Supporting Public Programs in Community Libraries Nationwide

With funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Library Association has brought programs like *Latino Americans: 500 Years of History* to communities throughout the United States. Image courtesy of the American Library Association.

Since 1971, NEH funding has helped the American Library Association (ALA) bring humanities programs to libraries throughout the United States. From supporting a nationwide forum on “American Issues” in the 1970s to today’s Great Stories Club, these NEH-funded programs have expanded the capacity of public libraries to serve their communities. As a result of this history of funding, the ALA is now able to help other NEH-funded programs reach communities across the United States. Additionally, in 2020, the NEH awarded the ALA a CARES grant to help it manage the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The ALA’s most recent NEH-funded programs include Latino Americans: 500 Years of History and the Great Stories Club. Latino Americans explored 500 years of Latino influence in the United States. At its center was a six-hour documentary production by WETA, Latino Americans, which premiered on PBS. With NEH funding, ALA distributed Latino Americans to 203 libraries across the U.S. and fostered public programming that helped communities engage with the documentary. The programs served as an opportunity for communities around the United States to learn about, reflect on, and celebrate Latino contributions to American Culture. A program in Gainesville, Florida, collected oral histories from the local Cuban-American community. In California, Bakersfield College hosted a three-day symposium marking the Delano grape strike’s 50th anniversary. Through lectures, exhibitions, film screenings, and many other events, Bridging Cultures: Latino Americans connected Americans with humanities resources, helped them learn about Latino history and culture, and built regional networks among cultural institutions by connecting staff from participating programs.

The ALA’s Great Stories Club, meanwhile, supports vulnerable youth, including incarcerated youth, by helping them engage with powerful literature like Representative John Lewis’s graphic novel about the Civil Rights struggle, March, and Art Spiegelman’s Maus. Readings like these encourage youth to ask questions about the world and explore their place in it while building literacy and critical thinking skills. More broadly, the program supports teens by helping them build stronger communities. Peer discussion groups help combat feelings of isolation and depression and contact with the program helps teens build relationships with institutions that can help them. From 2015–2017, NEH funding helped the Great Stories Club reach more than 8,000 youth in communities throughout the United States. During the 2018-2019 school year, an additional 100 libraries hosted programs for underserved teens.

NEH funding has also supported programs like First Folio! The Book That Gave Us Shakespeare, which brought one of the Bard's first printed works to every state. Image courtesy of the American Library Association. — NEH funding has also supported programs like First Folio! The Book That Gave Us Shakespeare, which brought one of the Bard’s first printed works to every state. Image courtesy of the American Library Association.

A library visitor gazes at a rare First folio, the collection of William Shakespeare's plays that was published in 1623. Image courtesy of the American Library Association. — A library visitor gazes at a rare First folio, the collection of William Shakespeare’s plays that was published in 1623. Image courtesy of the American Library Association.

The ALA is the world’s largest and oldest library association and its extensive reach makes the organization an ideal partner for other institutions that receive NEH funding. Currently, ALA is helping Citizen Film, Inc. facilitate community conversations in libraries across the country surrounding the documentary American Creed. Each of the 50 participating libraries will receive a copy of the film with public screening rights and a small grant to support public programming. ALA has offered similar support to the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History’s Revisiting the Founding Era program and the Folger Shakespeare Library’s national program, First Folio! The Book That Gave Us Shakespeare, connecting these large research institutions with community libraries in every state.