What: Two conference sessions at the 2020 Virtual Meeting of the Association for Rural and Small Libraries
Date: September 30-October 1, 2020
Resources: Conference Schedule
Sharing our Resources Presentation Slides
Rural Play Streets Presentation Slides
Rural Play Streets Community Conversation – ideas from librarians about who to work with to bring this program to your community!
Notes from Community Conversations to be posted soon. Sign up for our newsletter so you don’t miss them!
Sharing Our Resources to Support Healthy Living | How to Host Play Streets at the Library
Date: September 30-October 1, 2020 Format: Conference Session
Sharing Our Resources to Support Healthy Living
Learn how to support healthy living by sharing your time, space, collections, and expertise. Summer meals at the La Cygne Library snow-balled into the library becoming a vibrant hub of lifelong learning through partnerships with everyone from a retired P.E. teacher to local banks. The library now serves summer meals with a side of enriching, engaging programming. Building on this success, since 2018 the library also serves senior citizens free meals and programs too. It’s all made possible through community partnerships large and small. We’ll wrap things up with an engaging community conversation about how you can support healthy living by embracing the power of partnerships in your community too.
Janet Reynolds, Library Manager/Librarian, La Cygne Library (KS)
Noah Lenstra, Assistant Professor of Library and Information Science, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
How to Host Play Streets at the Library
We all know that play and learning go hand-in-hand, but in today’s technology rich world, we don’t always have access to play. That’s where Play Streets comes in. Through a temporary closure of streets, the program creates a safe, publicly accessible space for children, adolescents, and families to engage in active play. We worked with rural communities across the country to help them offer the program, and in June 2019 we released the Guide to Implementing Play Streets in Rural Communities. We found public libraries often support Play Streets. In Talihina, Oklahoma, a Play Streets was held just outside the local library and in Texas, the library brought its bookmobile so kids could access books and play. We will introduce Play Streets, the Guide (you’ll get a free copy!), and discuss with you how you can work with partners to bring Play Streets to your community!
Noah Lenstra, Assistant Professor of Library and Information Science, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
M. Renée Umstattd Meyer, Associate Professor of Public Health, Baylor University
Keshia Pollack Porter, Professor of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health