The February 2024 newsletter of Let’s Move in Libraries includes:

• An invitation to join International Compost Awareness Week
• A request to complete a survey on climate and environmental health in libraries
• A new blog post on how to bring music, movement, and more to your library
• An opportunity to join a virtual peer support network for library workers
• A webinar you don’t want to miss in February
• Join us at the Public Library Association Conference
• An invitation to our monthly Birds of a Feather call
• A new webinar series on health partnerships in libraries
• A way to bring virtual physical education to your library

This month’s featured image comes from the 2024 AARP Livable Communities Community Challenge Grant.

Once again, AARP is calling on public libraries, and all other community organizations, to apply for “small grants to fund quick-action projects that can help communities become more livable for people of all ages.” These projects can include everything from bike racks to garden beds, and even StoryWalks!

Grants can be as small as $500 and as large as $50,000, but most awards are under $20,000. Here are some of the things libraries have gotten funded in past years:

• Chilton Public Library in Wisconsin won an award “To combine intergenerational family time, physical activity, and literacy in a fun, interactive, outdoor setting, two permanent and two portable bilingual StoryWalks will be installed at sites around the community.”
• Wilton Public Library in Iowa won an award to “improve a garden space by developing a sensory area for all ages. The upgrades will provide shade and increase comfortable seating options, ensuring the space is accessible for all users. Master gardeners will help guide planting, with the aim of growing produce.”
• Scarborough Public Library in Maine won an award to “establish a network of walking paths to provide a safe place and programs for older adults to exercise and socialize outdoors in a community that lacks a walkable downtown.”

Learn more about the dozens of public libraries who have won this award and get your applications in by March 6, 2024!

Get started at the AARP Livable Communities Community Challenge Grant webpage.

An invitation to join International Compost Awareness Week

Our our friends at the International Compost Awareness Week invite you to join them!

From May 5-11, 2024, they are inviting all around the world to come together to support composting.

The Illinois Food Scrap & Composting Coalition (IFSCC) has created a resource page for libraries wanting to get involved, including storytime, display, and STEM programming ideas. Learn more at their webpage.

This year IFSCC is asking libraries to share what they are doing to support composting so they can build out even more program ideas to be shared in future years! Submit your adventures in composting, other happenings, or library program details by April 10th to be featured in their list of events.

A request to complete a survey on climate and environmental health in libraries

STAR Net would like to invite you to complete a short survey to inform the design of the 2024 Climate Action Symposium: Exploring Collaborations with Libraries, Community-Based Organizations, and Public Health Agencies

The symposium is part of a project (Building Resilient Communities) funded by the National Science Foundation and led by the Space Science Institute and its STAR Library Network. Project partners include OCLC WebJunction, University of North Carolina Greensboro, and Interactive Learning Dynamics. The focus of the survey is on public library STEM learning programs and activities related to climate change science, climate change’s impacts on public health, and community sustainability and/or resiliency. The estimated time needed to complete this survey is 9 minutes. All information you provide will be completely confidential. Data will only be shared in aggregate through reports and papers – no personally identifiable information will be shared.

Thank you for your support! Take the survey here.

WCG IRB has determined this work Exempt under 45 CFR § 46.104(d)(2); WCG IRB Work Order #1-1727348-1 (PI: Holland)

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Number DRL-2314180. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

A new blog post on how to bring music, movement, and more to your library

Our thanks to Barbara Scott, Children’s Librarian at the Bucyrus (Ohio) Public Library for sharing with us a new blog post on her experience bringing music, movement, and more to her community since 2011!

Since 2010, Barb has worked with a range of community partners on this incredibly impactful initiative. Check out the blog post to read her story and get some ideas and inspiration for things you can try in your community.

Here are some excerpts:

“Through advertising and word of mouth, the program quickly expanded. I turned to our local United Way as a funding source …. United Way has been our faithful supporter since 2013 and we are currently entering our 10th year of partnership with them. Our program, through them, is advertised under their ‘Bold Goals’ initiatives and is a premier program for them.”

We simplified the drumming by using money from United Way funds to purchase 5-gallon buckets and play balls from Wal-mart, and already using the lummi sticks that we had as drumsticks. Both of us had large exercise balls with large bucket containers like you might see in a barn/tack room.

I currently visit five schools, some of them twice monthly and do a Music, Movement, and More program with them. The classes I visit are mostly preschool, but at one school, I also work with a combined K-1 and combined grades 2-3 class. Oh, and on one of my visits to one of the schools, a teacher from their ‘before school’ class wanted to know if I would be interested in coming in for them. ‘We start at 7:30 a.m., but you could come at 7:45 a.m.’ Two Tuesday mornings a month, I do just that. A typical Monday or Wednesday could see me doing 3-4 classes in a single day, depending on the school that I’m visiting and if there is a 10-week session going on here at the library.”

Check out Barbara’s amazing story at Music, Movement, and More at your library.

An opportunity to join a virtual peer support network for library workers

As a result of the 2022 Urban Library Trauma Study conducted by Urban Librarians Unite (ULU), one of the interventions that would be useful to library workers was creating a peer support network. This virtual peer support network is for library workers and organized and run by library workers. However, ULU needs people to help us make it happen.

They are looking for participants to help collaborate with them to develop core principles and practices of the groups, and then help us run these groups once they have been established. This is open to anyone who works at a library at any level! Rural library workers are encouraged to participate as well.

Please consider becoming a peer leader and working with them to build a solution.

More information on this project, qualifications, honorarium/expense information, and more is in their formal call. If you are interested in applying please fill out the application form which will close on February 9^th, 2024.

If you have any questions or concerns, please reach out to Urban Librarians Unite!

A webinar you don’t want to miss in February

Join us Wednesday February 14 at 2:00 pm US Eastern, 11:00 am US Pacific for Cultivating the Relationship-Driven Library. This webinar, based on the HEAL at the Library Project, will be hosted by Niche Academy, and is open to all!

Here’s a description: “We all know that teamwork makes the dream work, but what does that actually mean for the day-to-day work of librarianship? Cultivating and sustaining the relationship-driven library has four steps: 1) planting the seeds of partnership, 2) nurturing co-developed ideas, 3) harvesting and celebrating accomplishments, and 4) resting and preparing for future partnerships. Join Noah Lenstra for this webinar on building the relationship-driven library. You’ll leave this session with renewed confidence in your ability to find partners, cultivate working relationships with them, and keep relationships fresh and impactful, as well as how to tactfully step back from relationships that aren’t working the way you hoped they would. Finally, you’ll learn how to advocate for the time you need for this process. If you’re interested but not able to attend the live webinar, go ahead and register. We’ll send a recording to all registrants after the fact.”

We hope to see you at Cultivating the Relationship-Driven Library.

Join us at the Public Library Association conference!

We’re thrilled to share that we will be at the Public Library Association conference April 3-5, in Columbus, Ohio. Will you be there? Send us an email! We’re hoping to have an in-person Let’s Move in Libraries gathering.

You can also join us Friday, April 5 at 12:30 pm at the How-To Stage where Dr. Noah Lenstra will be presenting How To Cultivate Relationship-Driven Libraries: A Four-Step Guide for Lasting Partnerships. Here is more information on the session:

“Cultivating and sustaining the relationship-driven library has four steps: 1) planting the seeds of partnership, 2) nurturing co-developed ideas, 3) harvesting and celebrating accomplishments, and 4) resting and preparing for future partnerships.

You’ll leave with renewed confidence in your ability to find partners, cultivate working relationships with them, and keep relationships fresh and impactful. You’ll also learn how to advocate for the time you needed for this process. Everyone goes home with a print toolkit.”

We hope to see you in Ohio!

An invitation to our monthly Birds of a Feather call