GEN: Community checkout

[Jean Townes <townesj@PEAK.ORG>]

I have wanted to do this at my school but haven't proceeded because of
time, and budget worries. I am pretty certain that many parents at
Waverly never get to the public library.  This is a low income highly
mobile population.  To encourage reading to their children (and perhaps
reading themselves) I would love to make the library available to our
parents.  I would also love to get a preschool story hour going and then
check out to parents.  The only way to do this is with grant funds.  I
started last year a conversation with the public library children's
librarian and various other people connected to preschool programs.  We
were beginning to talk about a grant proposal to fund a position out of
the public library to travel to various preschool sites (and Waverly) and
do story hours and somechecking out, but the public library children's
librarian decided he didn't want to pursue this and it fizzled.  In any
case the question for the group is--Have any of you done this with a
similar population?  Do you get most of the books returned in a
reasonable time frame?  Has your experience been mostly positive?  Our
library collection is already very marginal and I cannot afford to lose a
lot of it and have no budget to replace it.  (My book budget is $500!!)
If I wrote a grant I would obviously need to include money to beef up the
collection and provide for some replacements.  One of these days I WILL
find the time to work on a grant though when and how I don't know as I am
only half time....

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Jean Townes, Media Specialist                  townesj@PEAK.ORG
Waverly Elementary School                      Phone: 503-967-4617
Greater Albany Public Schools
425 Columbus
Albany, Or 97321
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