The Next Big Thing with Partnerships

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irresolvable-partnership-issues-learn-the-solution-and-save-the-business/

"Libraries build community partnerships." There is no doubt that this is what makes our libraries vital to our communities.  Ms. Kelly Czarnecki discusses this topic on YALSA Blog and shows us some examples of how this could work at your library by giving concrete examples across the US of how partnerships between outside organizations and the library help them extend what they each can do. 

After today's class discussion on how school librarians work and the importance of collaboration with teachers within the school, this connection between what we do in schools and what is done in public libraries is not so different! We school librarians are building school-community partnerships by sharing and collaborating with teachers on many levels which also extends what we each can do by ourselves. One difference however is the fact that we are teachers and we incorporate information literacy skills into the curriculum, as discussed by Carol Doll in Collaboration and the School Library Media Specialist. Just as libraries need to reach out to the community to remain vital, school librarians need to reach out to teachers in their school to remain vital and relevant to what is happening in the school. We also need to remind teachers of how important information literacy is and how it connects with the classroom. By doing this, we make ourselves indispensable to the operation of the school and the education of our students.

Don't Save Libraries! Transform them!

I think I stumbled across this blog by accident while I was searching a graphic novel blog. What piqued my interest here with the blog Virtual Dave...Real Blog by R. David Lankes was the title of the blog posting "Beyond the Bullet Points: It is Time to Stop Saving the Libraries." He's asking us as librarians to not be victims of the almost pervasive notion that libraries are doomed. Keeping a victim mentality may not be the best approach to pushing for the things that benefit libraries and their users. 

My interpretation of this would be to promote the library in such a way that reinforces the idea of libraries as the center of community, the center of learning, the center of discovery, and the center of literacy for the family. For example, by focusing our attention on our Youth Services areas in our public libraries, we can instill the notion that libraries are indispensable to the community through outreach programming like Storytimes, Book Buddies, Teen Reads, research help and trainings, and other services that can connect the library to the family. Although budgets for almost all public services are getting squeezed, pushing for these programs and advocating for them through contact with the community stakeholders and politicians. Mr. Lankes posted a very good quote as an abstract  for “Library as Platform: Unlocking the Potential of Our Communities” SCRLC Leadership Luncheon Webinar explaning this relationship between the library and the community:


"Our buildings matter. Our services matter. But they don’t matter on their own, and we do not determine their value – that is a job for the community. It is only in the advancement of those we serve that we find our impact. It is only in the potential realized that we can measure our contribution. Our buildings, our books, our services, our catalogs must not be channels of assistance we provide, but part of a powerful platform that enables our communities to succeed. This platform is our infrastructure, but it is also the infrastructure of the community – co-owned."

This is compelling and a call to action. Libraries are not doomed.