by Tonya Aikens, President & CEO, Howard County Library System

It’s National Library Week! First observed in 1958, National Library Week is a time to celebrate our nation’s libraries, library staff, and promote library use and support. This year’s theme, Connect With Your Library, promotes libraries as places to connect – to technology, to learning, and, most importantly, to each other.  

We invite you to connect with us and your neighbors when you attend a class or event, participate in a book discussion group, visit an exhibit, get a passport, study or conduct research, browse the collection, or simply stop by for a visit.  

Get inspired and collaborate with others in our new makerspace at the Glenwood Branch, dream up projects with the team at our DIY Center in Elkridge, and gain new perspectives when you borrow books from our new equity collection at the Central Branch or read Brave Stories from fellow Howard Countians on our website.  

At Howard County Library System, we are focused on making connections with and between members of our community. We launched our new mobile unit last summer, bringing classes and materials to preschoolers and their families in communities less able to come to our branches.  

We reopened the renovated Glenwood Branch in December, and families are now spending hours in our new Builders Barn and interactive play spaces. After school, teens flock to the cozy booths, play games, and record raps in the recording booth at our makerspace. 

Over the past year, we also embarked on an equity journey. We formed a Racial Equity Alliance, comprising 20 people representing a broad cross-section of the community, which guides and partners with us in our racial equity work. We launched our Brave Voices, Brave Choices initiative which hosted racial equity training for more than 400 community members, collected more than 600 stories of racism, bias, and discrimination, and convened circles of people seeking to make sense of what they learned and discuss how we should move forward as a community. 

In response to requests for a physical space where people can come together to learn more about one another, to learn more about people different than them – whether that’s a different race or culture or belief or gender identity – we created an Equity Resource Center at our Central Branch. This new Center includes space to gather, for exhibits, and for a new 9,000-plus title equity collection.  

Libraries serve the entire community and provide opportunities to connect and bring people together across conversation…to hear, listen and understand our differences, to learn how we can make meaning of them, and how we can find and increase common ground. 

When we create connections, the fabric of our community is stronger. Libraries are unique places where all people, regardless of background or means, are welcome. Whether you connect with us online or in person, we hope to see you soon.