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Combining laundry time and storytime is not a new concept, but the Laundry and Literacy Coalition — a recent partnership between the LaundryCares Foundation, Libraries Without Borders and the Clinton Foundation’s Too Small to Fail initiative — is taking it a step further, piloting a project to install literacy spaces for kids under 6 years of age in 600 laundromats by 2020. It’s a joint effort to make early literacy programs available to underserved communities via laundromats nationwide.

Intent on finding a safe place to spend the day, the elderly woman trudged into the public library, burdened with several bags of precious possessions. She was immediately greeted by the sight of a library worker thrusting out a hand and snapping, “No, you can’t bring those things in here.” “She said she felt like she was being struck,” explains Caroline Sharkey. A licensed clinical social worker (LCSW) on the faculty of the University of Georgia’s School of Social Work in Athens, Sharkey...

We are excited to offer an exclusive virtual screening to all ACEs Connection members of the new, acclaimed film, CRACKED UP . This documentary film is about the long term effects of childhood trauma, told through Saturday Night Live veteran Darrell Hammond’s journey in discovering adverse childhood experiences at the root of his lifelong battle with self-harm, addiction, and misdiagnosis. The film’s director, Michelle Esrick, and other special guests will join us after the screening window...

Books on Indigenous communities often get looped into the history section. As a result, information on Native peoples literally gets left in the past. Xwi7xwa Library (pronounced whei-wha) at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, is working to change that. The library aims to counter Western, colonial bias and better reflect the knowledge of Indigenous peoples. By offering an alternative to the widely used Dewey Decimal and Library of Congress classification systems, this...

Months before its release, friends and family began sending me links to the movie trailer for “The Public.” It made them think of me, they said. In the film, a passion project of actor-director Emilio Estevez, homeless patrons, unable to face another night in the subzero Cincinnati winter, refuse to leave, and “occupy” the public library. While critics and moviegoers may view aspects of “The Public” as dramatic license, for me it was the first time I ever saw my job reflected on the screen...

Community rallies around library with art after vandalism incident March 30, 2019 — The Siuslaw Public Library turned an act of vandalism into an opportunity for art and free speech this week, as community members of all ages helped create public art to place over the library’s recently broken windows. A total of eight pieces of “pop-up” art were hung over the library’s recently destroyed windows, with each panel representing differing questions such as “What do you love about the library?”...

The first five years of a child’s life are critical for language exposure, but studies suggest children in lower-income families often don’t experience the rich literary environment wealthier kids do. A New York City initiative trying to close that gap encourages reading in a spot families visit every week -- but don't usually consider educational. Special correspondent Lisa Stark reports. [For more on this story by Lisa Stark, go to...

Five-year-old Logan Brinson opened Logan’s Little Library right on his front lawn after his family found out their new hometown didn’t have a library. Ever since, the little library trend has taken off. To view the 4-minute video clip, please click here.

For many years, the Library of Congress categorized many of its books under a controversial subject heading: “Illegal aliens.” But then, on March 22, 2016, the library made a momentous decision, announcing that it was canceling the subject heading “Illegal aliens” in favor of “Noncitizens” and “Unauthorized immigration.” However, the decision was overturned a few months later, when the House of Representatives ordered the library to continue using the term “illegal alien.” They said they...

Athens-Clarke County now has one of the first “trauma-informed” libraries in the country, where employees are trained to recognize patrons who need help and direct them to services. “Athens is a remarkable city, yet it also faces extraordinary disparities and social risk factors,” says program coordinator Caroline Sharkey. The ACC Library is a hub of activity at any given moment, buzzing with individuals from all walks of life, seeking the library and its resources for any number of reasons.

When county departments presented their budget needs to commissioners, Library Director Trina Rushing asked for a position one may not associate with a library. It’s a position, however, that would help county residents in need connect to services that could make a difference in their lives: a social worker. A wide swath of the community comes through the library’s doors every day, Rushing said, and many of them have a variety of needs. They could be homeless looking for basic needs like...

When you first hear about it, it sounds unlikely, fact that something that happened to someone in utero, at the age of two months, or four years, or any time in childhood, is what is killing them as an adult, or making them want to die, or making them want to hurt themselves or others. Yet the connection between childhood trauma and adult disease, mental illness, addiction, suicide, violence – most all of society’s ills – is as irrefutable as the myriad truths revealed about it in the...