For the CAL Conference 2008, Communities and Libraries, I created this list of top ten trends in Colorado libraries related to communities and libraries. Examples are also below. I provided this for the Commissioner of Education for his opening keynote presentation. Thought others might be interested.
Early childhood brain research is changing library storytimes.*
- Multimedia production in libraries – videos, podcasts, etc.
- Literacy – engaging the larger community (One Book, etc.)
- The Library Online* – AskColorado, local archives online, 21 Plinkit websites
- Green Buildings
- Creation spaces, activities, collections
- Community Outreach
- Job support and economic development
- Gaming*
- Services to Special Populations*
* Indicates a topic in which the State Library is involved.
Examples of Top Trends in Colorado libraries
1. Early childhood brain research is changing library storytimes.
Colorado Libraries for Early Literacy (CLEL) provide storytimes, parent talks, child care provider training and book selection based on brain research and six essential pre-literacy skills for children birth through age five.
CLEL formed in January 2008 and have presented workshops, created a website, received a grant to expand to more Colorado libraries. These Colorado librarians share a passion for insuring that every child in Colorado has fun activities and pre-literacy experiences that develop the neurological pathways in the first three years of life. “Every Child Ready to Read” is the program used and advocated by CLEL to insure that all kids show up at Kindergarten ready to learn. CLEL is an advisory group to the Colorado State Library.
2. Multimedia production in libraries – videos, podcasts, etc.
School teacher librarians are podcasting poetry, working with students to produce video of class projects, and taking advantage of quick and easy online tools to improve student productions.
Library videos produced and posted on YouTube. For example, West Custer County Library District in Westcliffe had a local producer volunteer to produce a high quality video informing the community about library services and benefits. Marty Fricke, Library Director, spoke eloquently about why the library is important. Mounted on YouTube and available through their new Plinkit library. The State Library has a website listing Colorado library videos on YouTube.
Library instruction is going video. Many academic libraries are creating online tutorials for students to learn research techniques. CSU, for example, has developed engaging Flash tutorials for various aspects of the research process.
3. Literacy activities and programs that engage larger community
Many libraries are working with local community organizations and other local libraries to have “One book” programs in which all community members are encouraged to read and discuss the same book. For example, Delta County Library District which includes the communities of Delta, Hotchkiss, Cedaridge, and Paonia read To Kill a Mockingbird and offered engaging programs and activities related to the book.
Many school librarians offer book clubs and other ways for students to get involved in reading for pleasure. Carol Sacca, prior to her retirement from the Roaring Forks School District not only got students excited about “Surround Reads” but through her workshops has spread the program to other school libraries throughout Colorado.
Other literacy activities held annually: Salida – Poetry Festival, Steamboat Springs – Author Festival, and Manitou Springs – Writing Festival and Workshops.
4. The Library Online
Twenty one rural library systems now have new websites they can edit quickly and easily. The State Library’s Plinkit service provides websites which engage the community through rss feeds of news, book reviews, and other dynamic content. In many cases, this is the first web presence for these libraries. This project received a national award for leadership and the nomination and support letters from this award were from grateful public library directors from throughout Colorado: Eads, Penrose, Westcliffe.
Local library archives continue to be digitized. The Alliance of Research Libraries is developing an online repository for local archives including online dissertations from the major research universities.
Many libraries have purchased through the statewide vendor agreement, downloadable audio books for people in their communities. Now when you see people in rural Colorado with iPods, they might just be listening to a book.
5. Green Buildings
New public libraries are being constructed in Colorado and library leaders are going green. The Erie Library and Carbon Valley Library in Firestone which opened recently incorporate passive solar, innovative air flow and design features. The Durango Public Library will open soon with LEED certification. Nataurita Public Library is being built using straw bale construction and photovoltaic panels. And the Mancos Public Library is also building using green technology. In fact, Mancos staff member Victoria Peterson is starting a “green built” library in Second Life to educate others on green building techniques. Not only is this building a way to reduce expenditures long term, the library leaders are seeing this as an opportunity to inform the community and educate local builders on these technologies to encourage more green building.
6. Creation spaces and activities
The Fort Lewis College library in Durango has just received an LSTA grant from the State Library to digitize undergraduate research papers and add them to their permanent collection.
The Rangeview Library District in Adams County will be building four new buildings and adding such features as creation spaces for families to create animation, graphics, and other technology.
7. Outreach in communities
Adams State College library, through an LSTA grant funded by the State Library, has been taking laptops out into small towns in the San Luis Valley to train people on using Word, searching the Internet and other basic computer skills. These programs have been so popular and in demand, that this year, the staff is using education students as the instructors for this outreach program.
Teacher librarians in schools are leaving the library in droves to meet with teachers to collaboratively plan engaging activities for students. Becky Johnson at the Mesa County School District has been working with teachers and students to create wikis of class projects and audio and video content of assignments.
8. Job support and economic development
La Junta’s Woodruff Memorial Library has rearranged their collection to make space for the local workforce organization to set up shop. This area of the public library allows local job seekers to find out about local jobs and to work on job skill development.
Douglas County Libraries has a staff devoted to support for the business community. They are working with local start up businesses to support their development and are joining local chambers and other business organizations to support local economic development activities in their communities of Castle Rock, Parker, Lone Tree, and Highlands Ranch.
The Denver Public Library is also providing workforce support, computer training, and other services for job seekers in Denver.
9. Gaming
Staff from the John C. Freemont Library in Florence presented at the Rural Round Up (State Library workshop for rural libraries, funded by Gates Foundation). They demonstrated the power and wonder of gaming to rural library directors in Colorado. After Kieran Hixon and Judy Van Acker set up the WII for this event, library directors returned to their local libraries and purchasing games and hardware so that residents of Pagosa Springs, Bayfield, and other rural libraries are now getting to game at their library. For those interested in gaming, the Colorado State Library is featuring gaming at their CAL booth this year.
10. Services to Special Populations
A Diversity Summit was held this summer in Glenwood Springs which highlighted innovative programs in libraries for special populations as well as informed the large crowd about diversity issues and needs. This well attended summit was put on by the Special Populations Committee, an advisory group to the State Library.
Sharon, you are absolutely correct about all the Green building going on in libraries in Colorado, and across the States! Libraries are leaders in many areas, and the green building movement is no exception!
I was recently interviewed about the Mancos Public Library Building Project by Tom Peters of the ALA Tech Source blog. You can read the article here: Mancos PL Builds Green, http://www.alatechsource.org/blog/2008/11/mancos-pl-builds-green.html
And for anyone interested in the Second Life green library, you can view more information on our blog: http://sustainablelivinglibrary.blogspot.com
All of these projects are very exciting, and it’s great to see these and other Colorado libraries at the forefront of the Green Library Movement!
Not sure if we’re invited to critique the trends themselves in this forum, but this is the chaotic Web after all. So here’s a rant on #9, the issue of “gaming” in Libraries:
The slow transformation of libraries into free video stores seemed bad enough, but if taxpayers wake up and find they’re financing a video store / arcade they may finally decide to pull the plug. I’m sure gaming would be popular, as bringing in a circus would have been a century ago. Presumably people back then decided for the time being to keep libraries libraries.
Thanks for listening.
Hey Pat – Yeah, a circus would have drawn a crowd. Of course a century ago the debate on allowing fiction into a library was just wrapping up. Fiction wasn’t seen as worthy of a library. I personally find no redeeming value in mystery books with old ladies and cats in them, but hey, it is a popular form of, dare I say, literature. Honestly, I don’t care for quite a few genres that hold huge circulation statistics in my library. Not to mention that a century ago in some libraries children under 14 were not allowed in the doors. “Between 1881 and 1917, Andrew Carnegie underwrote the construction of more than sixteen hundred public libraries in the United States, buildings from which children were routinely turned away, because they needed to be protected from morally corrupting books, especially novels. In 1894, at the annual meeting of the American Library Association, the Milwaukee Public Library’s Lutie Stearns read a ‘Report on the Reading of the Young.’ What if libraries were to set aside special books for children, Stearns wondered, shelved in separate rooms for children, staffed by librarians who actually liked children?” – The New Yorker (excerpt)found at http://theshiftedlibrarian.com/archives/2008/07/17/corrupting-young-minds-with-books-in-the-library.html)
So, what do video games do that change libraries from being libraries? “Game playing is universal, diverse, often involves social interaction, and can cultivate teen civic engagement. Not only do many teens help others or learn about a problem in society during their game playing, they also encounter other social and civic experiences: 52% of gamers report playing games where they think about moral and ethical issues. 43% report playing games where they help make decisions about how a community, city or nation should be run. 40% report playing games where they learn about a social issue.” – PEW internet study (http://www.pewinternet.org/press_release.asp?r=307) Encouraging youth to use the library and encouraging civic engagement, that is a big thing in a country like ours. A democracy needs engaged citizens for it to work well.
But probably it is the format you don’t like, no written words, and there is a mentality that wants libraries to be about books and the edification of the mind. A feeling that we shouldn’t corrupt young minds with games, and that we shouldn’t just use games to get kids in the door, like a cheap marketing ploy. But libraries are vibrant places where quite a wide range of other things happen besides just books, and I think it’s sad when patrons or librarians portray us as just warehouses. Any building can be a book warehouse – that’s not what makes us “libraries” and community centers. And, librarians certainly aren’t store clerks just sitting behind a desk waiting to hand over a book in return for seeing a library card. That would be the waste of the MLS if that was all librarians did. Heck, we could just give Barnes and Noble the keys to our libraries and walk away. Libraries and good librarians need to be more than a free version of a bookstore, let alone a free version of a dvd and video game rental store. That’s why holding gaming tournaments is an important addition to circing video games. I am not trying to convince you that games & gaming are things you have to do in your library, but I would like to to explain that gaming isn’t some sort of wild sell out of librarianship. Sometimes innovation requires a push, not away from all traditional modes of service, but toward the enhancement of previous services. Gaming may be an innovation that helps libraries and the youth establish a partnership.
Critiques, rants, conversation — it’s all good at ColoradoLibraries.org!
Just wanted to provide a quick follow-up reference on the topic of gaming in libraries. You may be interested in the Gaming Program Pack that research fellows from Library Research Service (LRS) assembled for the State Library’s booth at the CAL 2008 conference. http://www.cde.state.co.us/cdelib/download/pdf/GamingProgramPack_CALConference.pdf If you’re of the mind that it’s all “fun and games” when it comes to the game-related activity in libraries, consider the links to literacy and learning. Pages 3-4 in the Gaming Program Pack highlight some aspects of why (aside from engaging patrons), it may be worthwhile for libraries to consider gaming-related program offerings.
In my opinion–like *any* service, success depends on the type of library and the makeup of the community. This all must be proceeded by a strategic decision as to whether or not gaming-related activities are a worthwhile investment of staff energy and library resources. One size does not fit all.
I have two teenage kids. We have always limited their access to movies, television and video-games, and guess what – they read! My feeling is that all this electronic entertainment is directly responsible for the decline in reading. Libraries, of all institutions, shouldn’t encourage it.
very prime to read it ;p