- Community-Centered Services
- Community at the Center of Connected Learning
- Asset Framing
- Community-Centered Partnerships
- Rethinking Partnerships
- Gathering Data
- Asset Mapping
- Talking with the Community
- Analyzing and Using the Data
- Tools for Connecting Your Community
- Starting Conversations
- Combining Your Powers
- Making Plans Together
- Working with Different Types of Partners
- Ending a Partnership
- Community-Centered Services Workbook
- Additional Resources
Combining Your Powers
How partners help the library
Partners can expose teens to new careers, opportunities, and interest. A professional can share expertise and real-world insight beyond what even the most accomplished teen services librarian can provide. Partners can mentor youth or library staff, and can be resources for programming.
Providence Public Library & Rhode Island School of Design
Source: Providence Public Library/ConnectedLib.
For a program about 1920’s fashion, Providence Public Library partnered with the Rhode Island School of Design, a prestigious institution located only a few blocks away. An instructor from the school’s Young Artist program provided teens with expert instruction, advice, and feedback while the teens created their own designs for 20s-inspired dresses. Connecting with a professional designer gave teens an experience that would not have been possible with the library’s resources alone.
Partners can bring new audiences to the library. Partners who have already built a youth community can introduce them to the library and its resources.
- A suburban library in the midwest held STEAM programming for the local Boy Scout troop, bringing all the scouts in the library, along with some parents and siblings.
- Another library’s partnership with a high school e-sports club often brought new teens into the library.
- Many libraries partner with Parks and Recreation departments — sometimes even sharing facilities — to bring the Parks and Rec visitors to the library.
Partners can bring the library to new audiences. Youth services librarians need to get out of the library building and meet teens where they are. Partners might have spaces that youth are already using where you can bring programs.
Charlotte Mecklenburg Library and the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office
The Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office had operated a successful library system in the two county jails for years, but administrators saw a need to increase programming for youthful offenders. The jail did not have the staff capacity to handle more specialized programming, so the jail library’s director—a former public librarian—reached out to the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library. Administrators at the public library immediately saw the benefits of such a partnership to the jail (better programming for their youth), the library (the ability to reach an audience that was unable to visit the library), and the community (youth would be better prepared for life after release).
Library staff were able to use existing youth programming modified slightly for the youth at the jail. For instance, they offered single-session versions of some classes, for youth who were about to be released, and they made connections to other youth programs that were available at the jail. The most needed programming involved technology literacy, which library staff combined with creativity and social skills to create impactful programs—for example, they incorporated book reports into a podcasting class, and encouraged computer literacy and peer interactions through gaming tournaments. The items the youth created served as evidence of the program’s impact.
For more information, see High Impact Partnership: Serving Youth Offenders by Angela Craig, in Young Adult Library Services, 2010(Fall), 20-22.
Partners can provide material support. Simply donating money or materials in return for a public “thank you” from the library is an easy entry point to working together for many organizations, particularly local businesses.
Partnering with local businesses
Simple partnerships can lead to more extensive collaborations as the relationship develops. In a midwestern town surrounded by rural farmland, one librarian developed a great relationship with a local game store. The owner donated merchandise to be used as trivia prizes and themed snacks for movie nights (“For our Naruto movie, everybody went home with either wasabi candy or ginger candy.”) He shared his expertise by running video game tournaments at the library and judging a game-making contest. In return, the store earned exposure and goodwill with the teens, and the library bought gift cards from the store as additional prizes.
Partners can provide a fuller perspective on the community.
“Working with other community partners who know what’s going on in the big picture can help actually bring in more teens to make it more global in terms of that community.
— Learning Consultant at an urban western library
Even if library staff do a thorough job of getting to know the teens that come into the library, understanding the teens who don’t come into the library is a different story. Partners who work with different segments of the youth population can fill the library in on what (and who) they’re missing.
How libraries can help partners
“I’ve been most recently working with the Boys & Girls Club… to try and get more library programming over there for them and to help them sort of build their capacity for doing programming, either with me or without me.”
— Young Adult Librarian at a suburban midwestern library
Remember that a partnership supports the goals of both organizations, not just the library. When you approach a potential partner you should present the ways they will benefit as well as what the library and the youth stand to gain.
Libraries can provide space for partners. As community centers, most libraries can offer partners space to conduct their own programs and activities. Even if the partner has space of their own, the library might be more popular or more accessible to some groups.
Libraries can provide a new audience for partners. A library with a thriving teen population can provide a ready-made audience for the partners’ activities. They can also help bridge the “trust gap” that new youth-serving organizations may face when they try to offer new services to an audience that is not familiar with them.
YOUMedia and the National Veterans Art Museum
Chicago Public Library’s YOUmedia program and the National Veterans Art Museum made their first connection through Hive Chicago. The museum hosted weekly art programs in the library’s teen space, which was more centrally located and had an established teen community. Museum staff modified their workshop programming to suit YOUmedia’s “drop-in” style.
Libraries can provide resources for partners. Library staff can help partners integrate library resources—equipment, software, physical collections, or library staff themselves—into their programs. Staff at an urban library in the south keep an eye out for opportunities to promote the library’s resources in activities held in the library: “[W]e might just offer, as part of their program, to talk about our library resources if it fits in.”
Charlotte Mecklenburg Library & the Northwest School for the Arts
The Charlotte Mecklenburg Library partnered with the Northwest School of the Arts’s library, incorporating tutoring, homework help, and video games in an afterschool program. The public library provided the board games and video game equipment, which the school library lacked. The partnership allowed the library to reach new audiences, and provided a beneficial service to the school’s students.
For more information, see It takes two: School and public libraries, partnerships that can work! by A. Pelman, in Young Adult Library Services, 2009(Fall), 26, and Game On! by Liz Romanek.
Libraries can deliver programming and expertise to partners Partners don’t always have to come to the library—libraries can bring their expertise to their partners’ spaces. This can be as simple as conducting an established program or workshop in a new location, or working with the partner to develop something brand new or tailored to the partner’s needs. Library staff have unique knowledge and skills that can be shared. Conducting programming on-site can also help partners learn to conduct more programming themselves.
Learning about history with the Laotian Community Center
The executive director of the Laotian Community Center wanted to capture the stories of the seniors in the Laotian community in Providence, Rhode Island, many of whom came to the United States as refugees. Brainstorming with Providence Public Library led to a project to teach teens how to create oral histories. Librarians at PPL were able to adapt an existing workshop to be suitable for the context and participants and conducted a day-long program at the community center with the help of a third partner: a graduate student from nearby Brown University. The program taught the teens history, interview techniques, and media skills, and led to additional collaborations between some of the partners.
Libraries can promote partners and help with outreach Any organization that partners with a library can benefit from increased visibility in the community, but the more the organization interacts with patrons the stronger the potential impact can be. Theater, dance, and arts organizations in particular can use workshops to spark community interest in their productions and exhibits and even recruit new members. Some libraries provide community groups with time and space to be available to teens, particularly organizations that provide services like mental health counseling or legal services.
Partnering with youth-serving organizations
To help address the needs of teens in the high-poverty suburban area surrounding one northeastern library, the library hosted community organizations to make them more accessible to teens. “We work with other youth organizations who are serving youth… We have a mobile legal team who comes in on a monthly basis to provide free legal support to teens who need it. There are LGBTQ organizations for youth whose information we keep on display regularly. We have community partners from various areas kind of come in and do tabling. Because of the nature of our space, no one’s giving presentations but they have access to the teens… We have access to youth, they need access to youth, and we provide them with that access and they provide our youth with resources. It’s a beautiful relationship where everyone’s benefiting. And just making sure that the relationship is always a two-way beneficial relationship is the key to [sustaining the relationship].”
Libraries can provide or facilitate service opportunities Through teen volunteer programs, libraries can offer opportunities for organizations that require their teens to perform community service, such as high schools or Interact. Libraries can also connect youth to volunteer opportunities with other organizations, particularly teens who have learned skills through labs or workshops at the library. Teens aren’t the only ones who need or want to volunteer. Libraries provide opportunities for adults, often retirees, to share their professional skills and knowledge with youth. Librarians interviewed for the ConnectedLib project mentioned individuals in their community who found fulfillment through volunteering to work with youth in areas as diverse as robotics, programming, and knitting.
Adult Volunteers
Adult community members are a rich source of expertise for many libraries. Library staff we interviewed spoke highly of their many adult volunteers who work with teens.
A librarian at a rural western library uses personal connections and relationships to recruit both adult and teen volunteers: “I try my best to remember everybody’s name… I build this relationship with every single person that I come in contact with and the next thing you know, they lead me to another person, they lead me to another thing and then we just have so many different partnerships right now. It’s awesome. And because we have so much good families, good sentiment where everybody’s pitching in, we can do so much more.”
One of the biggest benefits to come from this relationship building is the expertise of a retired electrical engineer who was working with the local high school’s computer club. “Somebody mentioned to us that he’d be interested in helping you with the Lego robotics because he likes anything techy and he likes to work with older kids.” The librarian invited him to volunteer at the library as well, and he now runs weekly Lego robotics workshops when he’s not enjoying retirement by traveling. The librarian helps by managing the teens. “He kind of shies away from managing the kids and trying to keep their focus, but he does have the technical know how. So, between both of us, we’re able to keep the kids somewhat engaged.”