Minnesota Good Neighbor Grant: Profiles, Cont.

Congratulations to all recipients of MALF’s Minnesota Good Neighbor Grant. Over the next eblasts, we will continue to profile each of the April-June grant recipients. Next up:

Friends of the Benson Public Library: With a population just shy of 3,500, the west-central Minnesota town of Benson faces a challenge familiar to many rural communities of its type: outside of school-sponsored extracurriculars, local youth have few recreational or social outlets. Benson Public Library has tried to step into that void, at least as far as budgetary resources allow. Most recently, library staff piloted a teens-only craft night.

The good news? It proved enormously popular. The bad news? The library lacks the funds to purchase the supplies required to make this a sustainable, ongoing program. The Friends of the Benson Public Library have pledged their support to bridging this financial gap for these increasingly popular teen craft nights. They, in turn, tapped a Minnesota Good Neighbor Grant to offset the cost of all that construction paper, popsicle sticks, decoupage, string, and beads.
 
Friends of the Anoka County Library: The character of Anoka County is quickly evolving. According to recent statistics, foreign-born residents compose over 10% of the county’s population, and it is estimated that 14% of residents (aged 5+) speak a language other than English in the home. Anoka County Library terms these households as “LOTE” (speaking Languages Other Than English). Perhaps unsurprisingly, given these demographic trends, ACL identified these families are a focus area in its strategic plan.

As one means to that end, the Library recently established a World Language Collection. The Friends of the Anoka County Library have committed to supporting the growth of this collection, which is harder than it may first appear. Cataloging books in Spanish, Arabic, Somali, Hmong and Russian (the targeted LOTE languages) comes at a greater cost than English titles – and acquisition prices are typically higher as well. The Friends sought and received a grant from MALF to augment the World Language Collection with 15 adult fiction, 17 adult nonfiction, and 24 youth titles. It’s a healthy start!