December 8, 2013

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Stockholm’s Tio Tretton Library Gives Tweens a Space of Their Own

readinginwindow_creditAndreasBurmester

At a tween-only library in Stockholm, the only patrons allowed are children between 10 and 13—a group that often feels too old for children’s sections but not yet ready for full-on YA experiences.

Inflato Dumpsters Provide Mobile Lab Space | Design Innovation

Inflato Dumpster

John Locke’s Department of Urban Betterment (DUB) is behind the 2012 installation of mini-libraries in New York City telephone booths. Now DUB is at it again with the concept and design of the Inflato Dumpster, giving the phrase “dumpster diving” a whole new meaning.

Design to Learn By: Dynamic Early Learning Spaces in Public Libraries

Roger Mastroianni Photography

A design revolution is reinventing the children’s room in public libraries and changing the way young children learn. This new breed of literacy-packed play spaces in libraries is inspired by children’s museums and the developmental theories that drive them.

We’re Ready for You! Planning for Summer Reading | Fresh Paint

SRPbookmark

The Summer Reading Program is Loudon County Public Library’s biggest event of the year, and for the first time, residents of the Gum Spring area will have the chance to experience it at our new library. We’re hoping for a record turn-out for our 9-week program, In Your Backyard… and Beyond.

Fresh Paint: Doors Wide Open

Gum Spring opening day

Opening Day of Loudon County Library’s newest facility, Gum Spring Library, has come and gone. More than 6,500 people checked out 14,000 materials in just under five and a half hours, and we issued over 1,100 library cards. And those are just the tangible statistics! Teens finally found a place in their community to call their own! Caretakers can now stop driving 25 minutes to the nearest storytime! An entire region of northern Virginia learned what it feels like to have free resources available to them in their own backyard. The looks of amazement and happiness that I saw on Opening Day filled me with amazement and happiness. The Gum Spring Library has arrived, and we’re open for business!

Fresh Paint: We Have Arrived

Gum Spring Library

As this article goes live, we are three—count ‘em!— three days away from opening the new Gum Spring Library. I’ve been here since mid-January, and I’m just beginning to realize that the expectations I had in my head were way off base. Between preparing volunteers, planning opening day activities, and training pages, few things have gone exactly as planned. Yet despite the many changes we’ve made in our schedule, our confidence grows as we learn what must be done now and what can wait.

Fresh Paint: A New Building, a New Team, a New Me

11613freshchanges

My father is a Marine, so by the time I was eight I was quite adept at packing up my things. I vividly remember when we moved to Beaufort, SC. It was 1996, and it was the ﬁrst time I ever took advantage of a move. Instead of trashing my old clothes and childish toys, I ﬁxed up parts of my personality that needed improvement and tried out some new traits. I asked people to call me “Al”, giving the role of tomboy a spin. I also spoke up a little more and put myself in more social situations. I used this experience to invent a whole new me.

Fresh Paint: Teen Volunteers—Priceless

Gum Spring Library

Volunteers are a critical component of the public library organization. At my branch, nearly 20 percent of the shelving is completed by adult and teen volunteers. Each month teens log an average of 125 volunteer hours, which is comparable to having an additional staff member. We have volunteers at work nearly every open hour during the summer, and on evenings and weekends during the school year. Their dedication is tireless. Their value? Priceless.

Sandy & Libraries: Photos of Libraries in the Storm’s Aftermath

People charging up phones at library

Sandy blasted through the East Coast from October 28-29 leaving its record-breaking mark. Despite major damage, libraries have risen to the challenge of serving their communities, offering internet access, electrical power, and even storytime.

Fresh Paint: Works Well with Others

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The public library is an information center providing resources that the community needs and wants. To know exactly what the community needs and wants the library relies on comment cards, conducts online surveys, and closely follows local issues and trends. But what if there are no customers to poll, no users for librarians to have a discussion with? This is exactly the situation that my library system is currently facing, because we are building a library where there has never been one (for many, many miles) and therefore there are no statistics, surveys, or discussions to base our collection, preliminary programming, or resource needs.

Coming Soon: Fresh Paint!

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There’s a new column coming to SLJTeen – Fresh Paint: Notes from a Public Library. We’ll hear from April Pavis, teen services librarian, as she prepares to move into the eighth library branch in Loudoun County, Virginia, the Gum Spring Library which will deliver 40,000 square feet of space for materials, programs, education, and entertainment to an area of the county that has never had a library.

Baltimore Schools Receive $5 Million Library Upgrades

baltimore

Hundreds of K-8 students in Baltimore, MD, will return this fall to 12 new school libraries equipped with Nooks, computers, and even a reading spot for mom and dad, thanks to a $5 million, four-year grant from the Harry and Jeannette Weinberg Foundation.

NYC Pols Urge State to Ban Sex Offenders from Library Children’s Rooms

NYPL's 42 Street Children's Center.

New York Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and Council Member Peter F. Vallone Jr. of Queens have asked the New York state legislature to pass a law barring sex offenders from children’s reading rooms in libraries.

Chicago Building Its First Joint High School/Public Library from the Ground Up

chicago-hs-pl

Chicago’s taking the partnership between public and school libraries to the next level—it’s building its first public library as part of a school.

Reading Challenge Nets WI School a $100K Library Makeover

Elementary schools in Racine, WI, were offered a tough challenge: read one million books during the 2011/2012 school year and win a $100,000 school library makeover.

Divine Design: How to create the 21st-century school library of your dreams

Things are changing. For starters, ebooks, apps, and the web are now a part of your students’ daily lives. So how do you determine the best way to turn your library space into a learning center that’s right for today’s rapidly changing digital world? Take it from me, a longtime designer of school libraries, it’s not easy.

Things are looking up at P.S. 189, in Manhattan’s Washington Heights, where a flock of books (fabricated from sheet metal) [...]

Going Green: Eco-friendly Schools

You can’t ignore the benefits of eco-friendly schools

By Debra Lau Whelan, 9/1/2007

Maybe it’s the waterless urinals or the geothermal heating and cooling system buried 515 feet underground. Or perhaps it’s the motion-activated faucets or the paints and furnishings made from low-volatile organic compounds. But one thing’s for sure: Great Seneca Creek Elementary is unlike most schools.

Since opening its doors in the fall of 2006, this school in Germantown, MD, has hosted more than two dozen tours for administrators, architects, parents, [...]
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