FIVE STARS: LIBRARIES BUILD COMMUNITY

Year after year, the Library Journal Index of Public Library Services, a public library rating system, has designated Telluride’s Library a five-star institution. And in 2012, it earned its fifth star in a row, which puts The Wilkinson Public Libraryinto an elite club of 30 libraries that have seen stars five years in a row and third in the nation among public libraries with annual budgets of $1 – 5 million, hence the name of library director Barb Brattin’s semi-regular column, “Five Stars.” This week the library’s head honcho talks about our library’s major role in building community.
Developing Community-Led Public Libraries

Developing Community-Led Public Libraries
Evidence from the UK and Canada
This important book examines the potential for a new community led service model in public libraries. Using theoretical approaches to working with socially excluded community members, with a direct application of those approaches in Canadian public libraries, the authors offer a powerful and persuasive case for adopting the community led approach in libraries worldwide. The book showcases good practice and outlines the challenges to community development work. With public libraries facing budget cuts, this book offers an alternative way forward based on a community led approach to developing needs based library services.
This book makes a unique contribution to public library thinking and policy, synthesising the outcomes of research and best practice at the cutting edge of library service delivery, and will be essential reading for all those researching and working in the public library sector.
John Pateman, Thunder Bay Public Library Service, Ontario and Ken Williment, Halifax Public Libraries, Canada
Libraries Foster Civic Engagement Membership Initiative Group
Libraries Foster Civic Engagement Membership Initiative Group
2013 ALA Midwinter Conference – Seattle, WA
Sunday, January 27, 2013, 10:30 – 11:30 pm
Sheraton-Ballard Room
1. Harwood Institute, Promise of Libraries
2. Peggy Holman, Engaging Emergence
3. Civic Engagement Activities Around the Country
4. Public Programs Office Civic Engagement Initiatives
(Send Suggestions to Nancy Kranich nancy.kranich@rutgers.edu)
Join Us. Bring Your Colleagues
Other Civic Engagement Programs of Interest at ALA Midwinter
Follow the ALA Center for Civic Life Blog: http://discuss.ala.org/civicengagement/
ALA Connect: http://connect.ala.org/node/64933
Subscribe to ALA’s Civic Engagement listserv:
1. Go to: http://lists.ala.org/wws, and click on “View All Lists”
2. Scroll down to deliberate@ala.org and click on “Subscribe”
Libraries Foster Civic Engagement Membership Initiative Group
Fill out the Libraries and Civic Engagement survey at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/LibraryCivicEngagement
848-932-6078
Rural Library Services Newsletter : Final Issue

All good things come to an end. The Rural Library Services Newsletter will be issuing its last issue as final double issue at the end of 2012. Thank you to all subscribers from throughout the U.S. and Canada for your support.
2012 in review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 5,800 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 10 years to get that many views.
Ginnie Cooper, D.C.’s Chief Librarian,Wins Architecture Award for Work on New Libraries
D.C. Librarian Wins Architecture Award for Work on New Libraries

Ginnie Cooper, D.C.’s chief librarian, has been awarded the Thomas Jefferson Award for Public Architecture by the American Institute of Architects. According to the institute, Cooper was given the award based on her initiative to renovate and rebuild public libraries across the city:
In July 2006, Cooper joined the District of Columbia Public Library as chief librarian and executive director. She was charged with transforming the public library at a time when its building stock was “in ruins, and scheduled replacements were uninspired,” according to the nomination letter by Jonathan Penndorf, AIA, president of AIA D.C. After 14 library renovations, and with three more projects in the pipeline, Cooper has the local architecture and design press wondering if she’s “the hottest thing in D.C. architecture,” according to Washington City Paper real estate and architecture reporter Lydia DePillis. “In only five years, Cooper forcibly injected not just the libraries, but the entire city, with the biggest shot of popular Modernism it’s ever seen, and likely ever will,” DePillis wrote.
LibraryAware Community Award
