Kids Still Flock to Libraries in Howard County

Despite Wiis, cell phones and Facebook, more and more students are heading to the library in Howard County.

According to Christie Lassen, director of public relations for the Howard County Library System, attendance at library classes and events in 2011 rose to approximately 223,000, a 19 percent increase over the previous year.

She attributed the success in part to a program that is nearly a decade old, which local leaders herald as a model for library systems and schools nationwide. 

Launched in 2002, the A+ Partners in Education initiative between Howard County Library and the Howard County Public School System integrates library programming throughout the school curriculum. In 2007, the A+ Partnership expanded to include Howard Community College.

Each school is assigned to one of the six library branches. The school has an instructor and the library branch has a liason who coordinate educational activities and events. 

“A lot of libraries have partnerships with schools but more on an individual level,” said Lassen. “This is one of the very few system-wide partnerships.”

Lassen said one of the reasons the partnership works is that students are introduced to the library as early as kindergarten, when they take a field trip there to begin learning what the library is all about.

“Hopefully, we hook them and they come back to the library through high school,” she said.

In addition to increasing youth participation in library programs, the initiative has resulted in more students obtaining library cards.

Nearly 3,500 students signed up for library cards through the A+ partnership in 2011, said Lassen.

A total of 41,356 cards have been generated through the partnership since its beginning in 2002.

On Tuesday, members of the Howard County School Department and the Howard County Library System  at the East Columbia branch with things like awards for bookmark designs children created that will be distributed at all the libraries this year.

“Reading is the foundation of success in any subject,” Howard County Library CEO Valerie Gross said during a 2010 taped interview about the A+ partnership, which she is credited with founding. “We’re working to keep reading high on the list of priorities for everyone including teens.”

This year, the focus of the partnership is on science, technology, engineering and math, said Lassen. In addition, the library is looking forward to opening the newly designed  in December, which will have an adjacent “enchanted garden” including vegetable plants so kids can “watch food grow.”

As for how the educational partnership is working as a model, Lassen said inquiries from outside library systems prompted the library to create an online partnership toolkit to help other systems get started.

Lassen said she is not certain whether similar projects are in the works, but that members of the library system in Wadsworth, OH, have been in touch.

“At this point, it seems like why wouldn’t you do this?” she said. “For us, it’s an opportunity; it has made our work easier. We all benefit from working together.”

It has paid off; the Howard County Library system was ranked in the top ten library systems nationwide in 2010, 2009, 2008, 2006 and 2005 by Hennen's American Public Library Ratings.

The schools have had their share of bragging rights too. In January, Maryland was recognized for having the top public school school system in the nation by Education Week, and Howard County public school officials attributed some of their success to the library.

"I often say that schools can't do it alone," said Howard County Public School System Superintendent Sydney Cousin.

"A+ Partners in Education brings together the talents and expertise of the people at three great organizations—the school system, the library and the community college—to give our students the best possible chance to achieve academic success."