by Jennifer Peters

Adolfo Garcia, Library Director at the Pharr Memorial Library in the Rio Grande Valley, TX, credits his training at the Harwood Public Innovators Lab for revitalizing plans for a long-awaited library building in Las Milpas, a former colonia in the south part of Pharr.  Mr. Garcia applied principles from the Harwood Lab to approach the community about what it needed in a new library. “What I learned helped me reorient my approach and ask the community what they wanted in a library building,” says Mr. Garcia. What he heard led him to consider a shared library/community center. Thanks to Mr. Garcia’s efforts and partnerships with new city leadership, the City of Pharr Development and Research Center breaks ground on March 24, 2016.

Bringing the Harwood Public Innovators Lab to Texas was just one program developed as part of the Texas State Library and Archives Commission’s (TSLAC) targeted focus on community engagement. TSLAC provides opportunities for libraries to become better engaged with their communities, with the goal of helping libraries raise their profile and demonstrate their value. With a full-time staff person devoted to community engagement, TSLAC has developed partnerships that connect libraries with workforce organizations, early childhood and adult literacy providers, community leaders, nonprofit organizations, and volunteers.

“We are very excited about ways libraries are contributing to building sustainable communities,” said Mark Smith, Director and State Librarian of the Texas State Library and Archives Commission. “The public has discovered that libraries are essential to learning, technology, workforce development and economic growth in large and small places all across Texas.”

Recently, TSLAC partnered with the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) on the TWC’s Training, Resource and Innovation Network for Texas (TRAIN TEX) initiative. TSLAC will receive $200,000 in workforce dollars to bring together libraries and adult literacy providers in regional workshops focused on digital literacy.

TSLAC also supports the Edge, the first-ever set of public access technology benchmarks for public libraries. TSLAC has purchased a statewide subscription so that any accredited library can take the assessment for free and share results with local leaders and their community. San Antonio Public Library integrated Edge benchmark data on broadband speed and backup requirements into their discussions with local officials, and doubled their IT budget.

Ongoing community engagement activities include regular feedback from an Advisory Committee comprised of representatives from different library types, a webpage and email list to share best practices and discussion on community engagement issues, the development of online and face-to-face training opportunities, and partnerships with the statewide literacy coalition, numerous state agencies, and other state libraries in support of veterans’ issues, summer food programs, volunteerism, and access to online resources.

The community engagement initiative is made possible by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to the Texas State Library and Archives Commission under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act.