Teton Library Main Branch - Teton County Library

As we enter our third year as a Family Place library it is clear just how much the Family Place Library network has transformed and shaped our youth services department into a trusted community resource for all things early-childhood-related. Every aspect of our early childhood programming, collections, and space has been impacted for the better by the Family Place framework.Now that we have successfully re-organized our Youth Wing to make space for the Parenting collection, we have seen a dramatic shift in the way families of young children use our library. Families are thrilled with the way our Parenting collection is right next to our Early Literacy room (the space in which we keep developmentally appropriate toys and board books in our Youth Wing) so that parents can browse while children play. New parents entering our library for the first time often ask two questions: if we have books for very young children, and if we have books about parenting. It is wonderful to not only be able to answer “yes” to both questions, but also for patrons to be able to utilize both resources at the same time.This re-organization has also opened new collection possibilities regarding early childhood materials. In 2019 our Youth Services team worked hard to create our “1,000 Books Before Kindergarten” collection (or 1KB4K), which is a series of tote bags with ten picture or board books each that parents can check out and bring home to read to their children in an effort to increase Kindergarten readiness in our community. This collection is located right by our Youth Auditorium, where we conduct all of our early childhood programming, so parents can attend a program with their child, easily grab a kit of 10 books whose quality has been vetted by library staff, without the hassle of locating and carrying an armful of picture books while keeping an eye on their child. Not a day goes by that we don’t hear many excited comments from patrons about this collection!Families have come to rely on many of our programs for regular scheduled, positive, educational experiences. Baby Time continues to be a popular program, and parents love the informal structure this Family Place program provides. With its drop-in nature, parents don’t have to stress that they will not arrive on time, and can instead enjoy time with their children at their leisure in a safe, appropriate, and fun library setting.Our Parent/ Child workshop (that we call “1,2,3, Play With Me!” in English and “¡1,2,3, Juega Conmigo!” in Spanish) has grown in popularity every time we offer it, through both our outreach efforts and word-of-mouth advertising from satisfied participants. Adding an additional Spanish session allowed us to take the already-constructed framework and adapt it to reach another community entirely. The fact that Family Place already offers most of the Parent/ Child Workshop materials in Spanish made this process extremely streamlined, so staff could focus on finding just-right Community Resource Professionals and making connections with families.As was the case with English speaking families who participated in the Parent/ Child workshop, we’ve noticed that through the program our Spanish speaking families were able to learn about even more of our programs, and we saw increased attendance in our Storytimes, Baby Times, and other early literacy family programming, or simply coming to the library to enjoy the Early Literacy Room any day of the week. The Parent/ Child workshop continues to be an effective way to introduce new families not only to outside Community Resource professionals they otherwise would not have met, but to the library itself, and our collections, programs, and staff.It has been an exciting time at the Teton County Library with a lot of positive changes due to the Family Place Library network, and we are excited to see how we can expand upon the framework that has done so much for our library and our community already.