The Anythink libraries are literally breaking new ground in their efforts at building community and developing partnerships. At two locations, Commerce City and Perl Mack, community gardens are taking shape on plots just outside the libraries. They were planned in partnership with Denver Urban Gardens. Anythink’s goal is to focus 50% on food production and 50% on community building. As focal points for the neighborhoods, there will be workdays that bring gardeners and passers-by together as well as discussion about sustainable gardening and what grows well and what doesn’t. “Read, think, eat” is one heading in a recent library newsletter describing the project. What better place but at the library?
The summer reading program at Anythink libraries has stepped away from the often-used model of providing participants with prizes and coupons from local merchants and fast food vendors. Gone also are the tally sheets that track reading volume over the summer. Their “My Summer” program is focused on learning and creativity based on the thinking that reading stimulates. So it’s more about quality than quantity. Of course the challenge for parents with kids in this or any program is to help develop realistic goals for the products of young, creative thinking and to support children in reaching those goals. I think this model has greater potential than the more often-used ones, for enriching a child’s life experience based on the reading they do over the summer.
I look forward to watching how the Anythink libraries evolve and change over time. They have challenged and disrupted (in a respectful way) many long-held public library conventions. Their success may help lay the foundation for the survival of public libraries in the face of threats from diminishing relevance in the crowded “attention marketplace” of our current era.
Leave a Reply