Submitted by Regan Schwartz, School Librarian, Passages Academy
The Passages Academy Libraries team enjoyed the opportunity to share our experiences creating and growing arts programs and partnerships in our libraries during the ALA Conference in Chicago this summer. Serving New York City’s youth in detention, nonsecure detention, and nonsecure placement requires a certain amount of creativity and flexibility – both key components to successful collaborations in the arts. Using our long-running partnership with the Museum of Modern Art as a focal point, we discussed the key components of a good partnership, the process of initiating and building a partnership with an arts institution or organization, and presented a range of arts programs that we have successfully run in our libraries – from making bookmarks and origami on our own to making skulls with Noah Scalin and masks with MoMA. More information on our library programming can be found on our blog: whatsgoodinthelibrary.blogspot.com.