
During the month of April, Let’s Move in Libraries will host a series of conversations on community collaboration and community health.
Each conversation features 2-4 librarians sharing their experiences working collaboratively with others to promote community health. After the discussion you’re invited to stay in the room for a half-hour open conversation about that week’s topic. Each conversation takes place on a Thursday in April, 2023. Recordings will be shared on the Let’s Move in Libraries YouTube channel.
This event will also feature the launch of a Toolkit you can use to inject new energy into your health programs and partnerships. Access a preview of the Cultivating the Relationship-Driven Toolkit and share feedback on this work in progress.
Our goal in this event is to build momentum and knowledge around the critical topic of community collaboration.
Who should participate in this event? Those who…
- Work in or with public libraries, or desire to do so
- Are committed to working collaboratively with communities for service design and delivery
- Seek both inspiration and information in a participatory learning environment
- Are eager to work with peers to support innovation
We invite you to learn and network with colleagues doing great things through community partnerships! All are welcome to this online convening.
Schedule-at-Glance
- April 6 – Event kick-off and conversation on “Institutionalizing collaboration, urban perspectives”
- April 13 – Conversation on “Sparking change, Directors / Branch Manager perspectives”
- April 20 – Conversation on “Institutionalizing collaboration, small and rural perspectives”
- April 27 – Conversation on “Start where you are, early career perspectives” and event conclusion
Scroll down to learn more about the sessions and participating library workers! And go to the bottom of this page for images and text you can use to share this event with your colleagues and networks.
This event is part of HEAL (Healthy Eating and Active Living) at the Library, funded by the U.S. Institute of Museum & Library Services (# RE-246336-OLS-20)
CULTIVATING THE RELATIONSHIP-DRIVEN LIBRARY
Event kick-off and toolkit launch

Description: Join us for the event kick-off. We’ll set the stage by discussing the journey that brought us here, and share with you our new toolkit on how to cultivate community partnerships to transform community health. More information will be added here as we get closer to April!
Date & Time: Thursday, April 6, 2023 at 1 PM EST
INSTITUTIONALIZING COLLABORATION
Urban Perspectives

Description: What structures set libraries up for success? This session explores how urban libraries in Maryland, North Carolina, and Illinois have navigated long-term partnerships, including around annual health fairs, nature exploration, and food security. Given all the potential partners urban libraries could work with, how do we prioritize our time to achieve the biggest impacts? Dive in for an illuminating conversation!
Date & Time: Thursday, April 6, 2023 at 3 PM EST
Meet the Panelists:

Rebecca (Becky) Hass
Rebecca (Becky) Hass creates brave spaces for community conversations. Becky brings more than 15 years of experience in various leadership capacities. Her areas of focus are wholehearted leadership,ij organizational development, and Diversity, Equity & Inclusion. As the Programming and Outreach Manager at Anne Arundel County Public Library, she supports hundreds of community partners, non-profits, and presenters through a process she describes as “program matchmaking.” Becky is on a mission to support joyful, resilient individuals and communities where all can use their agency to empower their goals.

Stacy Rausch
Stacy Rausch is the Director of Branch Library Services at Gail Borden Public Library District in Elgin, IL. With over 17 years of library work experience, she specializes in project management, public programs, partnerships, and grant writing and management. She earned her MLIS degree from San Jose State University in 2018.

Ana Devine
Ana Devine, , Division Chief of Community Services, earned her Master of Library and Information Science degree from Dominican University (River Forest, Illinois). She has been with Gail Borden Public Library for over twenty years. Prior to joining Administration, she was Director of Neighborhood Services overseeing the Branch libraries and Mobile Library Services. She was the Library on the Go Manager of the Community Services and Program Development Division from 2011 – 2015 managing the creative and multi-faceted outreach activities the library offers throughout the district including the ReaderShip preschool storytime program and Home Services. In 2013 she established the successful Gold Star Partners summer reading community collaborative initiative and in 2014 implemented Welcome Baby!, baby’s first library card and early literacy program.
Maxine Days , MLIS, has worked with the City of High Point at the High Point Public Library for over twenty-five years serving in a variety of roles, such as After School Program Coordinator, Research Librarian I, and Event Coordinator. In addition to her primary reference duties, she teaches the Basic Skills computer class and collaborates with local artists to showcase their creative artistry. She also plans and organizes annual events like the Black Expo, Community Cultural Festival, Author Showcase, Breast Cancer Awareness, the Heart Healthy Campaign, and the Health Fair. Maxine believes that forming partnerships is key to promoting community growth and that it enhances the well-being of others.
SPARKING CHANGE
Directors / Branch Manager Perspectives

Description: Library leaders set the stage for successful community partnerships. Join directors and branch managers from Pennsylvania, Texas, and Massachusetts to learn how they set up successful community partnerships focused on bike lending, community gardens, cooking & exercise classes, and more. What are the attributes of library leaders who get themselves and their libraries at the table to support community health? Join us to discuss!
Date & Time: Thursday, April 13, 2023 at 1 pm EST
Meet the Panelists:

Josh Berk
Josh Berk is the Executive Director of the Bethlehem Area Public Library, an innovative public library in Pennsylvania known for creative partnerships, exciting programming, and its basement recording studio (where you can often find the director on guitar). Josh is also an author of books for children and teens as well as a baseball enthusiast and active member of the Society for American Baseball Research.

Marie Letarte
Marie Letarte is the Director of the Bigelow Free Public Library in Clinton. She is a serial exerciser, still trying to find her favorite, but leaning toward swing dancing. Working with local non-profits, she’s brought all sorts of health activities to the library, including salsa dancing, tai chi, yoga, cooking demos, and a weekly walking group. The most steps she’s walked in a day was almost 30k, according to her fitbit. Marie is a firm believer in nature therapy and eating wild blueberries wherever she finds them.

Milagros Tanega
Milagros Tanega is from Harris County Public Library for nineteen years and served as Branch Manager for Evelyn Meador Library for eight years. She is a Rotarian, ALA Branding Committee, Chamber of Commerce member, Toastmasters. Milagros works in a Gold Certified LEED building surrounded y natural trails and parks in Seabrook, Texas. She initiated along with other local partners to build of a community herb garden, seed exchange library, and edible tree forest with several fruit trees on the surrounding City property. Awarded a grant from the Native Plant Society to create a Butterfly Garden with the intention of bringing back the Monarch to Texas. In Partnership with Urban Harvest and local garden clubs in the community for the Outdoor Learning Exploration Space. She worked with the Friends Group to obtain a Lunar Rendezvous grant and Seabrook Rotary for a community StoryWalk program. She worked with Seabrook Rotary to build five new free little libraries in Seabrook that is now on the world map and fully operational. She works directly with community stakeholders to make an impact in Seabrook and beyond.
INSTITUTIONALIZING COLLABORATION
Small and Rural Perspectives

Description: How can rural and small town librarians leverage small town networks to advance community health? Join us for this conversation featuring librarians from North Carolina and Kentucky. We’ll talk about how these libraries formed especially strong bonds with Cooperative Extension agents and local United Way organizations to transform community health, and you’ll learn how you too can use your relationships to advance community health.
Date & Time: Thursday, April 20, 2023 at 1 PM ET
Meet the Panelists:
Lea Wentworth is the Adult Services Manager at McCracken County Public Library in Paducah, Kentucky. She has done library programming for youth and adults both in the library and out in the community for 14 years. Her focus areas include community partnerships, underserved populations, inclusion and well-being. In her spare time she’s an organic vegetable farmer.
April Young has worked for almost twenty years in the library field in North Carolina. She is currently employed as the Library Director of the Rutherford County Library System. She previously worked within the Sandhills Regional Library System at the Hoke County Public Library. April has worked in periodicals, circulation, children’s, teen, and adult services. She is a community focused librarian who believes in an open approach to library services, meeting patrons no matter where they are in life. April loves being outside and enjoys reading, playing with technology, and spending time with her family.
START WHERE YOU ARE
Early Career Perspectives

Description: Our conversation series concludes with the empowering message that anyone can be a community change agent! Library workers from Virginia, Delaware, and Texas will share with you how they hit the ground running in their libraries. Learn how you too can be a community leader and partner, no matter how long you’ve worked in libraries, or what your job title is.
Date & Session Time: Thursday, April 27 1 PM Eastern Time
Meet the Panelists:

Celeste Bleu
Celeste Bleu is Assistant Manager, Adult Services, in the Programs, Partnerships, and Outreach Division, Harris County Public Library. She has worked in libraries since high school, and has worked at Harris County Public Library since 2012, shifting from branch-level work to systems-level work in 2021. Celeste serves on the Region 3 Advisory Board for the National Network of the Library of Medicine (NNLM) and is an active member and leader in the Texas Library Association.

Kelly Senser
Kelly Senser is a programming and community engagement coordinator for Loudoun County Public Library in northern Virginia. Equal parts reader and nature explorer, she regards libraries and the great outdoors as treasured spaces to nurture one’s sense of wonder. During her 20 years at National Wildlife Federation, gardening for wildlife and the benefits of outdoor play were centerpieces of the content and programs she created. Passions for these subjects and community-building now fuel her local efforts to connect people with nature. Kelly has been a certified Virginia Master Naturalist since 2015.

Stacy Lane
Stacy Lane comes from a retail management background and started in libraries a little over three years ago. She is the Youth Services Librarian at the Laurel Public Library in Laurel, Delaware and is currently working on her MMLIS from the University of Southern California. Stacy loves reading, collaging, and a good massage. She can be found perusing thrift stores or yard sales in her spare time. She loves all things library and youth services. She resides in Delaware with her husband, their two children, two dogs, and one cat.
WHERE DO WE GROW FROM HERE?
Concluding remarks and a call to action
Concluding remarks and a call to action

Description: How can we continue to build a national community of public librarians committed to working collaboratively with their communities to transform cultures of health? We’ll wrap up the event by discussing this question with a national expert on community collaboration. We’ll also discuss where do we go from here: How can we continue to come together and support each other as we all seek to start and sustain impactful community relationships? Join in!
Date & Time: Thursday, April 27 at 3 PM ET
Meet the Panelists:
Bess de Farber serves a grantseeking and collaboration development consultant at ASK Associates, Inc. She has had four careers: as a musician and arts administrator; as a program officer managing grant awards for arts and cultural, social services, and human and race relations; as a nonprofit management consultant; and as an academic research development professional. She has provided grantseeking collaboration training to thousands of library staff, nonprofit and academic professionals, artists, and university students in the past 32 years, and has led efforts to secure millions for nonprofits and academic libraries. Bess is the author Collaborative Grant-Seeking: A practical guide for librarians, and Creating Fundable Grant Proposals: Profiles of innovative partnerships, and coauthor of Collaborating with Strangers: Facilitating workshops in libraries, classes, and nonprofits. She holds a Bachelor of Music from the University of Southern California, and a Master of Nonprofit Management from Florida Atlantic University.
Dr. Noah Lenstra is an Associate Professor of Library and Information Science in the School of Education at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro where he brings a community organizing approach to the study and teaching of public libraries. Notably, Noah founded the Let’s Move in Libraries Initiative, which focuses on supporting healthy living in public libraries. The project was inspired by Former First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! initiative, which focused on increasing Healthy Eating and Active Living (HEAL) among Americans. Let’s Move in Libraries continues Obama’s legacy by working to increase physical activity and nutrition through libraries in the U.S., Canada, and other places in the world. He received Master’s and Doctoral degrees in Library & Information Science from the University of Illinois.
Sharing Guide
Help us share this event far and wide. All are welcome! Use the links and resources below to encourage your network to participate.
Promote Community Health with the Relationship-Driven Library – OCLC/WebJunction
We want to thank OCLC/WebJunction for sharing news of this event on their website. Share the link above or use the text of their press release on your webpage, blog, or newsletter.
Use the text below – or modify them as you see fit – to share this event on social media or over email
April is the perfect time to spring into motion! Let’s Move in Libraries presents a series of conversations throughout the month. Engage with librarians sharing their experiences working collaboratively with others to promote community health! https://go.uncg.edu/libraryevent
Spring is upon us! It’s a great time to get into motion with Let’s Move in Libraries! Join us throughout the month of April for participatory conversations about working collaboratively with others to promote community health! https://go.uncg.edu/libraryevent
Looking to work in or with public libraries to support community health? Join us for online conversations this April! Hear librarians sharing their experience working collaboratively with others to promote community health! https://go.uncg.edu/libraryevent
Don’t miss these opportunities to learn and network! During the month of April, Let’s Move in Libraries hosts a series of conversations, each featuring 2-4 librarians sharing their experiences working collaboratively with others! Join us! https://go.uncg.edu/libraryevent
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