By Mary Kearns-Kaplan, Adult Outreach Services Coordinator, NJ State Library Talking Book & Braille Center. mkaplan@njstatelib.org   New Jersey is home to over 300 public libraries.  Garden State residents are fortunate to have so many public libraries, many located in the heart of our hundreds of boroughs and municipalities.  The New Jersey State Library Talking...

by Wendy Knapp As a branch (arm, division, bureau, etc.) of state government, state libraries are uniquely poised to be a major player in statewide celebrations such as a Bicentennial.  Indiana turns 200 years old in 2016, and has been planning for the party(ies) for the last 4 years.  As the previous governor was leaving...

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...

by Mary J. Soucie Each year, the North Dakota State Library partners with the Bismarck Veterans Memorial Public Library, the Morton Mandan Public Library, the State Historical Society of North Dakota, and Midcontinent Communications to host a Summer Reading Celebration at the North Dakota Heritage Center and State Museum on the State Capitol grounds. This event...

by Sara White, Assistant Branch Manager & Youth Services Librarian Seminole County Public Library (FL) In 2013 I transferred to a new branch in my library system, and inherited the job of hosting a bimonthly Special Needs Storytime. I had never hosted a Special Needs Storytime before, but my library system’s philosophy was that it...