CADL, ready to help students and the community for the school year
As children across the region are preparing for the beginning of a new school year, Capital Area District Libraries (CADL) is eagerly preparing for another year of providing impactful services to our communities.
The year ahead may have looked different if it weren’t for the support of residents in Ingham County and part of Eaton County, who passed our millage restore vote by 69 percent! Our heartfelt thanks goes out to everyone who helped spread the word and who came out to vote. That level of support tells us that people love their libraries and appreciate the value we add to their communities.
Now, it’s time to get back to business. We’re more than halfway through the year and we still have an abundance of programs to host, services to provide and work to be done.
So, what can you expect from us the rest of the year? You can expect us to support students throughout the school year with our Student Success Initiative. We believe that, no matter where they live, students should have the tools they need to succeed. That’s why we’ve partnered with local school districts to provide more than 20,000 students with access to our educational resources, including books, audiobooks, magazines and more. To learn more, visit CADL.org/success.
Not only will we support students, but we will continue to support learners of all ages with our wide variety of events and learning tools. Our littlest learners can join us for storytimes, while our school-age learners can join us after the bell rings for some STEAM activities.
Don’t worry, we haven’t forgotten about our adult learners! We’ll host programs to help members practice for the USCIS Naturalization Test as well as programs that involve cooking, crafting and more. In addition to attending our programs, our members can further their education online by utilizing several free learning tools that are included with their library card, such as LinkedIn Learning, Kanopy and hoopla.
You can also anticipate us to continue removing barriers for our members. In June 2021, we made the decision to go fine free and we eliminated the daily fines charged to overdue items. It’s been just over a year since we’ve implemented this policy and we’ve welcomed back individuals and families who were no longer using the library. We’re also getting our items back earlier than when we were charging fines. Now that we've seen the positive impact of no longer charging fines, we'll shift our focus to decreasing other barriers to library use.
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Our Library of Things is also assisting us in removing barriers that our members might encounter. Don’t have access to the internet? Borrow one of our mobile hotspots. Don’t have the means for transportation? Check out one of our 31-Day CATA Bus passes. These are just some of the items offered in our Library of Our Things and our collection is constantly growing to meet our members’ needs.
There’s a lot to be excited about as we enter the last chapter of the year, but above all else, we’re most excited about continuing our mission of empowering our communities to learn, imagine and connect.
Scott Duimstra is the executive director at Capital Area District Libraries.
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Back to the books (and more) for CADL
