“Having Fun Isn’t Hard When You Have A Library Card:” Community Partnerships Between Public and Academic Libraries
Public libraries and small college libraries often run into similar difficulties - not enough funding, not enough staff, and struggles with in-person engagement. Similarly, university students can easily become insulated from the greater community, leading to poor town-gown relations, and resentment on the part of the great community. Over the past few decades, college students have struggled with increasing pressures. While extensive pleasure-reading collections are generally out of scope for academic libraries, public libraries are more likely to have collections of popular audio and print books. With college students often having out-of-state (or out-of-country) permanent addresses, they often do not realize they can get a public library card at all.
Partnering with the local public library can be a powerful resource-sharing and outreach opportunity. For the past several years, Barnard College in New York has worked with nearby branches of NYPL on increasing inter-library support. Utilizing on-campus library card signup drives, shared outreach of workshops and events, Barnard Personal Librarians alongside several NYPL librarians from three local branches work together to share resources with each other’s patrons in order to expand community despite budget limitations.