News

  • 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...

  • Community Engagement: Redefining the Library as Town Square

    Libraries are evolving, leaning outside of our walls, connecting with our communities in new and powerful ways. Defining our "why" requires understanding how to shift our focus from books to people. Our purpose is to support people and thei...

  • Memory Kits Serve Community Members with Alzheimer’s

    For people with Alzheimer's disease and their families, a remembered moment from the past is a gift. Memory loss and confusion are the hallmarks of dementia and Alzheimer's, as the diseases progressively damage brains cells, but photographs, music, a...

  • New Tools for Getting Beyond the Survey to Discover Your Community Needs

    For the cohort of small/rural libraries that participated in WebJunction's Small Libraries Create Smart Spaces project in 2017-18, the most transformational aspect of the process was realizing new ways to meet and collaborate with their communities. ...

  • Blessing Box: Take What You Need, Leave What You Can

    This is the second article in a series published in collaboration with the Association for Rural and Small Libraries (ARSL), highlighting innovation shared on ARSL's amazing and active Listserv.

    ARSL member Jennifer Johnson-Spence, serves as...

  • Seniors and Financial Scams: When Traditional Workshops Aren't Working

    Consumers lost a total of $905 million to fraud in 2017, according to the Federal Trade Commission's 2017 Consumer Sentinel Network Data Book. The FTC fielded 1.1 million fraud reports last year, with fraudulent debt collection, identify theft, and i...

  • Delivering Literacy to Families through Stork Storytime

    Stork Storytime helps parents-to-be establish a daily reading routine before baby arrives. North Liberty Community Library developed the Stork Storytime Librarian Toolkit for other libraries to easily implement this innovative and impactful progr...

  • Next Chapter Book Club: Where Reading is for Everyone

    Through the Next Chapter Book Club, adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities are finding a unique opportunity to engage in literacy, socialize and hang out in a community setting - all through the power of books and reading. Program fa...

  • How Pie and Bingo was Born

    This is the first in a new series on WebJunction published in collaboration with the Association for Rural and Small Libraries (ARSL), highlighting innovative programming from member libraries serving small and rural communities. Thanks to our first ...

  • Bookmobiles that Break the Mold

    Bookmobiles, or mobile libraries, have been around since the 19th century, when they were horse-drawn wagons bringing books to rural communities. Government funding in the 1950s and 60s created a bookmobile surge, and popularity has risen ...