“It’s a very depressed area economically,” Gromalski says of Mahanoy City. “The coal region, which is made up of small towns, used to be booming. Now the mining industry has been gone for several decades, older people are getting older [and] younger people are moving away because there are no jobs.” To re-create pride in … Continue reading Community Reporting
The statistics are disturbing: San Diego is one of the 13 highest child sex trafficking areas in the nation, according to the FBI. And the city’s sex trafficking industry—estimated at $810 million—is the second largest underground economy after the drug trade. But San Diego Public Library (SDPL) Director Misty Jones and her staff want to … Continue reading Out of the Shadows
Maybe your funding, meeting room space, or employee availability is limited. Maybe the attendance isn’t there, or the staff member who supervised the service has left the branch. How do you decide to discontinue a program? Libraries should allocate resources in the most efficient way possible. Of course, “bang for your buck” can mean something … Continue reading Pulling the Plug
“When they turn 22, they age out of those services. It’s so big and overwhelming that you can’t really wrap your head around it. I think, ‘What am I going to do? Am I the one that’s going to sit with him all day and try to figure that out?’” says Smith. Smith isn’t alone … Continue reading Aging Out of Sensory Storytime
On Monday afternoon, Maureen Hartmann, division manager for strategic services at the Hennepin County (Minn.) Library, led a YALSA session titled, “What I Stopped Doing: Improving Services By Giving Things Up.” During the session, Hartmann spoke about the evolving face of teen services and emphasized the need for libraries and youth librarians to evaluate current … Continue reading Making Decisions and Cutting Ties
