by Gail A. Komer, Head of Youth Services, Frankfort Public Library

The Frankfort Public Library District (http://www.frankfortlibrary.org) is located in a south suburb of Chicago.  The Village of Frankfort was recently ranked the 36th fastest growing suburb by Forbes magazine.  The library serves a population of 28,716 residents, including many young families with children.

I have been Head of Youth Services for almost four years, and have seen the library move forward by instituting a Dewey Free project in Adult Services, add additional staff, and market new programs to the public.

Over the past year, we began collaborating with the KidsWork Children’s Museum (http://www.kidsworkchildrensmuseum.org) located in downtown Frankfort.  KidsWork opened as an emerging museum in December, 2008 and became a full museum in June, 2009.  To date, over 10,000 guests have come through their doors, entering the 6,700 square foot museum. 

Our partnership with the museum was initiated by our Library Director, Pierre Gregoire.  Starting in Spring 2009 and then again this fall the library entered into an outreach program with the museum by providing once a month literature-based programs for children ages 3 to 6 at the museum.  We will be conducting these evening sessions again during the 2009-2010 school year.

This collaboration has brought additional exposure for the library to families who may not have been aware of the library programs, databases and other services we offer and the museum adds a literary component to their learning opportunities.

This past summer Jennifer Erbach in our Youth Services Department wrote an LSTA grant for books with an audio CD component.  We partnered again with the museum, with plans to house the bulk of this new collection at the library, but providing a rotating collection to the museum which will include listening stations. The library was able to inform the museum about getting a travelling kiosk to house for several months as a museum exhibit.

Libraries looking to start a partnership with a local organization may want to check to see if any of their board members are active in an organization that might be a good match for partnering.  One of our board members was on the committee that started up the museum.  We started small with the evening program however our museum partnership continues to grow.  Hopefully in the future, we will be able to share resources, ideas, and much more.

Questions about this article should be emailed to MLS Consulting at consultants@mls.lib.il.us.

Published December 2, 2009 in vol. 3, iss. 23 [View]