Gone are the days where libraries were the quiet home for the Dewey Decimal System, free of the modern innovations that are associated with other media; modern libraries more closely resemble multimedia entertainment areas than the libraries of even five years ago. To make sure that your municipality is bringing the best library services to the community, review the following resources about innovative library practices, and ask yourself: “Are we making the most out of our library?”

• This post from PM’s Editor, Beth Payne on PM’s May cover story on Library innovations makes a case for assessing the state of your library and offering new programs. You can read the PM story here.
• Review this Professional Fellow’s thoughts on her trip to the Snoqualmie Library, and learn about their morning children’s programs.
• The City of Virginia Beach, Virginia decided to work with a local community college to build a joint library after they realized that they each had plans to develop libraries on cites directly across the street from one another.
• Interested in making a change? Read through this document from the Town of Innisfil, Ontario for information on transforming the role of the public library.
• As your community prepares to celebrate National Book Month, be sure to review the celebration resources in Alexandra Iannolo’s post on the In the Know blog.

Can you improve your community’s library programming? Share your thoughts and stories in the comments section below; and be sure to check out the Libraries topic page and recent library-related questions for more opportunities to gain and share library-management knowledge.

Aloha,

James Davidson

James Davidson is an intern for ICMA’s Knowledge Network. You can reach him for questions and comments atjdavidson@icma.org.