Librarians play an active, though often unintentional, role in the out-of-school time (OST) field. Libraries are safe spaces, resource hubs, and community centers for children and teens during OST hours; they are places for young people who otherwise might not have anywhere to go. As young people pour into libraries in the afternoons, on weekends,…

Family engagement is a shared responsibility among families, educators, and communities to support children's learning and development. For families, it is about the knowledge, attitudes, values, and behaviors that enable children to be motivated, enthusiastic, and successful learners. For libraries, this means having respectful partnerships with…

Each year, Colorado public libraries offer engaging summer reading programs to encourage children and teens to read for fun and to prevent summer learning loss. In summer 2014, the Colorado State Library invited Colorado public libraries to ask parents in their communities to help evaluate the effectiveness of these programs by completing a…

The Friends of the Pikes Peak Library District (PPLD) had a legacy website that was remotely hosted and maintained by a volunteer. They wanted a more significant presence on PPLD.org and an easier interface with which to update information. The developers decided to create a new Friends site in Drupal, using RWD, CSS3, and HTML5. The plan was to…

More than 60,000 students attend over seventy schools comprising the Douglas County School District (DCSD) in Colorado. It has been a consistently high-performing district, with a reputation for being among Colorado's elite. Douglas County Libraries (DCL) is a nationally recognized state-of-the-art public library system with seven branches serving…

This report shares the statistical trends for public library use in Colorado before and since the onset of the latest recession. It also includes the voices of librarians from around the state, offering their observations and stories of how public libraries are helping in these difficult times. To determine the impact of the Great Recession on use…

In 2008, researchers at the Library Research Service (LRS) undertook the "U.S. Public Libraries and the Use of Web Technologies" study, with the intent to document the use of various Internet technologies on the websites of public libraries throughout the nation (Lietzau, 2009). The results of that study set a baseline for the adoption…

This article features Naturita Community Library (NCL), winner of "LJ"'s 2011 Best Small Library in America Award, sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The library is the largest straw bale library in America. It sits on the western slope of the Rockies, across the Uncompahgre Plateau from the county seat in Montrose,…

Beyond the sprawling Denver International Airport, there's little to put Adams County, Colorado, on the map. The region's light rail only stretches south, so Adams County, a mostly working-class zone to the northeast, has come late to growth. There's no central city; the community is dominated by strip malls, big-box stores, and new developments.…

Despite the recent turmoil in the U.S. economy, most libraries that were tracked by "Library Journal" won their referenda at a rate just slightly lower than 2007. Nearly three-quarters of operating referenda passed. Building referenda under $10 million passed at a whopping 85%, with those over $10 million batting slightly better than…

In this article, the authors share how cloud-based applications, such as Google Calendar, Wikidot, Google Docs, Google Sites, YouTube, and Craigslist, played a big part in the success of their plan of implementing a technology training program for customers and employees. A few years ago the Denver Public Library, where the authors work, developed…

It's well known that technology is changing at an increasingly rapid pace and that many public libraries throughout the United States are attempting to adopt new technologies to better reach their patrons. In trade journals, blogs, and at library conferences, professionals in the field have continually discussed the best methods for using web…

In the last few years, technology-savvy librarians have begun turning their attention to a host of new tools to connect with their users and colleagues. The umbrella term for these new technologies--Web 2.0--began gaining traction in 2004. Many librarians were quick to embrace the new wave of technology. Early adopting libraries used blogs to…

Issues 283 through 289 of "Fast Facts" from the Library Research Service present data collected from libraries in Colorado and throughout the nation. Topics addressed in these "Fast Facts" from 2010 include the relationship between computer access in libraries and use of traditional services, analysis of the third year of data…

In the past decade, economic development experts have moved away from traditional approaches to economic development that have relied upon recruiting or attracting large businesses with offers of tax breaks, financial incentives, and other subsidies. Increasingly, communities are focusing their economic development resources on supporting the…