Many librarians work in public libraries to make a difference for children, families, and communities and identify family and community engagement as a cornerstone of their responsibilities. For librarians to be successful they must be afforded strong foundations in family and community engagement that begin early in their preparation. Yet little…

Because schools are the heart and soul of a community, educational leaders have a responsibility to bring the community into the school, as well as to make the school a part of the surrounding community. This volume in the "Soul of Educational Leadership" series goes beyond administrative skills to examine educators' pivotal role of leading family…

Presents text from the vision statement for family friendly libraries to help citizens who are experiencing difficulties with public library system policies of the American Library Association. Describes five articles from the statement: traditional family emphasis, parental library rights, respect for standards and laws, respect for minors, and…

The Youth Services Director of the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County, NC, has involved the community in encouraging children to read with summer reading programs, story-telling festivals, author and illustrator visits to schools, family reading programs for babies through kindergartners, and a year-round middle school reading…

This book covers the steps involved in developing a library-based family literacy program, as well as questions of support and funding. Chapter 1 defines family literacy, provides historical perspective, and explains the need for such programs. Several well-established, successful family literacy programs are described in Chapter 2. Chapter 3…

This document consists of 10 issues of the newsletter "Community Update," containing articles on community and family involvement in education. Article topics include: preparing America's future teachers; reports on satellite town meetings; E-rate (education rate) discounts for telecommunications services in schools and libraries;…