Empower Hour Episode 12: More Than Books with Jeanine Birkenfeld

So what role do you play in helping reduce social isolation, especially among the older population?

We have lots of programming for seniors.

Um, I personally go to, um, several assisted living and memory care facilities, and do, uh, Stories for Life programming.

And those are, we have kits that you, even the public can reserve.

There's thematic kits, mm, maybe a seasonal kit, or a holiday kit, or- Um, classic commercials or we just have all sorts of themes, and they're filled with books and, um, movies and trivia, and they're just r- very engaging.

So we try to reach out to those patrons and provide them with enrichment opportunities, um, that, that are based on, you know, books and materials that we have available at the library.

Um, we also, just the branches host just such creative programming for seniors, um, contract bridge and yoga for seniors and, um, patrons, uh, dealing with Alzheimer's or families dealing with Alzheimer's.

Um, we have the One, we host the One Read every year, which is a community-wide, um, reading initiative where we choose a title, and then we have, the whole month of April, we host programming related to the themes in the book.

We hold book discussion groups-

Mm-hmm

... related to the title, and then our, um, final, uh, hoorah is we bring the author in for an interview.

Oh, nice.

This past year we did The Briar Club with Kate Quinn, and we had her come, and she's a pretty big author, so it's a neat initiative.

We also have, um, the Winter Reading Challenge every year.

It starts at the beginning of the year, and people have a couple of months to, to read a certain number of titles based on, um, certain genres or themes, and then they, um, they get a, a brand-new beautiful mug-

Oh, wow

... that's, um, different every year, so you can collect them.

Um, yeah, so we, we host a ton of programs for seniors.

Do you think you guys are setting the standard for libraries nationwide as far as... or are you just staying with the times and other libraries are already doing this?

Well, I would like to think we are on the cutting edge of public library service.

You really have expanded your services, yeah.

We really have.

Um, but I do think public libraries around the nation are, have really diversified and are trying to change with the times to offer relevant materials and programming for the patrons to engage and enrich people's lives.