Librarian

In announcing the foundation’s fund drive last spring, Executive Director Ned Kellar noted that cutting one day of service each week would result in the loss of more than 1,700 contacts with children and 400 contacts with older adults over a year’s time.

Thanks to generous contributions from Brevard Library Foundation members, local individuals and businesses, the colorful Negroni-Hendrick Mobile Library will return to a full schedule of service in the community this fall.

Earlier this year, budget constraints forced Brevard County Library Services to trim one day off the full four-day-a-week schedule of bringing books and literary programs to young children and older adults who cannot easily come into one of the counties’ 17 libraries.

Community building isn’t just bricks or infrastructure..sometimes it is placing materials heart to heart and hand to hand from one group to another.

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I’m working on a Community Building course and reflecting on the decade of community building discussions in librarianship.

Some resources:

Inside, Outside, and Online: Building Your Library Community
Chrystie Hill. 2009. Publisher: ALA Editions.

Sarah Long-ALA Presidential theme.

When I was president of the American Library Association in 1999-2000, I chose, “Libraries Build Community” as my theme because I felt strongly that the library always serves a special place in the community. It’s not only a place to find information and knowledgeable librarians, it’s also a place to be with other community members. Think of the library as a community’s living room.

A Librarian at the Kitchen Table blog.

A Librarian at Every Table website.

Go to: McCook Model for an overview of community building and libraries.

Join this mailing list:
a-librarian-at-every-table — Libraries, librarians and community building.

A Place at the Table: Participating in Community Building
Kathleen de la Peña McCook, 2000. Publisher: ALA Editions.
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The column “Community Building” appeared in the ALA journal Reference and User Services Quarterly from 2000-2006.

RUSQ Community Building columns:
Volume 40, Number 1
“Librarians and Comprehensive Community Initiatives”
Kathleen de la Peña McCook

Volume 40, Number 2
“Service Integration and Libraries: Will 2-1-1 be the Catalyst for Renewal?”
Kathleen de la Peña McCook

Volume 40, Number 3
“Community Building and Latino Families”
Marcela Villagrán, Guest Columnist

Volume 40, Number 4
“Community Indicators, Genuine Progress, and the Gold Billion”
Kathleen de la Peña McCook and Kristen Brand, Guest Columnist

Volume 41, Number 1
“Collaboration Generates Synergy: Saint Paul Public Library, the College of St. Catherine, and the ‘Family Place’ Program”
Carol P. Johnson, Ginny Brodeen, Helen Humeston,
and Rebecca McGee, Guest Columnists

Volume 41, Number 2
“Authentic Discourse as a Means of Connection Between Public Library Services Responses and Community Building Initiatives”
Kathleen de la Peña McCook

Volume 41, Number 3
“Service to Day Laborers: A Job Libraries Have Left Undone”
Bruce Jensen, Guest Columnist

Volume 41, Number 4
“Cultural Heritage Institutions and Community Building”
Kathleen de la Peña McCook and Marla A. Jones, Guest Columnist

Volume 42, Number 1
“The African-American Research Library and Cultural Center
of the Broward County Library”
Henrietta M. Smith, Guest Columnist

Volume 42, Number 2
“Alaska Resources Library and Information Services: Building Community in the Forty-Ninth State”
Juli Braund-Allen and Daria O. Carle, Guest Columnists

Volume 42, Number 3
“Sustainable Communities and the Roles Libraries and Librarians Play”
Frederick W. Stoss, Guest Columnist

Volume 42, Number 4
“Using a Homeless Shelter as a Library Education Learning Laboratory: Incorporating Service-Learning in a Graduate-Level Information Sources and Services in the Social Sciences Course”
Lorna Peterson, Guest Columnist

Volume 43, Number 1
“Suppressing the Commons: Misconstrued Patriotism vs. a Psychology of Liberation”
Kathleen de la Peña McCook

Volume 43, Number 2
“Transformations of Librarianship in Support of Learning Communities”
Eino Sierppe, Guest Columnist

Volume 43, Number 3
“A Passion for Connection: Community Colleges Fulfill the Promise
of Cultural Institutions”
Carmine J. Bell, Guest Columnist

Volume 43, Number 4
“Community, Identity, and Literature”
Elaine Yontz, Guest Columnist

Volume 44, Number 1
“Public Libraries and People in Jail”
Kathleen de la Peña McCook

Volume 44, Number 2
“A Digital Library to Serve a Region: The Bioregion and First Nations Collections of the Southern Oregon Digital Archives”
Mary Jane Cedar Face and Deborah Hollens, Guest Columnists

Volume 44, Number 3
“The Homeless and Information Needs and Services”
Julie Hersberger, Guest Columnist

Volume 44, Number 4
“Building Lead-Free Communities”
Frederick W. Stoss, Guest Columnist

Volume 45, Number 1
“Human Rights and Librarians”
Kathleen de la Pena McCook and Katherine J. Phenix, Guest Columnist

Volume 45, Number 2
“Poverty, Poor People, and Our Priorities”
John Gehner, Guest Columnist
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The “McCook Model” — a multi-dimensional commitment to community building for libraries — is cited in chapter 5 of Library Board Strategic Guide: Going to the Next Level by Ellen G. Miller and Patricia H. Fisher.
In : “Getting on Your Community’s Leadership Team” Mill and Fisher cite Seattle Public Library Director, Deborah L. Jacobs:

The Seattle Public Library uses McCook’s model daily, “We are leaning toward making ‘outreach’–as in A Place at the Table–part of regular performance expectations for all managers…Eventually it is our goal to make it part of all employee work-plans since everyone has a role to9 play in making the library a key community player.