Planning time has come for the aforementioned 2012 ACL Institute. I'm hopeful that the planning process and the Institute itself will be an unprecedented opportunity to talk about, strengthen, and create ties between public libraries and the food justice community.
If you'd like to help with planning, come to our first meeting: this Thursday, Nov. 17, at 5:45pm at the Brown Couch Cafe, 340 14th St. in Oakland. Library employees, aficionados, and students interested in connecting families and food are invited!
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Thursday, October 13, 2011
From Oakland to New York to Sesame Street, Kids are Hungry
This New York Times article on the childhood hunger epidemic in Alameda County has been making the rounds at my work.
One noteworthy point the article makes: at some of the 90n or so Oakland schools that serve free breakfast to students, the meal has been incorporated into the first instructional period of the day. Translation: kids are eating in class. And it works better for everybody. Of course it's distracting, but teachers were finding that the alternative to eating in class wasn't that kids eat earlier--it was that they don't eat. Since kids can't learn or function on an empty stomach, having breakfast as soon as they get to school means they are more attentive, more alert, more responsive in class.
Meanwhile, down on Sesame Street....
PBS introduced a new Muppet this past Sunday: Lily, a seven-year-old child whose family deals with food insecurity. It's sort of heartbreaking that hunger among children is widespread enough that Sesame Street producers felt the need to create a new character for kids to relate to, someone likable on a show they trust who also does not know where her food will come from on any given day. But I think it's exciting that Sesame Street is taking on the topic.
Did you watch?
(Here's a Millennial confession for you: I didn't, because I literally could not identify a nearby friend with access to network television. Everyone in my area watches tv on the internet. Hope PBS makes this available online...)
One noteworthy point the article makes: at some of the 90n or so Oakland schools that serve free breakfast to students, the meal has been incorporated into the first instructional period of the day. Translation: kids are eating in class. And it works better for everybody. Of course it's distracting, but teachers were finding that the alternative to eating in class wasn't that kids eat earlier--it was that they don't eat. Since kids can't learn or function on an empty stomach, having breakfast as soon as they get to school means they are more attentive, more alert, more responsive in class.
Meanwhile, down on Sesame Street....
PBS introduced a new Muppet this past Sunday: Lily, a seven-year-old child whose family deals with food insecurity. It's sort of heartbreaking that hunger among children is widespread enough that Sesame Street producers felt the need to create a new character for kids to relate to, someone likable on a show they trust who also does not know where her food will come from on any given day. But I think it's exciting that Sesame Street is taking on the topic.
Did you watch?
(Here's a Millennial confession for you: I didn't, because I literally could not identify a nearby friend with access to network television. Everyone in my area watches tv on the internet. Hope PBS makes this available online...)
Ulterior motives, and the 2012 ACL Institute
Some of you know that a not-so-secret purpose of this blog is to aid the planning of the 2012 ACL Institute. Let me talk a little about that!
ACL is the Association of Children's Librarians, "an association of people interested in library work with children and young adults." It happens to be mostly public librarians, school librarians, library school students, and people who were formerly one of these things, but it is open to all. Members meet once a month to share book reviews and produce the monthly newsletter Bayviews. We have among our ranks reviewers for School Library Journal, Kirkus, and Horn Book; past members (and chairs) of the Newbery Committee; activists; leaders; people who make decisions every day about how library resources are made available for the children in their community.
Each spring, ACL presents a conference on some aspect of children's librarianship, known as the ACL Institute. Our forthcoming Institute (date tba but probably April 2012) will be called "Eat the Library," and will present panel discussions and workshops on food and libraries and how they intersect.
Planning has just begun, so keep watching this space for details about the event. Below is a rough framework for possible panel topics. Consider it an appetizer!
ACL is the Association of Children's Librarians, "an association of people interested in library work with children and young adults." It happens to be mostly public librarians, school librarians, library school students, and people who were formerly one of these things, but it is open to all. Members meet once a month to share book reviews and produce the monthly newsletter Bayviews. We have among our ranks reviewers for School Library Journal, Kirkus, and Horn Book; past members (and chairs) of the Newbery Committee; activists; leaders; people who make decisions every day about how library resources are made available for the children in their community.
Each spring, ACL presents a conference on some aspect of children's librarianship, known as the ACL Institute. Our forthcoming Institute (date tba but probably April 2012) will be called "Eat the Library," and will present panel discussions and workshops on food and libraries and how they intersect.
Planning has just begun, so keep watching this space for details about the event. Below is a rough framework for possible panel topics. Consider it an appetizer!
Libraries nationwide are positing themselves as core services in cities, part of the social safety net. Contrary to longstanding cries of “no food in the library!,” some libraries are offering just that: community gardens, seed libraries, programs on healthy eating, books that advocate healthy eating and activity, help getting food stamps, and even free meals for kids.
How can we in the Bay Area incorporate the healthy food trend into our libraries? What impacts will it have if we do?
Possible panels/forums:
- Incorporating gardening/food growing/seed lending into the library.
- Food distribution at the library
- Breastfeeding and feeding young children in the library.
- How is Hunger Impacting Your Patrons?
- A “best cookbooks for kids” browsing session and hands-on demo---and we can eat what people make!
BIBLIOGRAPHY: I see ACL producing a booklet for libraries on steps to take, at varying levels of commitment, to adopt each of the ideas discussed that morning. For example:
PLANTING at Your LibraryEASY: Purchase and display books on container gardening, urbangardening, and growing vegetables.MEDIUM: Connect with community gardens in your area. Invitethem to give presentations or hold meetings at your library.KIND OF HARD: Have patrons bring in potted plants from home. Createa space for them in your library. Appoint a staff person or volunteer to water them.HARD: Start a garden at your library, with the help of a Friends group orcorp of volunteers.RESOURCES:Here we can list books, and also websites, local organizations, etc that may help libraries with garden projects.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
PWNed---Patrons Who Nosh
We see you.
Sneaking a pretzel from the bag on your lap. Taking a quick bite of that sandwich and then stuffing it back in your pocket. Disappearing into the stacks with a bag of ding-dongs.
Yes, you.
Don't you know there's a rule? No food in the library?
Well, let's back up. "No food in the library" is an old chestnut, and many libraries still have it on the books. (Ha!) The arguments: people could spill on the books; bugs will come into the building; the mess; the smell; the cleanup.
These days, though, some libraries are relaxing their rules around food and drinks inside the building. I'm in favor of this, for several reasons... first and foremost being that people need to eat, and as we ask people to continue to fit library visits into their busy days, it helps a lot if they can meet their biological needs (or those of their children) while they're here. Also, one of our primary goals is to get our books into patrons' homes; surely they encounter food while they're there. The spills and smears we fear happen anyway.
Food *does* attract bugs. My library faces a yearly onslaught from the ant world every winter when the rainy season starts. Have you seen the movie 300? It's kind of like that, and the library staff are the noble, staid Greek soldiers, fighting until our last breath to hold off the unstoppable invading forces. I guess I don't have a great solution for that, aside from tighter food rules during active battle times... then again, nothing really does stop these little guys.
I'm looking forward to some good conversations about what it means to ban food in libraries, to allow some snacking, or maybe to allow food in certain areas or for programs. Does your library ask patrons to take the snacks outside? If you do allow food, what are the impacts? What are the impacts to patrons for those of us who don't allow food?
And we wish you'd share those ding-dongs.
Sneaking a pretzel from the bag on your lap. Taking a quick bite of that sandwich and then stuffing it back in your pocket. Disappearing into the stacks with a bag of ding-dongs.
Yes, you.
Don't you know there's a rule? No food in the library?
Well, let's back up. "No food in the library" is an old chestnut, and many libraries still have it on the books. (Ha!) The arguments: people could spill on the books; bugs will come into the building; the mess; the smell; the cleanup.
These days, though, some libraries are relaxing their rules around food and drinks inside the building. I'm in favor of this, for several reasons... first and foremost being that people need to eat, and as we ask people to continue to fit library visits into their busy days, it helps a lot if they can meet their biological needs (or those of their children) while they're here. Also, one of our primary goals is to get our books into patrons' homes; surely they encounter food while they're there. The spills and smears we fear happen anyway.
Food *does* attract bugs. My library faces a yearly onslaught from the ant world every winter when the rainy season starts. Have you seen the movie 300? It's kind of like that, and the library staff are the noble, staid Greek soldiers, fighting until our last breath to hold off the unstoppable invading forces. I guess I don't have a great solution for that, aside from tighter food rules during active battle times... then again, nothing really does stop these little guys.
I'm looking forward to some good conversations about what it means to ban food in libraries, to allow some snacking, or maybe to allow food in certain areas or for programs. Does your library ask patrons to take the snacks outside? If you do allow food, what are the impacts? What are the impacts to patrons for those of us who don't allow food?
And we wish you'd share those ding-dongs.
Friday, August 26, 2011
Who Here Is Hungry?
My first question to myself and to readers here is, how well do we understand hunger?
So I'll talk about my situation a bit. I work for the Oakland Public Library as a children's librarian. I live in Oakland too, and I am completely in love with my city. That doesn't mean I don't acknowledge its problems, though. Oakland's crime rate gets a lot of national attention, but what about the quieter problem of hunger?
In 2010, the Alameda County Food Bank released a comprehensive study called Hunger: the Faces and Facts, which they call "a census of hunger and food insecurity in California's seventh largest county." Food security and insecurity are concepts I'll refer to often in this blog. The World Health Organization defines food security as "both physical and economic access to food that meets people's dietary needs as well as their food preferences," and states that it is "built on three pillars:
Let's look at some statistics from Alameda County:
That's one thing I will explore in this blog. As I look out from the reference desk in my library, across the street from the Alameda County Courthouse, how many of the kids and parents I see have skipped a meal today? Which, if any, of the kids parked on the computers don't know whether an adult will provide them lunch? A new school year is starting, and according to this USA Today article, we can anticipate two-thirds of Oakland's K-8 teachers giving their students food to help them make it to lunchtime.
The ACFB report defines hunger as "the uneasy or painful sensation caused by a lack of food; the recurrent and involuntary lack of access to food." It's not hard to imagine how a child experiencing uneasiness or pain might not be a well-behaved library patron, alert and ready to engage with good books, games, and computer resources.
Here's how a handful of Oakland libraries are tackling the problem head-on this summer: by serving as free summer lunch sites. Have a look at the video in the link. I love when Chávez Branch manager Pete Villasenor points out that "because the kids have food in their belly, they're able to stay longer, and browse and check out all the great books."
Finally, if you are fortunate enough to live in or near Alameda County, be sure to visit the ACFB's "Faces of Hunger" exhibit in the Oakland City Hall Rotunda Building, on display through Sept. 2, showcasing the photos that accompany the report.
So I'll talk about my situation a bit. I work for the Oakland Public Library as a children's librarian. I live in Oakland too, and I am completely in love with my city. That doesn't mean I don't acknowledge its problems, though. Oakland's crime rate gets a lot of national attention, but what about the quieter problem of hunger?
In 2010, the Alameda County Food Bank released a comprehensive study called Hunger: the Faces and Facts, which they call "a census of hunger and food insecurity in California's seventh largest county." Food security and insecurity are concepts I'll refer to often in this blog. The World Health Organization defines food security as "both physical and economic access to food that meets people's dietary needs as well as their food preferences," and states that it is "built on three pillars:
- Food availability: sufficient quantities of food available on a consistent basis.
- Food access: having sufficient resources to obtain appropriate foods for a nutritious diet.
- Food use: appropriate use based on knowledge of basic nutrition and care, as well as adequate water and sanitation."
Let's look at some statistics from Alameda County:
- The ACFB currently serves 49,000 unduplicated individuals every week, 250,000 every year. That's 1 in 6 Alameda County residents.
- 43% of ACFB clients are children 17 and under.
- 88% of client households with a child under 5 face low food security.
- 25% of clients with kids reported an instance of not being able to buy food when their child was hungry within the last year.
That's one thing I will explore in this blog. As I look out from the reference desk in my library, across the street from the Alameda County Courthouse, how many of the kids and parents I see have skipped a meal today? Which, if any, of the kids parked on the computers don't know whether an adult will provide them lunch? A new school year is starting, and according to this USA Today article, we can anticipate two-thirds of Oakland's K-8 teachers giving their students food to help them make it to lunchtime.
The ACFB report defines hunger as "the uneasy or painful sensation caused by a lack of food; the recurrent and involuntary lack of access to food." It's not hard to imagine how a child experiencing uneasiness or pain might not be a well-behaved library patron, alert and ready to engage with good books, games, and computer resources.
Here's how a handful of Oakland libraries are tackling the problem head-on this summer: by serving as free summer lunch sites. Have a look at the video in the link. I love when Chávez Branch manager Pete Villasenor points out that "because the kids have food in their belly, they're able to stay longer, and browse and check out all the great books."
Finally, if you are fortunate enough to live in or near Alameda County, be sure to visit the ACFB's "Faces of Hunger" exhibit in the Oakland City Hall Rotunda Building, on display through Sept. 2, showcasing the photos that accompany the report.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
A Nibble of This, a Pinch of That...
Welcome to Eat the Library, a blog where I'll be collecting articles, thoughts, and images on a topic that seems like a big no-no from the start: food in the library.
Before you guiltily slip that bag of pretzels under your magazine and look over your shoulder for the descending wrathful librarian, let me tell you that where food in the library is concerned, the table is being reset. Many libraries welcome Patrons Who Nosh (pwns---pronounce it "Pohnz"), even provide the cafe that supplies their treats. In Oakland's recent budget battle, I think the revenue raising suggestion I heard most often was "hey, how about a library cafe!?"
But Eat the Library isn't just about whether we get to bring our Cheetos into the library. We'll talk about incorporating healthy food practices into your library---is there a way you can make healthy food more accessible for your patrons? Do you have young patrons who would bubble over at the thought of bringing treats to share one day from The Cooking Book? How can you, and why should you, build a community garden at your branch? And in these difficult economic times, how is hunger impacting your young patrons, or the adult patrons who accompany them? How do you know?
Let's begin with inspiration: the Calvert Eats Local program at the Calvert Library in Maryland. They hold a monthly potluck, all local ingredients, at the Prince Frederick Branch where they share food and exchange ideas for sustainable local agriculture. And I bet they bring their own plates.
--Amy
PS: The blog name? Like all great things, it came from the (collective) mouths of babes. This was a thank-you received by one of our children's librarians after she let a visiting class eat lunch in the courtyard.
Thank you, indeed.
Before you guiltily slip that bag of pretzels under your magazine and look over your shoulder for the descending wrathful librarian, let me tell you that where food in the library is concerned, the table is being reset. Many libraries welcome Patrons Who Nosh (pwns---pronounce it "Pohnz"), even provide the cafe that supplies their treats. In Oakland's recent budget battle, I think the revenue raising suggestion I heard most often was "hey, how about a library cafe!?"
But Eat the Library isn't just about whether we get to bring our Cheetos into the library. We'll talk about incorporating healthy food practices into your library---is there a way you can make healthy food more accessible for your patrons? Do you have young patrons who would bubble over at the thought of bringing treats to share one day from The Cooking Book? How can you, and why should you, build a community garden at your branch? And in these difficult economic times, how is hunger impacting your young patrons, or the adult patrons who accompany them? How do you know?
Let's begin with inspiration: the Calvert Eats Local program at the Calvert Library in Maryland. They hold a monthly potluck, all local ingredients, at the Prince Frederick Branch where they share food and exchange ideas for sustainable local agriculture. And I bet they bring their own plates.
--Amy
PS: The blog name? Like all great things, it came from the (collective) mouths of babes. This was a thank-you received by one of our children's librarians after she let a visiting class eat lunch in the courtyard.
Thank you, indeed.
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