Outreach

Outreach

The library in the community

Community Engagement Coordinator Kim Dorman

Photography by Saed Hindash

By TIM QUINN Library Staff

Smoke from a barbecue greets neighbors as they approach the picnic pavilion in Community Park South to the sound of dance music. At the grill are officers from the Princeton Police Department’s Safe Neighborhood Unit, while the music is provided by Princeton Councilwoman Leticia Fraga. Behind a table laden with food, standing between members of the Princeton Human Services Commission and Committed and Faithful Princetonians, dishing out picnic fare, are library staff members Kim Dorman and Hannah Schmidl. Nearby, players warm up for a softball game as neighbors line up for food or dance off to the side. The cherished diversity of Princeton is on full display, not in a civic forum covering a serious issue inside the Sands Library Building, but at an old-fashioned neighborhood picnic on a warm August night.

Story time is winding down at the Atkinson Child Development Center at HomeFront’s Family Campus in Ewing and librarian Katie Bruce is sitting behind a circle of preschoolers, following the lead of her colleague Caroline Quinones, “clapping and flapping” along to an interactive song when she notices she has drawn the attention of one of HomeFront’s young clients. “Whenever my arms were still, he would reach over and lift up my arm so that it was snuggled against him,” Bruce said. “I guess he just needed a hug that day, which I was happy to give.”

The boy sits still during the flurry of activity that marks a story time for preschoolers at Princeton Nursery School. Librarian Jocelyn Jimenez is covering for Martha Perry Liu, who usually makes the twice-monthly trip to Leigh Avenue to read stories and sing songs, and notices the boy. “He wasn’t really participating in the songs or engaging with the interactive books,” Jimenez recalls, “but when I translated one of the songs into Spanish, he lit up. He was clapping his hands and smiling and singing along. If I hadn’t been right in the middle of ‘If You’re Happy and You Know It,’ I probably would have cried. It is one of my favorite PPL memories.”

Memorable moments such as these, which reflect the evolving role of public libraries in civic life, are part of Princeton Public Library’s expanding outreach program. While just about everything libraries do qualifies as “outreach,” at Princeton Public Library, staff members are increasingly leaving their desks and going out into the community, providing services to those who might be unfamiliar with library services or who don’t visit the library.

In addition to reaching under-served populations — a goal consistent with the library’s annual and strategic plans — these outreach efforts have the added benefit of helping staff identify ways to improve programs and services offered inside the library.

Supporting many of these outreach efforts is Kim Dorman, a veteran staff member who was appointed community engagement coordinator in 2017, after years planning and presenting programs under the guidance of Public Programming Librarian Janie Hermann.

“We work to improve literacies in so many ways, in and outside of the library,” Dorman said. “We go outside the walls of the library so that we can gain a better understanding of the things that different members of our community are working on, so that we can see if there are ways the library can support the work that they are doing, or if there might be something the library is not doing, but possibly should to better support the community. Finally, even if we might not be the solution, we may be able to connect them to people and organizations together who could be.”

This means a very small part of Dorman’s job is spent spooning out pasta salad at community picnics. Much more of it involves sitting down with other groups and attending community meetings outside the library to identify needs in Princeton.

“I’m a community member myself,” said Dorman, who grew up in Princeton and lives in town. “I often attend community meetings as a citizen, but I always have my library glasses on. One example is my attendance at a Princeton Housing Authority meeting. The board was discussing the new, streamlined, online application for affordable housing. There was concern that people might have difficulty filling in an online application, because of lack of access to a computer, internet, or familiarity with computer forms. I was able to share that not only were computers available at the library, but that we have staff members who speak both Spanish and Mandarin and if someone made an appointment, they could get the help that they needed to fill in the application. I don’t know how many people took advantage of the library for housing applications, but it was a great way for the library to support the needs of our community and work alongside non-profit and municipal organizations.”

Martha Perry Liu at Baby Storytime. Youth Services staff bringtory times to several locations in the community

Photography by Cie Stroud

Municipal organizations and non-profits have taken notice, notes Ross Wishnick, chairman of the Princeton Human Services Commission.

“Over the years, Princeton Public Library has been a vital and dynamic partner of Princeton Human Services Department,” Wishnick said. “Our primary point of contact is Kim Dorman. Her energy and her interest in the work of Human Services serves the Princeton community in a special and well-appreciated manner. From programs for the undocumented, to wage theft programs for local employees to picnics at Community Park, Redding Circle and elsewhere and social work intern services now being provided at the library, Kim’s efforts are extraordinary.”

For library staff, outreach can mean engaging in weighty discussions with community partners on issues such as racism and addiction or it can be as lighthearted and formative as a story time. Under the leadership of Susan Conlon, the Youth Services Department has a long history of providing the latter in venues such as the YWCA Princeton’s Young Wonders Child Development Center, which is visited weekly by Katie Bruce and Caroline Quinones, and Princeton Nursery School, where Martha Perry Liu is a regular.

“I walk through the classroom door at PNS, I am greeted with hugs and when I get up to leave after a visit, I am often bombarded with hugs that nearly knock me over,” Liu said. “It is an incredible feeling. This love of the books we share, our special time together and the relationship we cultivate translates into a hugely positive impression from an early age that these preschool children have of the library.”

In 2018, Youth Services expanded its outreach efforts to HomeFront, an organization founded in Princeton and dedicated to ending homelessness and breaking the cycle of intergenerational poverty in Mercer County. Mimi Bowlin and Quinones organize twice-monthly story times in the preschool class at the Atkinson Child Development Center.

“Our outreach initiative to HomeFront is supported by the PLAY (Preschool Literacy and You) grant,” said Bowlin. “This grant supports early literacy outreach efforts beyond the walls of the library specifically targeted to bring the love of reading and books to families that may not have access to resources and materials that promote, support and encourage early literacy.”

“About once a month we bring along individual gift bags filled with literature about early literacy, including songs and rhymes and book lists for babies and preschool children,” Quinones added. “Also included in these bags are two books purchased with the money from the PLAY grant. These bags are given to our contacts at HomeFront to share with the families as new babies are born or arrive at HomeFront.”

The story times are a big hit with HomeFront’s young clients who participate in this outreach effort.

“The kids really look forward to seeing Ms. Mimi and Ms. Caroline with their big plastic box,” said preschool teacher Shaneica Kutisha. “The librarians are wonderful — funny and creative. Every visit is like an effortless show; the kids don’t realize that they’ve learned a new song, dance or vocabulary word. They help to make my job as an educator easier with their wonderful box of goodies!”

Involvement with students doesn’t end in preschool. Youth Services staff are out in Princeton’s elementary schools every spring to promote summer reading, and whole classes of kindergarteners and sixth-graders are invited to tour the library to learn all they can do in the building. In addition, staff go into John Witherspoon Middle School to practice the librarian’s artform: booktalking, a kind of spoken word performance intended to spur interest in a particular title or in reading in general.

“Our JWMS booktalking visits are my favorite days of the year,” said Teen Services Librarian Jocelyn Jimenez. “They require a lot of prep and it’s a long day, as we see an entire grade (around 300 students) over the course of one day, but the benefits of doing so are worth every second. Besides the fact that following the visit, our circulation stats increase significantly, it is so exciting to see teens rush to the library after school looking for the books we talked about. It’s also funny to hear them try to reiterate the premise of the book because they forgot the title, things like ‘They said it was about a train and an old guy,’ ‘Something about mummies coming back to life.’ It’s very entertaining to witness, but also shows that they’re listening and paying attention when we visit them. This year, our Teen Advisory Board members stressed how much they miss the book talks from middle school, so much so that we’re going to try to see if we can replicate it on a high school level.”

Whether to encourage a variety of literacies or to connect people with others in the community who are trying to contribute to the greater good, there is a growing demand for the library’s outreach services, one the staff is happy to fulfill.

“We do outreach to other libraries and other organizations to learn ways that they deepen their understanding of community and ways that they work to build community to inform the collaborations we cultivate,” Dorman said. “Collaboration can be challenging but it is important for a holistic approach to society to share resources, expertise and knowledge thoughtfully. Everyone has something of value to offer.”