Lead the Way: Libraries at the Heart of Community Engagement

Please leave your preconceptions of a traditional outreach or program at the door. Today, we’ll explore how two library marketing professionals’ craving for slowness spawned a multigenerational, neurodiverse community craft gathering — the Racine Public Library’s Stitch N Bitch — in three stages.

“See yourself as part of your community.” The impulse to position yourself as the “presenter” or “guide” of a program for a separate community artifices a divide between library workers and program attendees. When you position yourself instead as a patron of your own program, and craft an experience with your needs and desires as the spark, your gathering will be more flexible and communal.

“To let it grow, let it be.” The Stitch N Bitch launched with big aspirations but very low structure. Because we moved at our own pace and didn’t immediately fill the space with our own vision, we cultivated with our fellow attendees a neurodiverse, multigenerational crafting space where both library staff and patrons built relationships.

“Sustainable growth is interdependent.” The Racine Public Library’s fiber offerings now include three regular fiber arts programs, a multi-organization communal quilting project, and an overflowing selection of free crafting supplies for visitors. This growth called for more structure so we could protect the work’s joy and flexibility while adding to it in a healthy, sustainable way. We found this structure in new interdependence with local crafters and trusting each other’s feedback to meet our needs by adjusting the pace.

This session will cover the basics of what you need to plan a starter community engagement program, tools and ideas to supplement your program, and the building blocks for how to grow it.

Please bring your fiber crafts with you to stitch along with us as we present for today’s session!

Post-COVID, our library experienced a significant increase in disruptive teen behaviors in our library and we also noticed a significant rise in food insecurity. We piloted a project with donated prepacked snacks where teens were offered a snack upon entering the teen space prior to engaging with any of the programming or resources in the space. Within a short timespan we saw a significant decline in disruptive behavior and our usage numbers for the space increased. We worked quickly to gain community resources and developed a nutrition component to the program to educate the teens on food choices and how bodies process nutrients. We gained data to show the gap in the community in providing direct food to teens through partnership with local food banks who discovered that they weren't serving teens. Attendees will learn how we took the problem of poor teen behavior from incident reports and addressed it with fighting food insecurity. They will also learn how to engage and advocate with community partners and funders around a service not often provided in libraries, but a population that is welcomed in libraries more than elsewhere in the community and lastly they will learn how to change the message of what a library is to build a community of support around a common community challenge.

Summer reading programs are a cornerstone of public library services, fostering a love for reading and maintaining community engagement during the warmer months. Arapahoe Libraries, serving over 270,000 residents in the diverse south suburbs of Denver, Colorado, has reimagined our summer reading program to better reflect and serve our changing multicultural community. Our service area includes significant Spanish and Russian-speaking populations, as well as a growing number of immigrants speaking various languages. This session steps you through our journey towards a more inclusive summer reading program, highlighting key initiatives such as offering multilingual materials and community partnerships that can be adapted by other library systems serving diverse communities.

Are you a radical librarian? Does your work in libraries advance systemic change centered on social and racial equity, leverage and enhance collective action and community power, and support community building and public participation? Join in a discussion about what radical librarianship is and how it is activated across the state of Wisconsin. 
 
Appleton Public Library and Racine Public Library were both selected to participate in UCLA California Rare Book School’s 2023 Radical Librarianship Institute. The program included a week-long intensive institute at UCLA and a $10,000 grant to each library to create a community-rooted project. Presenters will share the concepts taught at the institute and the corresponding applications in their community projects.
 
Program attendees will create their own plans for engaging in radical librarianship at their libraries. The plans will include strategies for creating a compelling vision that inspires granting agencies to provide financial support and tools for how to meaningfully engage potential stakeholders, especially those who historically have not been very engaged by the library.

A public library in rural Wisconsin developed an oral health information resource tailored to under-served Amish and Anabaptist communities. You will learn 1) how the project was conceived in collaboration with the Network of the National Library of Medicine and the Wisconsin State Advisory Group, 2) how the activity book was designed in consultation with community elders, a dental student, and local artists for cultural relevance, age-appropriateness, and ease of comprehension, and 3) how the resource was presented to and received by three parochial schools. As a bonus, you will learn how to download, print, and share this free resource with your own communities!

Join your fellow conference attendees in the Alumni Lounge on the first floor for enjoy beautiful views of Lake Mendota, good conversation, and a tasty nacho bar.

Complimentary coffee, tea, and light breakfast items will be available.

Madison Public Library is committed to providing safe and welcoming spaces and equitable access to materials and services for all members of our community. As part of that commitment we strive to ensure that gender inclusion is incorporated into all aspects of library operation. In this presentation we will give specific examples of how our library is using gender inclusive principles to make changes in how we register people for library cards, how we communicate with patrons and staff, how we update forms and contracts, how gender inclusion is reflected in our collections and resources, and finally, how these changes have impacted our community and staff. We look forward to sharing ideas and hearing what others are doing to create gender inclusion opportunities at their library.

Beginning August 2022 the Florida Atlantic University Libraries began to increase engagement activities with local service organizations such as Rotary, Daughters of the American Revolution, Zonta, and the Junior League. This presentation will highlight: 1) how partnering with local service organizations becomes a win-win event for the entire community 2) how partnering with local service organizations can help increase fundraising revenues and 3) how partnering with local service organizations helps raise the overall profile of the host University.

Description coming soon

The Hudson Area Public Library introduced a fresh take on an outdoor scale solar system walk: Sidewalk graphics with QR codes for further exploration and free Augmented Reality (AR) apps to expand the interactive experience. Community connections and partnerships were forged with the park district, city council, a local graphic design firm, local rotary club and regional NASA Solar System Ambassadors in the funding, development, production, instillation and educational outreach to engage the region. The half-mile walk has drawn in communities and businesses that had not previously engaged or worked with the Hudson Area Public Library before. this session will give participants the tools they need to launch their very own Solar System Walk, and will leave with additional resources and links to host unique celestial events!