Mimi Cirillo of the Burlington County Library in New Jersey shares her thoughts on why serving the rural areas is so important...
Cirillo tells a Cherokee story: When a boy trained a wounded eagle to fish, his cousin asked him why he let the eagle leave uneaten fish on the rocks where forest animals could grab them? Why not bring the fish home to his family? The boy replied, My family knows how to fish. Says Cirillo, There are many, many people who need to learn to fish so they can choose how to live.
Works Cited
"Rural Lives." Library Journal 131 (16 Mar. 2006): 41. MasterFILE Premier. EBSCO. Kanawha County Public Library, Charleston, WV. 11 Sep. 2009 http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&AN=20053024&site=ehost-live
Most rural libraries find it difficult to come up with the money and staffing to present programs. This blog is dedicated to finding cheap, popular programming with minimal staff.
Understanding Rural Libraries
Each rural library faces its own challenges, whether it be funding issues, space issues, staff issues, etc. The purpose of this blog is to try to branch out to a variety of rural libraries to provide suggestions on what can be done to improve programming for all ages. Rural libraries face challenges usually because the area they are located in and serve are somewhat isolated and serve a low population. Although it’s not surprising that rural libraries are not always able to service its community as larger libraries do, they need to realize that there are methods they can try to improve their services. I hope that library staff taking time to read through this blog will be inspired.
I thought this article was a great opening to my blog. The importance being that we as library workers must provide people with resources, such as programming, to help them expand their knowledge and skills that will help them grow as an individual. From here we will begin exploring options of programming to all ages in the rural library setting.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to go along with libraries being the center of the community. We are where the smaller community finds it connection in many cases.
ReplyDeleteProgramming is something that my library is now struggling with. Our reduced hours and staff are making difficult to keep our established programs going. We are still managing the school visits, but that has pushed the storytimes to the evening if we can fit them in at all. I am trying to keep the book discussions going but it is harder and harder to get coverage to leave the desk.
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ReplyDeleteIt is a struggle for many libraries to maintain programming. I'm hoping that I'll be able to introduce some ways in which will help keep programming possible on a low budget and minimal staff.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite part of the job is programming so I have taken over the pre-school storytime for the most part, but for years we had volunteers come in to read to the preschoolers. The problem with it is that they are not all good readers and aren't early literacy trained, but they provide great help for no pay! Diane
ReplyDeleteAre you in a college area? Many retired professors love to manage the book discussion groups
ReplyDeleteYes, I'm very close to West Virginia State University and we do have professors come to the library to lead monthly book discussion groups. It would be nice if we could get them to expand their services to library branches within the community as well. Volunteers are a great way to get more programming to libraries on a budget.
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