Lone Star Grant Pushes Austin Library's Reach

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By Lauren Barack -- School Library Journal, 02/08/2010

Austin Public Library’s (APL) youth services group gets together each year to figure out a budget for its wildly popular summer reading program.

“And every year that gets scrapped because we’re always asked to cut the budget,” says Kanya Lyons, APL’s public information specialist.

Second Chance Books brings public librarians to the Gardner Betts Juvenile Detention Center in Texas to work with teachers and teens.

Luckily, a recent $300,000 grant from the Lone Star Libraries will meet this summer’s need. It’s a source of funds that Austin has received for the past several years—but one they have to apply for annually and is not guaranteed. As the recession has worsened, and other funds have dried up, such as one that local firm Austin Energy had awarded the library in the past, APL has come to rely on the Lone Star grant in particular.

“It’s our biggest grant,” says Lyons.

While the summer reading program uses about $36,502 of the grant, another project that APL runs from the award is Second Chance Books, which brings public librarians to the Gardner Betts Juvenile Detention Center to work with teachers and their 11- to 17-year-olds to help build and maintain their collections. APL also uses the grant to maintain and run its Web applications including Twitter, Facebook, and blogs, as well as fund its customer services so that more people can access the library—even remotely.

And that’s exactly what the grant is designed to do—help libraries that are part of the Texas Library System provide free services to those communities that might sit outside their normal areas.

The need for these free services, plus the opportunity to watch a movie during the summer or use a computer, is critical now more than ever as the recession has hit families across the country. More than 20.3 million Americans visited their local public library in 2006. But that number jumped to 25 million as of January 2009, just after the recession began, according to the American Library Association.

With the library receiving the grant just recently, specifics for this summer’s reading program are still being planned. But patrons can at least now count on it returning.

“With the economic downturn, this is a free thing families can do with their kids,” says Lyons. “And that’s important, especially in the summer.”