News

  • Toolkit for Creating Smart Spaces

    Libraries have evolved over the past few years to augment their role in providing lifelong learning for their communities. They have shifted from passive to active engagement with community members. They are becoming hubs of collaborative learning, p...

  • Understand Active Learning and Community-driven Spaces

    This resource is part of the Toolkit for Creating Smart Spaces, a toolkit to help you re-envision your library’s place as a center of community learning. Libraries have long been hubs of lifelong learning for all ages. Active learning takes ...

  • Outdoor Winter Programming Ideas

    Earlier this year, in Thinking Outside: Libraries and Placemaking in Pandemic Times, we shared how some libraries were moving library programming and services to the outdoors, as a way to stay engaged with their communities during the pandemic. And n...

  • Think Outside the Library with a Sidewalk Obstacle Course

    Noah Lenstra (Let's Move in Libraries) looks at how libraries can engage communities safely by taking programs and services outside, including creating obstacle courses.

  • Youth Programming Goes Virtual—Storytimes, Crafts, Teen Activities, and More

    As libraries and schools close their physical spaces in response to COVD-19 and CDC recommendations for physical distancing, educators and library staff alike are moving learning and programming to digital platforms. Assembled below is a list of reso...

  • Outreach Programming: Serving Hidden Patrons

    Perry Memorial Library in Henderson, NC is a rural library serving Vance County where approximately two-thirds of the county's population is either under the age of 18 or over the age of 60. Yet mobility issues and lack of transportation meant these ...

  • 10 Year Challenge Book Display

    When we saw Kelsea Rowan post photos of her 10 Year Challenge book display to Library Think Tank - #ALATT, we had to reach out to learn more! She graciously agreed to share more about her fantastic display, including the display templates that she cr...

  • Project READY: New Online Racial Equity Curriculum Fills Gap for Library Staff

    Creating inclusive and equitable school and public library programs for Black youth, Indigenous youth, and Youth of Color (BIYOC) requires knowledge about topics such as race and racism, implicit bias and microaggressions, cultural competence and cul...

  • Planning a Library Con or Pop Culture Festival

    Librarian Recommended blogger, Elia Juarez, shares her experience and expertise on planning and hosting a LibraryCon.

    We hosted our library's sixth LibraryCon on May 4 (with over 650 attendees!), and each year, we've learned somethi...

  • Launch into STAR Net's 'Summer of Space'

    Summer is fast approaching, and the Collaborative Summer Library Program (CSLP), the STAR Library Network's NASA@ My Library initiative, and NASA are working together to create a fun and engaging summer learning program for your library. From excitin...