CILIP PPRG Marketing Excellence Awards 2015 speaker Frances Tout, CILIP/ESU Travelling Librarian Award winner 2015

1. Travelling Librarian 2015
Community engagement projects in U.S. public libraries – a study tour
https://travellinglibrarian2015.wordpress.com
@FrancesTout
Frances Tout
Community Librarian
North Somerset Council

2. Itinerary
• Boston Public Library
• Hartford Public Library
• Red Hook Public Library
• New York Public Library –
Stephen A. Schwarzman Building,
Mid-Manhattan Library,
Bronx Library Center
• The Free Library of Philadelphia
• Washington DC Public Library
• Chattanooga Public Library

3. Boston Public Library (BPL)
Working with Schools
• All students at public high schools are issued with a
BPL card by their school librarian.
• All students have easy access to BPL online resources
from school.
• Joint catalogue with schools – reservations delivered
to schools via BPL vans.

4. Teens HOMAGO
Hang Out, Mess Around, Geek Out
• Diner style booths
• Laptops for teens to borrow in the
library (preferred to tablets and
desktops)
• Games and films room
• Media suite – partners running
workshops or peer to peer learning
e.g. music making, 3D modelling, video
editing, programming, Photoshop and
graphic design
• MOOCs – groups, peer to peer support
• Teen Tech Mentors – teens recruited
and paid to work 6-8 hours per week,
term time, supporting peers with
technology
• Ask teens what they would like!

5. Other Ideas from BPL
• Sensory Wall - infant area
• Wayfinding maps
• Conversation Circles - fastest growing programme at BPL and branches,
informal groups to practice English, supported by volunteers.
• Skills Sharing Workshops – new Business Innovation Centre – free use of
facilities in return for delivering workshops – libraries as facilitators.
• Events hire – specialist events team - weddings, conferences and other events.
• Concerts - free weekly summer concerts in the courtyard.
• BPL now uses reach stats rather than issue stats – combination of online,
circulation, community use and programming.

6. Hartford Public Library
Partnership Working
The American Place – partnership with Passport
Office welcoming new immigrants – citizenship
programme, legal advice and work skills.
Café - local non-profit food business working with
long-term unemployed, providing skills in customer
service and catering. 25% profit goes to library –
income generation.
Job Centre - Careers office and staff operate from the
library.
University – UConn will be leasing space in Central
Library as part of a new Downtown campus, sharing
resources and facilities.
Co-location - branch library co-located on a site with
a senior centre and an elementary school. Homework
club and community performance space very popular.

7. HOMAGO – Teen Space
No adults allowed! Recording studio, games area,
maker tables. Young people from community
employed P/T specialising in coding, digital skills and
studio recording. Expertise and peer to peer mentoring.
Over 80 teens per day using space in the summer.
Itty Bitty Hartford – 0-4 years
67% of children in Hartford don’t have
vocabulary and motor skills expected of pre-
school children. New development for 2016,
model Hartford street allowing children and
parents/carers to learn about everyday
activities – experiential learning.

8. Mid-Hudson Library System - Future of Programming Workshop
Meeting changing community needs by facilitating knowledge creation.
Emphasis on programmes rather than stock.
Programming librarians commonplace.
Princeton Public Library put on over 1,700 public programmes per year.
Key themes and ideas
• Offer all programmes free of charge.
• Have a budget for programming. Don’t put on events just because they are offered to you for free.
• Treat your programmes as you would your collections – categorise to ensure diversity, offer range of formats,
weed programmes regularly.
• Think thematically – programme in quarters so people can take part in a series of events.
• See the community as collaborators – skills sharing, peer-to-peer learning, intergenerational activities. Listen to
your community, libraries acting as facilitators.
• Get out of the library, deliver in community spaces, serve the whole community not just library users, evenings
and weekends to meet needs of community.

9. Red Hook Public Library
• Population 1,900 – serves wider community of 4,000.
• Designated 5 star library by Library Journal, nationally
recognised for community work, finalist for Best Small
Library of America Award.
• 4,000 square ft - children’s library, tween room, teen
area, adult library, study area, 3 public PCs and children’s
learning garden.
• Open 51 hours per week, additional programmes run
later in the evenings after library is closed, staff work
flexibly.
• Staff – 2 x F/T, 7 x P/T, 5 x pages (3-5 hours per week aged
14+) plus volunteers shelving and helping deliver
activities.
• Average 15 - 20 programmes per week.
• 150,000 visits per year, 11,000 attending programmes,
increased issues.

10. Typical weekly and monthly programmes
• Pre-school - Romp and Stomp; Toddler FUNdamentals;
Petite Picasso; Story Time.
• Grade School – Libratory (STEM maker sessions);
Crafternoon; Lego Club; Curators of the Lost Art;
Minecraft; Homeschool Discovery Zone; children’s craft
activities and stories held at weekly Farmers’ Market.
• Teens – After school web design and graphics courses
(held at High School); Latin; Japanese for fun; Teen
Tech Help (teen volunteers to help adults).
• Adults – Spinning Yarns (knitting); Conversational
Italian; Japanese for Fun; 2 x book groups (afternoons
and evenings); Colour Club; Teen Tech Help;
Shakespeare Discussion Group; Job Search; Health
Navigators.
Additional adult evening one off events – often skills
sharing from community - bee-keeping; gardening; maple
tapping; brewing; author events.

11. Community Partnerships
• Extensive partnership work with High School library
and local private arts university – Bard College.
• Facilitate monthly community meeting ‘Red Hook
Together’ for village organisations and businesses –
offers open dialogue, organisations share what they
are doing, gives opportunities for partnership work.
• Programmes often held in community venues
because of limitations of space – allows for extensive
outreach work, increases visibility of library and their
work.
• Library in constant dialogue with community – many
programmes suggested by members of community
offering skills sharing workshops.

12. Communities have challenges. Libraries can help.
Hartford and Red Hook are two of 10
libraries across the USA chosen as ALA LTC
Cohort.
Initiative seeks to strengthen librarians’
roles as core community leaders and
change agents and help them to engage
with communities in new ways.
“Turning outward” approach developed by Harwood Institute for Public
Innovation entails:
• Taking steps to better understanding communities
• Changing processes and making conversations more community focused
• Being proactive to community issues
• Putting community aspirations first – before your organisation’s
• Bring about positive change for whole community
More information – tools and resources from ala.org/LTC

13. New York Public Library (NYPL)
4 research libraries and 88 branch libraries
Mid-Manhattan Library
Open 88 hours per week.
• eBook Help Hour - weekly, help to download library ebooks to a range of
devices
• English Conversation Hour – twice a week, supported by volunteers
• Author talks and lectures – 3-4 per week, early evening (6.30pm)
• Open Book Night – monthly, themed, book social, share information about
a book on the theme - alternative to reading group
• Saturday and Sunday Movies – classics or themed
• Story Time for Grown Ups – listen to short stories, weekly.
Computer classes – 50 classes per month, afternoons and evenings. Basics to using cloud, apps, digital story-
telling. Customers signposted to classes rather than extensive daily 1:1 help – classes frequent and cover most
topics – delivered by librarians and information assistants, whoever has the skills.

14. NYPL Volunteering
1,100 - 1,500 volunteers at any one time.
Branch libraries
Many are high school students – need 20 hours community service
to graduate.
Social housing – community service, 8 hours per month.
Research Libraries
Volunteers often Friends of the Library
Roles: shelving; tour guides; events; knitting groups; literacy tutors;
English tutors; homework help; welcome desk and special projects.
Community Oral History Project
Volunteers collecting oral histories, celebrating unique
neighbourhoods and diverse people. Unedited interviews accessible
on NYPL website. Proved very popular with high demand.
NYPL now looking to expand project using research collections to
support memory circles linking to genealogy databases, map and
photography collections.

15. Bronx Library Center
• Open 9am-9pm Mon-Sat, 12pm-6pm Sun. Busiest in evenings.
• Attendance of programmes rising, circulation decreasing, increased digital
resources.
• Highest amount of programming in the city. Only one member of staff on each
floor, two at peak times. Staff time spent on planning and delivering programmes.
Wi-Fi used extensively, stock has made way for more study tables and seating areas.
80 computer classes. Classes include how to use the catalogue and library online
resources. Library orientation classes planned.
Careers Centre working within the library
Adult Literacy Centre high demand, 24 classes per week delivered by staff and
volunteers. Also ESOL classes.
Teens - cultural, artistic and technology programming and live events. Young staff.
Monthly teen council – teen voice.
Children –homework help, video games, stories, puppetry, eBook discussions, maker
room for crafts and technology. Tweens Innovation Lab – blogging and podcasting.

16. Free Library of Philadelphia
Café
Non-profit organisation working with the
homeless.
Business Centre
Wide range of free business programmes,
workshops and lectures from local business
community, opportunities to network.
New Business Innovation Centre (2016) will offer
spaces for legal and financial advisors and
business mentors to support small businesses.
Health
Two social workers employed by the city work
from the library offering support to patrons –
homeless, older people and those with mental
health issues.
Library nurse post currently under consideration
to offer basic health assessments.

17. Senior Services
Comfortable homely area for older people, newspapers, magazines, small
computer area with some assistive technology. Programmes include talks
on hobbies, history, healthy living, computer skills and financial planning.
E-Gadget Help Desk
Twice a week in the foyer. Originally for eBook help but now deals with
anything from using selfie-sticks to downloading apps. Very popular,
always a queue.
TechMobile
Mobile computer lab with laptops
and Wi-Fi, outreach computer
workshops and one to one help at
events and to community groups.
Community Hotspots
Three in high need areas partnering
with community organisations.
Computer labs, workshops and job
skills – open access, no library
membership required.

18. Culinary Literacy Centre
• Commercial kitchen, big screen , prep
tables and seating.
• Using cooking to develop literacy and
problem solving skills with immigrant
population and residents with low level
literacy levels - reading, maths,
measurements, sequencing.
• Facility also allows programming of
demonstrations by chefs and bakers,
cook book author events, school visits
and workshops.
• Courses and workshops on nutrition,
healthy living and budgeting.
Culinary Literacy in Branch Libraries
Mobile kitchen boxes - less than $200 per
box, includes electric wok, blender and safe
utensils. Enables culinary literacy outreach
programming for adults and children.

19. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library
Washington D.C. (DCPL)
Major renovation project due to start in next 18 months. Library will move
out of the building for 3 years.
New Vision
Staff visioning study came up with 5 anchor concepts for the new library.
1. The City’s reading room – traditional library space
2. The City’s innovation lab – make movement and co-working
3. The City’s gathering place – a place for people to meet and host public
meetings
4. The City’s classroom – a place for all ages to learn
5. The City’s forum – a place for the public to discuss things important to
the community
There will be lots of programming space and the library will rely heavily on community partnerships to deliver
programmes.

20. Memory Lab
One year residency funded by The Library of Congress.
Developing a project helping to raise awareness of personal archiving
and digitisation. Launching February 2016.
The public will be able to transfer obsolete formats to digital files on
memory sticks and external drives. VHS, mini DVs, audio cassettes,
photos and transparencies.
There could be donations to the Washingtonia archive.
Information available on how to preserve your digital files once you’ve
visited the lab.
A series of workshops on personal archiving e.g. How to archive your
Facebook pages.
Detailed workshop lesson plans so the project can be replicated in other
public libraries.

21. The Labs
Digital Commons
Espresso book machine
Skype booth
Dream Lab co-working space. Incubator spaces for
occasional meetings or regular use.
Non-profits and start-ups can regularly use incubator
spaces for free in return for delivering monthly
workshops to patrons.
Studio Lab
Recording studio, interview and podcasting booths, rehearsal
space, photography studio.
Fab Lab
Maker space, 3D printers, 3D scanner, laser cutters, traditional
tools. Wide range of programming in the evenings.
Two makers in residence offering inspiration and helping with
programme delivery.
Staff employed with technology backgrounds.

22. Chattanooga Public Library
A work in progress - Innovative ideas with a challenging building
and a limited budget.
Patron Requests
Partnering with customers to build collections through a patron
request system. Customers can ask the library to purchase items of
stock (not carte blanche) and they will be the first to borrow it.
Turnaround about a week.
11,000 items through patron request since 2012.
Broader range of stock , popular with customers.
Customers feel the library is listening to them.
Comment Cards
Feedback/comment cards are placed
around the library as well as
suggestions for learning and skill
sharing. All suggestions and comments
acknowledged.

23. 4th Floor Makerspace
Chattanooga is at the forefront of the makerspace movement in
libraries. Storage space now 12,000 ft of public laboratory and
educational space.
Sharing of knowledge by providing access to tools, facilities and space.
Limited staffing
Self-directed learning
Encourage skill sharing workshops
• 3D printer
• Vinyl plotter
• Laser cutter
• Fabric making area
• Loom
• Zine making (cutting and
sticking)
• Traditional tools
• GigLab
• Virtual reality gaming

24. Teens and Tweens
• No enquiry desk, 1-2 members of staff
floorwalk
• Walk up programme stations – self-directed
learning - Spirograph, science experiments,
tracing table, badge making, iPad photo
booth
• Chromebooks rather than PCs
• Gaming area
• Makeanooga
• Films
• Yarn bombing
• Manga and graphic novels very popular
• Staff book recommendations
• 180 teen volunteers – no set roles, very
flexible, helping with pop-up programmes,
designing activities, engaging with customers
• Teen focus group

25. Children
Sensory pod for infants
Sensory story times – hearing
impaired, visually impaired and
autistic children
Walk-up programme stations based on
STEAM learning (STEM + arts)
• Felt table
• Lego and Duplo tables
• Magnetic letters
• Dressing up
• Write a postcard
• Hopscotch
Children’s and Teen areas had been
wall to wall shelving, very extensive
weeding (controversial) to make light
open spaces.

26. General Observations
Funding
• Funding – state and local taxes
• Philanthropy, endowments, grants, civic groups and friends groups
• Commissioning to provide services e.g. passports, citizenship
• Donation boxes in libraries to help fund programming.
Roles and Staffing
• Boards of trustees – governance
• Very few staff on floors – often only one, two at peak times
• Teens employed as ‘pages’ – entry level – shelving, shelf tidying, support programmes, simple clerical duties
• Volunteers – use varies from state to state, depending on state laws and unions. Most common volunteering
role is shelving. In many places a large number of volunteers are sent from the courts for community service
hours or high schools (20 hours required to graduate). Historic libraries have volunteer guides. Other
volunteers - skills sharing workshops and courses.
• Interns from MLS courses widely used.

27. Opening Times
• Peak times are lunch times and evenings – all libraries
open in the evenings, smaller libraries until 7pm, larger
libraries between 9-11pm, adult programming and
courses often in evenings. Not many open before 10am.
Most open weekends.
Online Resources
• Major growth area, use has rocketed.
• Traditional reference but also Hoopla (film & media
streaming), ebooks and Zinio magazines, Brainfuse
(homework help) – all very popular.
Fees
• Usually charges only apply for printing and overdues
• Virtually everything is free to customers, no charges for
courses, events, activities, reservations, DVDs.

28. Thank you
https://travellinglibrarian2015.wordpress.com
@FrancesTout