“We’re helping the communities by providing opportunities to the homeless through engagement.”
Category: library-and-info-science
Rainbow Boxes Aims To Send LGBT-Focused Young Adult Books To Libraries and Shelters
“The fight to make LGBT identities more widely accepted continues, and books are a great medium with which to do that. Which is why a new project to send LGBT-focused young adult books to libraries and shelters is such a great idea. Not only can it show kids everywhere that LGBT people are just people like everyone else, but it also give LGBT teens a chance to see themselves represented in literature, and that’s something everyone deserves.
The project, called Rainbow Boxes, is currently fundraising on Indiegogo, and was started by YA authors Cori McCarthy and Amy Rose Capetta. The project aims to donate a box of 15 books with LGBTQIA characters to one community library and one homeless shelter in every state in the country (40 percent of homeless teens identify as LGBT). That’s a total of 1,500 books!”
California’s Homeless Find a Quiet Place
“Public libraries provide the homeless with a way to connect, and many homeless say that browsing the stacks and reading a book there eases a weary street-level perspective of life.”
New York City Putting Libraries In Homeless Shelters To Make Sure That Homeless Children Have Access To Books
“This project is part of a team effort by the city’s Education Department and its Department of Homeless Services, and will affect 20 shelters throughout the city. Each shelter will have its own library made up of donated books and other reading materials such as magazines.”
Library's Science, Technology Program Receives $400K Grant
The BiblioTec program started as a partnership with Coffee Oasis to bring science and technology classes to homeless and at-risk youth in 2013 and 2014.
Santa Rosa Library Offering Art Workshops to Homeless
“They [homeless people] just need a chance to come in and do something for a couple of hours that isn’t survival-based,” said Rebecca Forth, founder of a new program she calls “Seen and Heard.”
What are Libraries Doing to Help?
Courtney Young, President of the American Library Association, says that in times of economic hardship, more people turn to and depend on libraries and librarians for help.
Homeless Outreach: Books from Street Librarians
“It’s the beautiful messiness of human interaction,” said Alison Kastner, a reader services librarian at the Multnomah library, describing the core idea of My Librarian, and the distinction between it and the coolly logical computer algorithms that comb a shopper’s tastes at sites like Amazon.
U.S. Libraries Become Front Line in Fight Against Homelessness
”(Libraries) are on the front line whether they want to or not,” said Jeremy Rosen, director of advocacy at the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, an advocacy group.
Homeless outreach is part of an overall 47 percent increase in library programs from 2004 to 2011, according to a June report by the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
Dallas Library Gives Homeless Their Own Podcast
J. Erik Jonsson Central Library, located in downtown Dallas, produces a podcast about homelessness , put together by AmeriCorps volunteers and library employees such as Jasmine Africawala. The podcast has drawn nearly 5,000 plays and downloads since first airing in March.
Ryan Smith, the technical director for the podcast, said the success of the program is due to the show’s focus on equality and respect. “Homelessness is a situation you find yourself in,” Smith said. “It’s not who you are as a person.”