Libraries Help Heal Vets
“The Alachua County Library District (FL) “Heal Vets Craft Program”
Celebrates Veterans.” by Alicia A. Antone and Patricia E. Carr (Florida Libraries 60, Fall 2017).
Libraries provide safe spaces where people can meet, connect, and find common ground. Libraries transform lives….
Public libraries & adult basic skills programs
Public libraries & adult basic skills programs.
Why Public Libraries and Adult Basic Education Programs Should
Advocate For and Partner With Each Other.
Public libraries have an important role in promoting, providing, and advocating for adult basic skills services. There are a wide range of specific actions they can take wherever they are on the literacy action spectrum, from libraries that are new to thinking about adult basic skills services to those that are long-time providers of basic skills, often through collaborations with community-based adult basic skills programs, and those that advocate locally, in their state and nationally for resources for adult basic skills. Collaboration between libraries and adult basic skills programs can be mutually beneficial for both, as both parties can bring resources such as funding, space, knowledge, and technology, and can advocate for each other in their public policy advocacy work.
Open Door Collective–
Less poverty and economic inequality and more civic engagement and participation in all our society offers to individuals. ODC is made up of professionals working in adult basic skills, social services and poverty reduction, who believe that adult basic skills and lifelong learning programs can open doors of opportunity to healthier, more prosperous and more satisfying lives. ODC members have expertise in connecting adult basic skills to healthcare, employment and training, corrections, and family and social services.
Public libraries should be primary instruments for civic education in the community.
- Civics for Adults Workshops: Enhancing Civic Knowledge/Inspiring Political Engagement
Misinformation, Fake News and Political Propaganda
To distinguish truth from fiction using critical thinking strategies. The workshop uses real world examples in a “what do you see here?/what is missing?” type of format. The last part is about finding accurate information. - Citizen Activism 101—Making Change Happen
Learn about strategies for change, and more: Examples of successful advocacy; Brief historical perspective; Choosing your battles; What matters to you?; Who makes the rules?; Getting heard: tools for change; “Tracking” civic/political issues. - The Influence of the Constitution on Political Conversation
By looking back at the creation of the Constitution, we puncture some myths and develop a broader perspective on its significance—perspective that helps us evaluate current political events more thoughtfully.
Cohen, D. (2017). Enhancing Civic Knowledge/Inspiring Political Engagement: The Role of Public Libraries in Civic Participation. OLA Quarterly, 23(1), 9-12. https://doi.org/10.7710/1093-7374.1884
Public Libraries & Adult Education
Public Libraries & Adult Education
National Council for Adult Learning. 7-13- 2017.
Community Engagement & Outreach
Community Engagement & Outreach at the Public Library Association website.
Resources devoted to helping you increase your community engagement and outreach, including: the ALA Libraries Transform campaign, outreach strategies, information on bookmobiles, how to work with community groups, universal access, and much more.
.
50th Anniversary of NEH at ALA 2016
In recognition of the Endowment’s ongoing support of libraries, the American Library Association’s 2016 Annual Conference celebrated the Endowment’s fiftieth anniversary with a special session that highlighted the NEH-funded Great Stories Club project. The event featured March, the first in the graphic novel trilogy created by Congressman John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell. The novel tells the remarkable story of Lewis’s childhood in Alabama through his early student activism and brings to life the nonviolent movement he helped to lead more than fifty years ago. At the event, NEH Chairman William Adams emphasized the vital role libraries play in our democracy: “There is no democracy without the act of memory.” He encouraged libraries to continue to preserve and share the history of the civil rights movement. Congressman Lewis shared stories about growing up on a sharecropping farm and his important civil rights leadership. He described how, as a child, he was not given a library card, a privilege only afforded to white patrons at his library. He asked the 1,000 librarians in attendance to “keep the faith” and to dedicate themselves to equality and inclusion for all, “Through information—through books—we must find a way to set down the burden of hate.” Aydin discussed his early political work and his passion for presenting Lewis’s biography as a graphic novel after reading the 1957 comic book, Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story. Powell described his personal connections to the story and his work as an illustrator. A book signing with Lewis, Aydin, and Powell followed the event.
A full-day workshop was held during the conference for recent Great Stories Club grantees and featured project scholars Maria Sachiko Cecire, Director of Experimental Humanities and Assistant Professor of Literature, Bard College, NY; Nick Higgins, Director of Outreach Services, Brooklyn Public Library; and Laura Rogers, Director of the Writing Center and Assistant Professor, Department of Humanities, Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences. Titles in this round of the Great Stories Club, The Art of Change: Creation, Growth, and Transformation, include: Buck: A Memoir, by M.K. Asante; The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie; and Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi.
The Great Stories Club provides at-risk teens the opportunity to read, reflect, and share ideas on topics that resonate with them. Through local libraries, the program brings accessible and thought-provoking literature selected by humanities scholars to youth struggling with difficult issues like incarceration, violence, and poverty. Organized by the American Library Association (ALA) the program has reached 700 libraries in forty-nine states and more than 30,000 young adults (ages twelve to twenty-one) since 2006. In 2015, ALA received an NEH grant to continue programming at an additional 225 sites around the country. Each reading and discussion program includes works of young adult literature—novels, memoirs, and graphic novels—and the current themes are 1) Media (how young people interact with mass entertainment and information systems), 2) Change (how individuals experience voluntary and involuntary change), and 3) Violence (the roots and consequences of violence).
Libraries and Summer Food Programs: An Intellectual Freedom Argument
John “Mack” Freeman writes,
“there is an argument to be made that engaging in summer food programs helps libraries fulfill their mission as agents and protectors of intellectual freedom.”
