Libraries Share

Recently I had a chance to attend a community meeting in Escondido to discuss success in securing funding and building new libraries. My colleagues and I shared stories about our local challenges and successes. We shared success stories about the kids in our respective communities. It made me proud to be in a profession where we can help kids share their newly found love for reading. It is uplifting to know how excited they are about building on their reading skills.

During that meeting, the community in Escondido shared their excitement and enthusiasm about our new Central Library. They understand that libraries share and our success is their success, since the positive results have a ripple effect felt throughout our communities.

I was reminded that we share and help by freely giving details to one another, so no one has to “reinvent the wheel.”  We even share staff!  Well, not quite.  But, it was fun seeing a former branch manager, Stacey von Winckelmann, who has moved on serving as Digital Services Librarian at Ashford University.

We share great stories to promote libraries and reading. (See our What’s Your Story? page for just a sampling of stories for how the San Diego Public Library changes lives.)  Speaking of great stories, one of the Library Commissioners, Dr. Virginia Loh-Hagan, told me that everyone in her family reads, including her dog Buddy!

Buddy the Reading Dog

Libraries have discovered that children LOVE reading to pets. That’s why our Sit Up and Read Program is so successful.

Erin Gillum reads to dog Bitsy with
sister Sidney and brother Garrett

One of the truly gratifying experiences of libraries sharing occurred last week! Close to 130 librarians from Baja California and Southern California were here March 8th and 9th at the Logan Heights Branch Library to participate in Serra Cooperative Library System’s Seguimos Creando Enlaces Conference designed for library leaders throughout the region to share ideas and best practices and focus on forging long-term relationships. This binational collaboration is helping us all build on one another’s strengths and better serve all of our communities at a regional level. Now that’s what sharing is all about!