.

As a result of Limitless Libraries, many unexpected opportunities have emerged that are truly amazing. School libraries now regularly take part in public library programs, such as Teen Read Week and Food for Fines, an annual event in which patrons’ overdue fines are waived in exchange for jars of peanut butter, cans of soup, packages of pasta, and other food items that are donated to the local food bank. (Fines are reduced by one dollar for each item they contribute.) Plus, city and school librarians have started to talk more to one another, sharing valuable information about programming, reading lists, and upcoming events. In short, everyone has started to communicate more about how best to serve students.

When Lowe conducted a survey at the beginning of the first year, she found that half of the respondents were fearful or skeptical of the program. But in a similar survey conducted at the end of that school year, not a single librarian objected to it. In fact, at the end of that first year, these are the types of comments that were heard from media specialists: “NPL spent the mayor’s money so wisely and improved my collection. In fact, my circulation is up 170 percent over last year and school just started. I am thrilled.” And “I’ve been telling other librarians what a great experience it was participating in the NPL/MNPS pilot project…. [It’s] a win-win for everyone.”

Not surprisingly, librarians who have participated in the pilot program have become evangelists for Limitless Libraries, soothing the fears of their colleagues and assuring them that the school and public library are truly partners. When funding was expanded for the 2010–2011 school year to include all 16 of the city’s high schools, we immediately planned an in-service session with the additional school librarians. We devoted plenty of time to getting their input, listening to their concerns, and following through. By working in a collaborative way, we gained their trust. Students have responded favorably to the program, and circulation statistics are going through the roof.

The program has been improved every step of the way. Working with school administrators and city attorneys right before the 2010–2011 academic year began, a Memorandum of Understanding was drafted to allow schools to share student-directory and parental permission information with NPL. This allows Limitless Libraries to receive daily updates on student data to import into NPL’s Innovative Millennium system. As mentioned, students’ IDs now serve as their public library cards. City library staffers know if students have permission to use the courier service and place holds on public library items. The school courier visits the main library every day, and students with permission can pick up their public library materials at their school library. Home information is updated if it changes at school.

Kent Oliver, NPL’s director, fully embraces the vision of Limitless Libraries. “I look forward to continued growth and success of the program as we seek ways to further expand Limitless Libraries and make a literary impact on our youth.”

Limitless Libraries is truly groundbreaking, and it’s being modeled around the country. Any public school system and public library can replicate Limitless Libraries. As stated in the Limitless Library motto, which was penned by a Nashville eighth grader, “The future is in your hands, make it limitless.”

Tricia Racke Bengel is NPL’s associate director for collections and technology services. In March 2012, Library Journal (SLJ’s sister publication) named her a “Mover and Shaker” To find out more about Limitless Libraries, visit www.limitlesslibraries.org.

For our part, we saw a disconnect when SLJ’s public library spending survey revealed that a mere nine percent of public librarians actively collaborate with their peers in K–12. After we published the results in “It Takes Two” (May 2012, pp. 26–29), we learned about many partnerships, and we also heard from many from both school and public librarians who seemed burned out by failed outreach attempts.

Yoder and Lowry may be a rare breed, but, as is abundantly clear in our cover story, “Partners in Success” (pp. 22–28), they’re not alone. Many like-minded librarians are reaching across institutional walls and redefining their turf—and their institutions are changing, too. Considering the yawning gap between what kids need from libraries and the resources currently available to them, innovation in this area is urgent.

At first, I was inspired by the spark between two professionals that ignites a new partnership. I still am. This kind of grassroots initiative is grounded in knowing the kids, and, when it works, helps build the case for more. Now, however, I’m even more convinced that our institutions need to act with the same responsiveness and creativity.

We need more of what’s happening in Nashville. Talking with Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools’ Kathryn Bennett brought this home. I met Bennett, a library lead teacher, at Library Journal’s December 14 Design Institute at the wonderful Warrensville Heights Branch of the Cuyahoga County (OH) Public Library. It was great to see her at this public library event—after all, there’s plenty of insight into learning spaces in any good library.

Naturally, we fell into talking about Nashville’s Limitless Libraries initiative. Bennett is a big fan of the project, which, she says, wouldn’t be nearly what it is without the “Memorandum of Understanding” between the school and Nashville Public Library (NPL).

As NPL’s Tricia Racke Bengel details in her overview of how Limitless Libraries came to be, the memorandum enables the library to use information about students, with parental permission, so their student IDs serve as library cards, streamlining access to the collections. Racke Bengel, who was named a 2012 LJ Mover & Shaker for this work, describes a process that was certainly disruptive. The project keeps expanding as it enriches the lives of Nashville’s kids.

After reading cover story writer Marta Murvosh’s exploration of the state of public and/school library collaborations, I’m even more convinced of the need for us be actively reimagine how we serve our kids. And we must break down the silos that stymie that work.

Toward that end, SLJ will be giving more attention to collaboration in 2013 in an effort to forge a model to help us join together to approach challenges as a greater community. We’ll focus on these partnerships as part of the first SLJ Public Library Leadership Think Tank, currently in planning for April 5 in New York City. The daylong event aims to provide a public library companion to SLJ’s dynamic Leadership Summit, aimed at tackling school library issues. My hope is that the two events will, in a sense, ping pong off of one another to foster deeper dialog on the commonalities shared by all librarians serving kids. Collaboration will also be a theme in the upcoming Be the Change webcast series, which we bet will be the start of a robust leadership initiative.

Let’s change the world together. Happy New Year!

Rebecca T. Miller
Editor-in-Chief
rmiller@mediasourceinc.com

Marcus Lowry, teen librarian, Ramsey County (MN) Library and
Leslie Yoder, digital literacy and learning specialist, St. Paul Public Schools.
Photograph by Thomas Strand.

Last spring, when school librarian Leslie Yoder heard that young adult author Francisco X. Stork was available to visit Boys Totem Town, a residential program for incarcerated teens in St. Paul, MN, she pounced on the opportunity. Although Yoder lacked the necessary funds, she instantly knew who to turn to—her partners at Ramsey County Library.

For the last two years, Yoder, a digital literacy and learning specialist with St. Paul’s public schools, has teamed up with Ramsey’s teen librarians—and the outcome has been a win-win for both the librarians and the kids whom they serve.

Thanks to Ramsey teen librarian Marcus Lowry, who found the funds for Stork’s visit, the acclaimed writer spoke at a local high school and to dozens of Yoder’s enthusiastic students about his novel Behind the Eyes (Dutton, 2006), which deals with a reform school. “Our students don’t get to meet the people who write the books,” says Yoder.

When Lowry and fellow young adult librarian Amy Boese visit Boys Totem Town, they are weighed down with bags of books and eager to do what they do best—booktalking and spearheading a weeklong technology workshop. “It’s really energizing for us to go there,” says Boese, who also works with three other school districts. “They are always superpolite and have good questions.”

Although the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and the American Library Association’s (ALA) Public Library Data Service Statistical Report don’t keep track of the number of joint-library projects, Yoder, Lowry, and Boese are among a small group of school and public librarians nationwide who regularly work together. Like many rewarding collaborative projects, theirs usually begin with a modest idea, in this case, offering booktalks to kids in a correctional facility. But behind every successful school and public library partnership, explains Lowry, there’s also a strong personal connection and a shared vision. “It almost always has to start with one personal connection,” he says. “It’s the one person that sees that mutual value—that we serve the same kids.”

Teaming up in Minnesota: Aaron Blechert, a media specialist at Irondale
High School, and Amy Boese, a teen librarian at Ramsey County Library,
with students in the school library.
Photograph by Thomas Strand.

It’s also sound fiscal sense for school and public libraries to pool their limited resources, says Jeffrey Roth, the New York Public Library’s vice president of strategy and finance. “We’re in an era that institutions need to look and see who they can partner with and strategically use each other’s assets,” he says.

That’s a strategy that the Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) and Nashville Public Library (NPL) have worked to perfection. Although sharing public library collections with public schools is fairly unusual, that didn’t stop these two creative partners from thinking outside the box. During the 2011–2012 academic year, when Nashville’s budget-strapped schools were hurting for resources, the public library reached out a helping hand and loaned the city’s 54 middle schools and high schools 97,000 items—everything from books and DVDs to CDs and Playaways to entice reluctant readers and struggling English-language learners.

As a result of the impressive partnership, which is called Limitless Libraries, Stephanie Ham, NPL’s project coordinator, says the public library’s circulation stats have soared by an unprecedented 60 percent. And on the school side, MNPS’s lead librarian, Kathleen Bennett, couldn’t be more pleased. “This model is just fantastic and the benefits are great,” says Bennett. “What the kids get is wonderful open access to lots of resources.” (For more on Nashville’s Limitless Libraries, click on this link.)

The relationship between schools and public librarians is a critical one. Even before the recent recession, few school libraries could match the buying power of a large branch or a mid-size public library system. And during these troubled economic times, school librarians and their budgets are often among the first items scratched from public school budgets. That’s a compelling reason why Wisconsin’s School District of La Crosse and the La Crosse Public Library are exploring the possibility of sharing school and public library databases. “From a fiscal perspective, we’re starting to balance our resources so we are not duplicating online services,” says Vicki Lyons, the district’s director of technology and library services.

Still, successful school and public library partnerships can be a tough act to pull off, say many librarians and educators. Some of the typical roadblocks include a lack of time, vision, or resources; difficult personalities to deal with; and a scarcity of support from higher-ups. That may explain why less than one-third of school and public libraries coordinate book and other material purchases, according to School Library Journal’s first public library spending survey (see “It Takes Two,” May 2012, ow.ly/gekWY). When it comes to homework assignments, only nine percent of public libraries work directly with schools.

The emphasis on standardized testing can also be a barrier to working together, especially when kids are pulled out of the classroom to visit a public library. If the benefits of a joint effort aren’t obvious, says Rachelle Nocito, a content specialist for the School District of Philadelphia, many teachers and principals begin to worry that these activities will negatively impact test scores. “School districts are judged on our students’ achievement,” explains Nocito, whose district is piloting a program with the Free Library of Philadelphia. “It’s really important that when we step out of our building to do anything, its purpose definitely aligns with the reading program and social studies curriculum or science curriculum.”

But that doesn’t mean that school and public libraries should hesitate to work together. Susan Ballard, president of the American Association of School Librarians, a division of ALA, encourages school and public librarians to reach out to one another and other community groups. “No one can do anything on their own anymore; it’s simply not possible,” Ballard says.

At the moment, ALA’s Interdivisional Committee on School/Public Library Cooperation is working on ways to bring media centers and public libraries together on issues such as preventing “summer slide”—when kids lose many of the reading gains made during the school year—and implementing the Common Core standards. “If you’re not collaborating, why aren’t you collaborating?” Ballard asks. “The end result improves services for kids and makes them better researchers and lifelong learners.”

Students, of course, aren’t the only ones who benefit from a collaborative program. “Great partnerships let you reach out dynamically and work with a wide variety of partners within the school and public library,” says Marge Loch-Wouters, coordinator of youth services at La Crosse Public Library. She should know. Loch-Wouters has been building partnerships with local Wisconsin schools for more than two decades. “Great partnerships don’t put you in a box,” she says.

Buffy Hamilton doesn’t need to be convinced that joint-library ventures make a world of difference. Hamilton is so bullish on them that she recently left her post at Creekview High School, in Canton, GA, where she ran an award-winning library program, and joined the Cleveland Public Library’s (CPL) staff. School and public libraries “have much more in common with their visions and goals than we might initially think,” says Hamilton, who will be CPL’s liaison with Cleveland’s public schools. “We’re working on these parallel paths, and we can find a way to interact and pool our collective resources and talents to accomplish those goals.”

The following collaborative projects are a sampling of what’s happening around the country. Each of these dynamic programs has its own distinct approach, but they all have one thing in common: they’re making a genuine difference in kids’ lives and in the communities that they serve.

Denver, CO

In 2006, when residents of the Mile High City voted to raise the sales tax to support full-day kindergarten and early childhood education, the Denver Public Library (DPL) and the Denver Public Schools (DPS) knew it was the perfect time to extend their partnership, which, at the time, primarily placed library volunteers in the classroom to read to kids. With the help of a two-year, $476,000 Library Services and Technology Act grant, the two organizations banded together, in 2007, to teach children’s librarians, media specialists, and teachers about the latest advances in early childhood education. Children’s librarians who specialized in infant and toddler brain development shared their knowledge with teachers, and educators, in turn, brought public librarians up-to-date on the workings of the adolescent brain. “It was a new way to collaborate,” says David Sanger, DPS’s director of library services. “We formed professional learning communities, and those have still continued.”

Although the grant ended in 2009, the partnership is still going strong. These days DPL, DPS, and local nonprofit groups and agencies, such as Head Start, are working together on a number of projects for children from poor families. School and public librarians are also sharing their respective approaches to improving literacy and serving the city’s many English-language learners, who make up 34 percent of Denver’s K–12 students. Both groups are also discussing how best to share their resources, including, says Sanger, how to get their catalog databases to “talk to each other.”

Their efforts haven’t gone unnoticed. Denver’s 5 By 5 Project, which was created to support early childhood development, was inspired by these school and library partnerships, says Carol Edwards, DPL’s comanager of children’s and family services. The nonprofit organization, whose goal is to make sure that young kids have at least five cultural experiences by the time they start kindergarten, provides free admission to the city’s top cultural venues, such as the Denver Botanical Gardens and the Colorado Ballet, to nearly 3,000 Head Start and Early Head Start families. Plus, the library also offers free after-school camps for children of families in need. “It’s something that wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t been talking to each other,” says Edwards.

This month, DPL joined communities, such as Louisville and Boston, where one card serves as a student’s ID and library card. My Denver Card will also give kids free access to city parks and recreation services, and there are plans to expand its benefits to include the city’s transit system, says Jennifer Hoffman, manager of DPL’s books and borrowing. Hoffman says she anticipates issuing 30,000 cards. “We’re just trying to make it easy for a student to access us,” she says.

Portland, OR

To reach out to parents and students in east Portland, Multnomah County Library’s (MCL) Midland branch staff worked with educators at the Fir Ridge Campus (FRC), the David Douglas School District’s alternative high school. Their mission? To find teens who were eager to become library tour guides.

But these tours aren’t your average orientation sessions—especially when they’re conducted in Russian, Vietnamese, and Mandarin, the languages spoken in many of the young volunteers’ homes and neighborhoods. The aim of this innovative school-library project, says FRC’s librarian Deb Wheelbarger, is to attract parents who live in east Portland’s diverse and poor neighborhoods to bring their kids to the library and introduce them to its resources.

Student-guided tours are just one way that MCL has teamed up with its five area school districts. Another outreach program, Multnomah’s School Corps (staffed by Jackie Partch, Kate Houston, Peter Ford, and Gesse Stark, all of whom have MLIS degrees), offers local teachers curriculum support, which includes issuing them special library cards (so they can check out more books for longer periods of time), school visits to talk about research skills and library services, and “Buckets of Books,” which, as its name suggests, come brimming with books on commonly taught subjects, such as Oregon history, Pacific Northwest Native Americans, and insects and spiders, says Suzanne Myers Harold, MCL’s adult literacy coordinator. The library also brings visiting authors to local schools and works hard to bring students from the county’s high-poverty areas to theater productions and special events, including an awe-inspiring visit with the Portland Trailblazers, the city’s National Basketball Association team. “Through this collaboration with Multnomah County Library, we’re able to speak for them, and they for us,” says Wheelbarger. “I love the Multnomah County Library. It’s one of the most accessible libraries in the country.”

New York, NY

When the New York City Department of Education (NYDOE) realized there was a great way to work together with the New York Public Library (NYPL), Queens Library, and Brooklyn Public Library to get more learning resources into teachers’ and students’ hands, it couldn’t wait to get started—and MyLibraryNYC was soon launched.

Funded by a $5 million grant from Citigroup, the four-year pilot program, which gives students and teachers access to literally millions of additional materials, lets kids search their school and public libraries’ catalogs simultaneously from any computer that has Internet access. From the very start, the program, which began in 2011 with 84 schools and 50 NYPL branches, opted to take a potentially risky tact: to encourage kids to take advantage of their libraries, students would not be fined if they failed to return materials on time.

A recipe for disaster? Not at all, says NYPL’s Roth. In fact, almost 100 percent of the borrowed items have found their way back onto the library’s shelves. Best of all, students are scooping up more books. “The kids in the pilot were three times more likely to have a book checked out from their local library, and school library circulation essentially doubled,” says Roth. “The New York Public Library and the Department of Education already had a great relationship, but this has taken it to another level.”

Now in its second year, MyLibraryNYC reaches 250,000 students in 400 public schools, offering them access to 17 million books, videos, and recordings. And by 2015, the program hopes to include all 1.1 million of the city’s public school students, says Richard Hasenyager, NYDOE’s director of library services.

As part of the pilot program, NYPL will deliver books and other materials that meet the Common Core State Standards to participating schools. Groundwork is also being laid in all three public library systems to work more closely with school librarians and curriculum specialists so that their collections will support the state’s Common Core Standards.

NYPL estimates that MyLibraryNYC will cost $6 per student annually in direct and indirect costs, which include shipping the materials to schools and library branches. The public library systems pay for shipping and staff training, and the every school pays the roughly $800 annual fee charged by library resource vendor Follett for its Destiny catalog and BiblioCommons, which developed the catalog’s software and online interface. (Follett is giving those school libraries a $150 discount on Destiny.) School libraries that haven’t joined the pilot will pay $650, says Leanne Ellis, NYDOE’s coordinator of library services.

This year, the pilot added the Queens and Brooklyn public libraries and expanded to 207 school libraries that now serve 296 schools, says NYDOE. Although schools have to foot part of the bill, when you stop to consider what kids are getting in return—access to “the greatest books ever written by man,” says NYPL’s Roth—it’s a real deal.

Queens Library sees MyLibraryNYC as a launching pad to expand its librarians’ ongoing work with schools in the borough. “What can be done to help the kids, to support the teachers, to ensure kids have a strong start in reading and literacy and a place to go and their parents, too?” asks Bridget Quinn-Carey, the library’s chief operating officer. “Those are the wonderful things that libraries can do.”

Monterey High’s freshmen take advantage of computers in the Monterey Public Library teen zone as part of a joint venture between the school and library.
Photo courtesy of Monterey Public Library and Monterey High School.

Monterey, CA

To help its incoming freshman beef up their critical thinking skills and boost their tech know-how, the Monterey High School (MHS) turned to a familiar partner, the Monterey Public Library. The two teamed up to create a class called 21st Century Learning Skills. Aaron Sanders, the MHS history teacher who helped kick-start it, and Ben Gomberg, a librarian formerly with the Monterey Public Library, worked together to create the course’s project-oriented assignments, which have included creating websites that explore the coastal town’s history and comparing employment information that kids found on Craigslist with data provided by the U.S. Department of Labor. Supported by a $5,300 IMLS grant, their aim was to give 130 to 150 freshmen (out of a class of 1,100) the skills they needed to succeed in school and in life, says Sanders.

As part of the class, students made four separate visits to the public library (located just a block away), and Gomberg, in turn, made the same number of classroom visits, offering presentations on topics such as copyright and privacy, evaluating websites, and using library resources to prepare for college and careers.

How’s the new course working out? According to MHS’s principal, Marcie Plummer, students who took the class had fewer D’s and F’s, absences, and discipline issues than their nonparticipating peers. Roughly half of the kids in the class reported using the public library in their free time and about a third of them also used it to do schoolwork from other classes, says Gomberg.

Students in the pilot program have also learned how to be advocates for their own learning and how to evaluate their approaches to school so that they can improve their academic performance. “Personally as a teacher, I saw them having huge gains in that area,” Sanders says. “They were not afraid of having conversations with their teachers.”

Philadelphia, PA

How do you improve 146,090 kids’ information literacy and critical thinking skills? If you’re the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) and the Free Library of Philadelphia, you join hands to create a dynamic pilot program that pairs third-grade teachers with children’s librarians from nearby branches.

How does the program work? Six times during the last two months of the school year, instead of taking part in their school’s daily requirement of 90 minutes of reading, about 200 third graders take a short walk to their local public library, usually no more than a couple of blocks away. The purpose of the visits? To research the history of Philadelphia and their neighborhoods.

Upon returning to their classrooms, groups of three or four students dive headlong into the resources they discovered at the library and begin to create their own projects, says district content specialist Nocito. Although it’s impossible to predict what these inspired students are likely to cook up, one thing’s for sure—it’s always interesting.

Sarah Stippich, a children’s librarian at the Blanche A. Nixon/Cobbs Creek Library, remembers the day when the Free Library’s 25-foot-long, state-of-the art Techmobile visited Anderson Elementary School and its third graders were introduced to iPads. “They were digitally mapping our neighborhood,” says Stippich. “They were really into that, not only the technology part of that, but being able to look at their neighborhood and say, ‘Oh, that’s where I live.’”

Some classes combine their walks to the library with physical education, and their students strap on pedometers to count their footsteps, says Betsy Orsburn, the Free Library’s chief of the Office of Public Service Support.

Although it will take at least three years to gather enough data to evaluate the pilot, says Nocito, the initial assessments indicate that students are making connections between their schoolwork and library resources. Their teachers also reported developing moderately strong to strong informative partnerships with public librarians.

Nocito would like to improve on the instructional aspects of the pilot program. Ideally, she’d like to see a 10-week local history project that touches on different curriculum areas, such as science and language arts, and then follow up with an assessment to see if students’ gains continue on in fourth grade. “We’re under scrutiny,” she says. “Our students are going to be held accountable for their visits to the Free Library.”

The pilot program originally began in 2011, when the Free Library offered to help city schools that didn’t have a librarian or a school library, says Joe Benford, the Free Library’s chief of the Extensions Division. “It really is a way to try to cement library instruction and information literacy in the school district curriculum,” says Benford. Although more than 100 of Philadelphia’s 249 public schools have school libraries, only 46 schools have certified librarians. “The school librarians are almost nonexistent,” says Benford. “What we’re trying to do is prove this works and works as a model for the future. We just wanted to see if we could collaborate with the school district, and we have.”

Even though the pilot program appears to be working, there are limits to what it can accomplish. Stippich, who works with three third-grade teachers at Anderson Elementary School and with seven other schools and 12 child-care centers, says it’s impossible for her to offer everyone the level of service that she gives to those in the pilot program. “I can’t be the librarian for everyone,” she says. “This has just convinced me even more that they need more school librarians.”

Freelance writer Marta Murvosh is an aspiring librarian who often writes about libraries and education. You can find her at www.facebook.com/MartaMurvosh.

Applications for the 2013 Innovations in Reading Prize must be postmarked or emailed by February 20, 2013. All U.S. citizens and American companies are eligible, including nonprofit groups, technology companies, or those in the military. In addition to the prize money, winners will receive an all-expense-paid trip to New York City to attend a luncheon in their honor and invitations to NBA events, such as the National Book Awards dinner and ceremony.

The new Gum Spring Library in Loudon County, VA, will need volunteers to shelve materials, organize the book sale area, discard old materials, prepare crafts for the children’s department, help with the Summer Reading Program, and more. In addition to these daily volunteers, we will need Opening Day volunteers, with special training, to help direct patrons around the building and wear the mascot costumes, among a myriad of other tasks. It might seem tricky to collect names and contact prospective volunteers by February 23, 2013 when we don’t have an operational building yet, but, as it turns out, the volunteers have taken care of that problem, too.

Through our library Facebook page, Friends group (FROGS), library website, and school and outreach visits, we have a list of over 65 teens interested in volunteering at the Gum Spring Library. I have received emails and calls from teens interested in helping the library. I was even approached by a Girl Scout wanting the library to be the beneficiary of her Gold Award Project. A high school librarian I met at a meeting between local educators and public library staff recently contacted me regarding the Interact Club’s interest in helping with Opening Day activities, as did a middle school parent liaison who leads a group of student leaders. This outpouring of interest is more than helpful; it is imperative to our success as a functioning library. We are fortunate to have these individuals and groups as future volunteers. Now that we have an ever-growing list of volunteers, how and where do we train them so that they are ready on opening day?

Training volunteers can take as little as 30 minutes and should include a tour of the building, a review of the sign-in/out procedure, and a walk-through of tasks they may be asked to complete. In a perfect world, we would host volunteer orientations at the new branch in the weeks leading up to the opening. With the branch still incomplete, this isn’t possible. Instead, we could lean on our partnership with the local middle and high schools to host shelver orientations in their libraries. I could show my Introduction to Shelving PowerPoint, distribute handouts, and assign the teens “homework” of completing an online shelving test, or given enough time, give each teen a cart and test them on how accurately they ordered those materials.

The downside is that volunteers would not be learning to shelve in the building where they would be volunteering. Gum Spring Library’s 40,000 square-foot, two-story layout will take time to get used to. It has separate areas, spine labels, and rules for shelving in adults, teens, children, and media.Training in 400 square feet of school library space will not give any idea of the scope of the task. Furthermore, the school library might not use the Dewey Decimal System (DDS), leaving the teens without experience sorting by number, author’s last name, and title. Approximately 25 percent of the teens I train as shelvers do not ever return to volunteer, or, upon completing the online quiz or the slip test tell me they did not like the attention to detail and/or the monotony of sorting and shelving. If the volunteers were trained without hands-on practice of DDS, would they be turned-off or overwhelmed when they finally did experience it?

All this leaves me still solving the problem of how to orient this valuable volunteer force by Opening Day. I hope we can train them inside the new branch, but we may have to call on school libraries and/or other public library branches to lend us some space. If so, we’ll make the best of it, but the teens will need even more flexibility than we usually expect of them.

Fresh Paint traces the development of teen services for a new public library in an underserved community.

A copy of a letter J. R. R. Tolkien wrote in runes to a fan requesting an autographed copy of The Hobbit. Photo credit: Margie Hanssens.

Throwing Middle-Earth parties, translating runes, creating a Hobbit infographic project, and contemplating the heroic qualities of Bilbo Baggins: All of this and more is happening at libraries and schools this week, as Hobbit fever runs high leading up to release of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey this Friday.

Organizations from the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh to the Santa Clarita Public Library in Valencia, CA, to the Cedar Rapids Public Library, to name just a few, are organizing book readings, painting murals, and hosting events to celebrate The Hobbit. At the Greenwood (IN) Public Library, making furry Hobbit feet, participating in a “One Ring Toss,” and sharing the book with the community are on the agenda for patrons of all ages, says Emily Ellis, head of reference and teen services, and a Library Journal 2012 Mover & Shaker.

At schools, Tolkien’s 1937 novel about a genial homebody from Bag End who reluctantly embarks on a quest to extract treasure from a dragon offers teachers and students an opportunity to muse on the nature of heroism and delve into mythology and philology, exploring Tolkien’s rich world of languages. Tolkien, a professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford, based his symbolic language of dwarvish runes, scattered through The Hobbit, on ancient English runes.

More generally, “the sense of adventure” in The Hobbit is what appeals to Darby Parker, a 10th grader at St. Andrews Episcopal School in Ridgeland, MS. Parker recently started a fantasy club at her school just to celebrate all things Hobbit.

Parker likes “how Bilbo, this little creature of habit, inches out of the blue and gets thrown into an awesome adventure,” she says. “He’s a cool archetype. He didn’t want to become a hero, but he became one.”

Seventh grader Chyna M. reads an edition of The Hobbit, illustrated by Michael Hague (1984, Houghton Mifflin), this week at the Murray Hill Middle School library in Laurel, MD. Photo credit: Gwyneth A. Jones.

Kids relate to Bilbo “because he doesn’t like to do things, but he does them anyway,” says Karen Copley, an English teacher at the McCracken Middle School in Spartanburg, SC.

Parker’s 30-member club is celebrating The Hobbit all week—and will for years, since this movie is the first of three that director Peter Jackson is carving out of Tolkien’s novel. For now, the club has plans for archery day, riddle competition day, dress-up day, and Hobbit food day.

While The Hobbit is already a curriculum staple in many schools, the film allows educators to engage more deeply with students like Parker, who says that the fantasy club “likes the fact that Tolkien and C. S. Lewis were buddies in college, and that they wrote their books in competition.” (Her club will also plan Narnia-related activities, she said.)

Hobbit feet made from brown packing paper, double-sided tape, and eyelash yarn. Photo credit: Becky Arenivar.

The Spartanburg (SC) County Public Library (SPL) is throwing a Middle-earth party on Friday, and Copley, whose school is nearby, is offering her eighth graders who are reading the book for extra credit if they go. Not that they need pushing: Copley’s imaginative curriculum already includes composing Hobbit-inspired riddles, creating Hobbit and elf character bookmarks, and delving into Tolkien’s symbolic language.

This month, she’s also charging her students with writing 12 riddles, one for each day of Christmas, inspired by the riddles Bilbo asks of Gollum in the book. Runes are featured on the Middle-earth map at the beginning of the book, and some editions also feature publishing data conveyed in runes. “They love the runes,” said Copley. “They’ve been writing their names in runes on everything.”

“Even kids who say ‘I hate fantasy’” are drawn to the book because “The characters seem so real,” Copley adds.

Making thematic bookmarks is part of the curriculum for an 8th-grade class reading The Hobbit. Photo credit: Karen Copley.

Middle-earth name translation sites like The Barrow-Downs and a Hobbit name generator helped Prescott (WI) Public Library programming specialist Becky Arenivar organize her Middle-earth “faire” this week. In addition, Online resources like a downloadable Teacher Pack form HarperCollins, featuring a word search and age-appropriate lesson plans, along with teaching materials from the Tolkien Society offer ideas for teachers.

“The idea of creating a language has a lot of power to it,” says Arenivar, adding that Tolkien’s language appeals to kids who like solving puzzles. While activities like creating hairy Hobbit feet are also part of her library event, Arenivar says that the story is ideal for readers who aren’t drawn to the complex plot intricacies of the “Lord of the Rings.” The Hobbit “reminds me of an oral story,” she says. “‘The Lord of the Rings’ is very complicated. This is a much easier world to enter into.”

SPL teen services assistant Jennifer Annis is planning archery, (blow-up) sword fighting, Hobbit trivia, and costume contests on Friday. She will also post a translation key to Tolkien’s runes in the library. Annis says that kids “love to be able to write something that no one else can read.” One teenager she knows, already versed in Star Trek language, was eager to learn more about Hobbit dialect.

Margie Hanssens, a language structures teacher at St. Ann’s School in Brooklyn, New York, delves deep into Tolkien’s love of language and mythology while teaching The Hobbit. She has her students translate the runes on Tolkien’s map and, in a related assignment, charges them with inventing their own language of symbols and writing a story in which they reveal clues about how to decode that language. Another student  reads the story and writes a letter to the author in the invented language, Hanssens says.

“The assignment is a way for the children to experience the pleasure of communicating through their own language of symbols,” said Hanssens. “Inevitably, the way in which they construct their symbols has meaning for them. They are rarely purely arbitrary.”

A translation of Tolkien’s letter. Photo credit: Margie Hanssens.

In addition, Hanssens has her students translate a letter that Tolkien wrote in runes to one of his fans who had requests an autographed copy of The Hobbit. In the letter, Tolkien refers to his “next book” which he explains will “co[n]tain more detailed information about runes and other alfabets in respo[n]se to many encwiries (sic).”

“There is clearly a linguist at the heart of this book,” said Hanssens. The Oxford scholar “was influenced by the mythologies of many cultures—Norse, Celtic, Greek, etc,” she added. “His love of these stories played an important role in his creation of Middle-earth.”

Photo courtesy of the Queens Public Library.

The New York, Queens and Brooklyn Public Library systems have partnered with the city to ensure that students affected by Hurricane Sandy are able to stay on course academically.

Late last month, schools chancellor Dennis M. Walcott announced that the Department of Education would offer online courses to students displaced from their homes and to those attending affected schools. “The impact on students demands more resources to ensure they get the education they need,” Walcott said. “These online courses will help keep our students on track for their academic success.”

The courses—which are an extension of New York’s digital iZone initiative—can be completed through any computer with Internet connectivity. The city’s public library systems will complement the DOE’s efforts by offering these students Internet access across its branches.

“The city’s critically important program to help students displaced by the storm is a public service that we are very proud to offer as we continue to do all we can to help New York recover and support education, ” said New York Public Library president Tony Marx.

In the storm’s wake, librarians have come together to offer support and resources. At November’s annual NYCSLS fall conference, New York City librarians discussed a plan to deliver supplies and volunteers to affected libraries so that they could continue to provide essential student services. Linda E. Johnson, president and chief executive of Brooklyn Public Library, said that just days after the storm, bookmobiles traversed some of the borough’s hardest-hit neighborhoods and delivered books, charging stations and other materials to those in need. “We will continue to help all of our patrons, volunteers and employees recover from the disaster,” Johnson said. NYPL’s Tony Marx added that since Sandy struck, the library has offered free Internet, heat, power and other resources to thousands of New Yorkers.

To enroll in the city’s online courses, students must complete an interest form online or by calling 718-642-5885. The city will set up a learning plan for each eligible student, and they can go online to access the courses.

Along with Internet access, libraries will offer students technical assistance and other support, said Bridget Quinn-Carey, chief operating officer of the Queens Library. “Our doors are open, our computers and our trained information professionals are available to help students succeed,” she said.

At the New Canaan Library. At left: a tech petting zoo became a charging station; center: kids watching a DVD in the graphic novel section; at left: free coffee

About 50 people were waiting to get into the Princeton (NJ) Public Library (PPL) when it managed to open its doors at 11:00 am on Tuesday, October 30, the morning after Hurricane Sandy unleashed its wrath along the East Coast. About 80 percent of Princeton was without power, but PPL was lit, warm, and wired, operated by a skeletal staff and volunteers who were able to maneuver their way, most on foot, through streets laden with downed trees to the downtown library. Adults and kids flooded into PPL with their laptops, preparing to hunker down, play games, read books, and watch family movies until the library’s regular closing time at 9 pm.

Meanwhile, the New Canaan (CT) Library was also open, packed, and buzzing on Tuesday—receiving patrons until 10 pm (usual closing time is 8:00), says teen services librarian Gretchen Kolderup, who estimated that about 75 percent of the city had no electricity. A town curfew had gone into effect early Monday afternoon, sending people home, Kolderup told SLJ in an email, but she got a mid-afternoon call from the city’s office of emergency management saying that the library would open at 9 am Tuesday. Since then, the library has been showing movies, and “everyone—staff, patrons, administration—seems to feel a sense of camaraderie with one another,” Kolderup said, adding that the director had been at the reference desk since the library opening.

PPL had learned from Hurricane Irene how critical its role is in times of disaster, says communications director Tim Quinn. When Irene struck in August 2011, 4,500 people streamed through the library doors, 2,000 more than the daily average. A lot more than 4,500 came yesterday, he says, though the library had not yet tallied a full count of patrons by 7 pm. School was not in session when Irene hit, adds Quinn, and many people were out of town. Not so this time.

Quinn had made his way to the library early Tuesday morning, and seeing that the electricity was up and the WiFi functional, assembled his “worst case scenario” staff—including a non-librarian neighbor who manned the reference desk all day, refusing breaks. The library ran family movies “day and night” its community room, says Quinn, and will continue to do so as long as the schools remain closed this week. The shelves are emptying—“There’s only one copy of any of the ‘Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle’ books left,” says youth services librarian Suzanne Savidge—and when the computer outlets filled up, teenagers organized an impromptu chess tournament, with the librarians’ permission.

“It’s wall-to-wall people and children,” Savidge said, adding that “the teenagers are asking, ‘Can’t we have an overnight?’”

While Sandy has spawned other such inspiring stories, the grim extent of the storm’s damage to public and school libraries in harder-hit areas has yet to be determined. Other areas of New Jersey remained in full disaster mode on Wednesday morning.

The South Orange (NJ) Public Library, north of Princeton, was designated the town’s primary evacuation center. Emergency personnel started arriving on Monday. In the storm’s aftermath, patrons are using the library to power and warm up, as many of them had no heat in their homes. Library director Melissa Kopecky says, “We’re always a shelter for the community. We’re doing what we always do.” Staff computers have been made available to the public, people are reading and charging phones in the stacks, and volunteers and stranded students from Rutgers University have stepped in to help out the bustling library.

Like PPL, the Roxbury Public Library in Succasunna, NJ, is one of the few places in town with electricity and, as of 11 am, Internet access. Patrons were waiting outside before the library’s usual hours—prompting staff to open early to help some of the 83 percent of town households and businesses without power. Minimal damage (to a fence) hasn’t deterred staff from their usual schedule, and the scheduled ‘tween Halloween party was still a go. Library director Will Porter stated, “The parking lot is overflowing, and the library is as busy as I’ve ever seen it.”

“My library has been closed since Monday,” said Liz Burns, youth services consultant for the New Jersey State Library for the Blind and Handicapped in Ewing Township, NJ, and SLJ blogger. “There is no power for school libraries and nothing is being done at the moment. A mandatory curfew is in effect from 7 pm to 7 am to keep people off the streets in the dark. There’s not even any kind of emergency power for streetlights.”

In the New York City borough of Queens, where regions were devastated by the storm and fire, “We’ve got four libraries that are in disaster mode that will need reconstruction,” Queens Library CEO Thomas W. Galante told SLJ on Wednesday morning. Three of those libraries suffered flooding from three to five feet, reaching the computer monitors, he says, and causing electrical damage. The entire facade of the Peninsula branch library has crumbled, pushed off by water flowing out of the library building. A fifth library in the Rockaways sustained no structural damage, but has no electricity.

“We are still assessing” how long repairs will take, Galante says, perhaps ”weeks or a month, versus months.” Still, Galante feels that Queens fared “pretty well” from the storm.

Like all New York City libraries, Queens libraries remained closed on October 31. But Galante said that 55 of the 62 Queens branches will be open no November 1, and staff will “help people with any kind of FEMA applications and other services” they need related to the disaster. Children’s programs will run as usual, but Galante noted that staffing will prove difficult because of subway closings.

Other city libraries suffered comparatively little. Angela Montefinise, spokesperson for the New York Public Library (NYPL), said in an email on Wednesday that the 90 NYPL branches in Manhattan, the Bronx, and Staten Island had sustained virtually no structural damage. However, they were contending with minor flooding as well as power outages.

Damage to New York City school libraries had not yet been fully assessed. “Most of the New York City school buildings are closed, and I don’t have a sense of the damage yet,” Richard Hasenyager, director of library services at New York City Department of Education, told SLJ October 30. Hasenyager held out a bit of cautious optimism for the city’s school libraries, however: “Many of our school libraries are located on the second floor. Many times we complain about it, but at times like this, we’re very happy.”

“Our facilities group is assessing the situation and we are not to bother them, Hasenyager said October 31 in a follow-up email. “They will be presenting an update soon, but I don’t know when.”

But with much of lower Manhattan and coastal areas of other boroughs flooded, a vast swath of Manhattan below 34th Street still without power due to an explosion at a 14th Street Con Ed substation, and subway stations brimming with damaging salt water, it’s not yet clear how long Sandy will keep the city in a holding pattern. As subways remained inoperable at press time, New York City public schools were closed through Thursday, November 1.

Elizabeth Naylor-Gutierrez, the NYC DOE’s library coordinator for Manhattan and Queens, pointed out that “First responders are looking at residential buildings, not schools,” so conditions are difficult to assess. Similarly, Freeport, Long Island, high school librarian Rose Luna had no idea what condition her school library would be in, since Freeport, in a flood zone, has more urgent problems: over 80 percent without power, and ocean waters gushing into homes as far as two miles from shore, she said. Because her school library is also on the second floor, she remained somewhat hopeful.

In the meantime, the question of what to do with, and say to, anxious children posed a challenge. FEMA director Craig Fugate encouraged parents to read with their children, according to a news report, and readers Tweeted their top picks at #StormReads. On WNYC Radio’s Brian Lehrer show October 30, Rosemarie Truglio, Sesame Street’s vice president of education and research, teamed up live with Elmo, reassuring frightened child callers who were biding their time at home, and doling out tips to adults about what to say to young kids about the storm. (Listeners were encouraged to tweet questions to @briahlehrer). Truglio’s main points: Keep your routine, listen closely to your child’s questions, don’t give them more information than they can handle, and empower kids by helping them with clean-up and other post-storm efforts as is appropriate.

Sesame Street also offers a hurricane coping kit, and a Youtube video (below) showing staff brainstorming and filming of a hurricane-themed show in which Big Bird’s nest is destroyed. The National Child Traumatic Stress Network site provides more suggestions on how to help children during this time.

Meanwhile, at the New Canaan Library, Kolderup and staff have been handing out cards to new patrons and coaching others in how to use ebooks. She said, “We’re turning the storm into community goodwill, recruitment, an outreach.”

Friends of the Library
So far, the most inspiring group we’ve worked with is the Friends of the Library, which has been an established group for nearly 10 years. It lobbied county administrators and residents urging them to support a new library. Once the bond was passed, it hosted silent auctions, book sales, and family fun walks to raise funds for resources and scholarships. Partnering with them is critical to our success, because they’ve helped us learn about the local community’s interests and issues, including such topics as new schools and future construction projects.

Being a teen librarian, one of my main needs from the Friends is financial support for teen programs. Our large-scale programs, such as the annual AnimeCon and summer reading, are paid for by budgets set at the administration level, but small (though significant!) programs such as the book club and teen advisory board, as well as prizes for gaming tournaments and materials for craft programs, rely on the Friends for financial support. The Friends are supportive of teen services, but I still need to make a case for why the teen services department deserves their hard-earned funds. When the time comes to request funds, I plan to tell them about the conversations I’ve had with educators, parents, and mostly importantly, teens themselves, who have told me what they need and want from their new library.

Schools
One of our Friends is a volunteer in the public school system and used that relationship to set up a meeting for us with local school librarians. Though not all schools in our jurisdiction were represented, the topics we discussed at the meeting resonated with all of them; we talked about sharing materials, providing space for student-to-student tutoring, in-school visits by librarians, field trips to the library, and getting library cards into the hands of students.

One teen-specific topic we discussed was the last-minute rush to complete the school’s summer reading assignment, when we inevitably run out of assigned books. I advised the librarians to work with teachers to get the list to us as soon as it’s finalized, so come August, we’ll have the books that their kids need. We also discussed an idea to reduce the physical stress on students: lending textbooks to the library to shelve in our reference collection or in our teen center so that kids won’t have to lug those heavy tomes home every night. Sadly, this argument is an age-old one, and it’s usually rejected because of the likelihood that very expensive textbooks may be stolen. Even some colleges and universities refuse to lend textbooks to their students, for fear of never seeing the books again. But the conversation is one worth having, especially if the outcome will benefit teens.

Of course, these partnerships and conversations won’t end when we open our library. Educators have unique perspectives on teens’ needs, and we need to stay in touch with them to understand and respond to those needs.

I am fortunate to work for a county that sees libraries for what they are: critical to the growth and development of a community and the individuals that reside within it. Come Spring 2013 there will be an eighth library branch in Loudoun County, Virginia, the Gum Spring Library. Over 40,000 square feet of space will deliver materials, programs, education, and entertainment to an area of the county that has never had a library. In fact, that is the charm of building a library in that area; we will introduce thousands of residents to something that they have never had access to.

In this “new normal” where budgets are malleable and futures uncertain, it is exciting and hopeful to see a brand new library built, its walls painted, and shelves stocked. But it is only after the building is up that the excitement really begins; community outreach, programming, and building partnerships and relationships with area organizations, schools, and groups are what really give breath to a library. Finding what works for the new set of users is a fun challenge to meet head-on. Over the next few months I will give you an insider’s look at what goes in to opening a new library. I may not influence the collection (we have a strong Collection Development Division dedicated to that), or the furniture (I requested something comfy), but what I do participate in, you will read about. You can also track the physical construction of the building from the library’s Flickr account and Facebook account.

A group is organizing a “People’s Library” in the Central District—and it needs children and YA titles.

The goal? To provide the public with kid’s activities, reading materials, and Internet access from Monday, August 27 through Sunday, September 2, when all 26 branches will be shut. Libraries will remain closed on September 3 for Labor Day.

The group, led by a local activist named Rebecca Yates Coley, has set up a Facebook page and blog calling for financial donations, as well as books, magazines—and just any reading material.

An August 22 blog post read, “Now accepting financial donations” with a link to a page to help reach a goal of $500 to help cover the costs of wireless hotspots, storage needs, transportation, and arts and crafts materials.

But as of August 23, there were no donations.

To set up a functional and welcoming library space, organizers are also asking for other much-needed supplies on its wish list, such as milk crates, pop-up tents or tarps, tables and chairs, wagons or dollies, and small generators to run laptops. They’re also seeking loaner laptops and hot spots for the week.

There are a total of seven donation sites set up throughout the city—and local book stores, such as the Pegasus Book Store in West Seattle,  have made large contributions.

In fact, people have been so generous that organizers are now faced with a storage problem. So they’re asking those in the construction, storage, or trucking business to help out.

“Come to the Library on Monday, Aug 27! Browse our collection. Lead arts and crafts activities or games with the kids” reads a recent blog post. “Bring your neighbors.”

Unlike Seattle Public, this library won’t have late fees—and people can even keep the books if they like.

Rahm Emanuel

“Reading provides children with a window to the world and a door to their imagination, and Rahm’s Readers encourages children and their parents to continue to read new books and revisit old favorites during the summer months,” said Emanuel.

Studies show that children who participate in summer reading programs maintain or improve their reading skills and start school ready to learn. Last summer 58,696 children read more than 1.4 million books as part of the Rahm’s Readers.

“We are very excited that a record number of children participated in the summer reading program,” said Chicago Library Commissioner Brian Bannon, explaining that this year, the library reached out to new community partners such as By The Hand Club for Kids and Reach Out and Read to help encourage kids and teens to participate.

This year’s theme was “You Are What You Read,” and in addition to reading, the program encouraged children to eat right, exercise, and keep themselves, their families, and the planet healthy. Kids between the ages of three to 14 participated in the Rahm’s Readers by reading and reporting on books that they chose themselves and attending programs and earning stickers and prizes each week.

Picture-book readers and pre-readers who completed 25 pictures books earned a bag for books. Children who read chapter books earned a back-to-school drawstring backpack when they completed 10 chapter books. Weekly book raffles, author visits, performers and presenters were just some of the activities that were featured throughout the summer to help motivate kids to read for fun. All readers and their families were invited to a special Reader’s Night/Day event to celebrate their success.

The Chicago Public Library on August 20 also kicked off its first fine amnesty program in more than 20 years,  in part to encourage students to return books and any multimedia,  and start the school year with a clean record. “For any students that participated in Rahm’s Readers and forgot to return a book, or just borrowed an item and hasn’t returned it, now is the time to bring it back without paying any late fees,” said Bannon.  “Regardless of the reason for not returning an item, students with overdue materials can start fresh and take advantage of the library and its extensive resources for their studies.”

There will be no late fees on any overdue books, CDs, DVDs, and other materials returned between August 20 and September 7, regardless of how long ago they were checked out. Also, there are no additional fines for patrons who pay replacement costs for lost items.

The main branch of the DC Public Library serves lunch this summer.

Literacy isn’t the only thing Washington, DC, public libraries offered kids this summer. They also served up some lunch.

“We wanted to make sure they had a reason to come,” says Ginnie Cooper, chief librarian for the District of Columbia. “Sometimes the kids will come for the lunch, and sometimes they come for the program.”

This year, 11 out of 25 branches participated in the DC Free Summer Meals Program, providing kids 11,550 boxed lunches that include carrots, sandwiches, and chocolate milk—all fully funded by the United States Department of Agriculture.

Now in its second year, the public libraries decided to add special programming to the day’s lunch— with the topic and activity individually handled by each branch, says Cooper.

Students who are eligible for free or reduced priced school lunches also qualified for the free summer meals —although any child could take part in all branch activities that took place during the 1 p.m.- 2:30 p.m. slot when lunch was served. While programs varied at each branch, they included reading hours, science programs—and even a chance to play Wii games while snacking on fruit cups.

Although numbers are still being tallied, Cooper says branches have reported seeing more kids since the program launched in 2011—whether that includes coming in early to read or staying after “to appreciate the air conditioning,” she says.

During the summer months, just 14.5 percent of kids eligible for free lunch actually receive the meals. But DC ranks number one in the country in its ability to reach these communities. It boasts getting meals to 73.5 percent of qualified children, says Sandra Schlicker, deputy superintendent of DC’s Office of the State Superintendent of Education Government. Meals are served at 343 Summer Meals sites throughout Washington, DC— with some serving up to two free meals each day.

“Our goal is 100 percent,” she says. We don’t want any child to be hungry in the summertime.

Meals are delivered at about 7:30 a.m. at participating branches, says Cooper. And while most libraries don’t open until 9:30 a.m. or 1 p.m. depending on the day, library staff must be present to accept deliveries of the boxed lunches. Refrigerators were also purchased with grant money to keep the meals fresh for lunch time.

This year, DC expanded the number of library lunch sites to 11 from seven, and Cooper says next year it could include the new Mt.Pleasant branch, which opens this September.

“Just as teachers see kids who are hungry, so too, library staff noticed kids who were hungry,” says Cooper. “We’re thrilled to be able to feed their bodies as the same time as providing nourishment for their minds.”