Festival of active living - Library Stars

The winner of this year's Health and Aging category of the ALIA Library Stars was the "Festival of Active Living" held by The Hills Shire Library Service in NSW.

The three-day Festival included hobbies, health and wellbeing and lifestyle options and talks by gardening guru Sandra Ross, meditation expert Kevin Hume, media personality Ita Buttrose and author Mary Moody. Stalls were provided by community groups such as artists, knitters, yoga instructors and chiropractors. The Rock n Soul Choir really showed just how loud and vibrant libraries can be.

Objectives of the festival were:

• to change perceptions about libraries and increase awareness and usage;
  
• open opportunities for seniors to remain active and enhance their quality of life;
• to help build a vibrant, healthy and active community; and
  
• to provide avenues for seniors to connect and be part of their community.

Also worthy of a mention - the judges highly commended the Burnside Library, South Australia for "The 5 P’s of Public Libraries – Progressive Promotion, Partnerships and Popular Programs". A range of programs have been introduced to entice baby boomers into the library, where they can use their leisure time in a productive, creative and meaningful way.
The services have been categorised into three streams:

• Progressive Promotion; using technology such as Vodcasts and Podcasts, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter to promote library services.
• Partnerships; linking with a wide range of groups to provide programs of interest to baby boomers. One example of a partnership is the library working with the State Theatre Company to promote selected plays under the umbrella of the Scene It? program.
• Partnerships with local book stores to host author visits and the Book of The Year presentation have also been included in the partnerships program.
• Popular Programs; Many services of interest to baby boomers are offered, including a range of computer classes, social classes such as art and craft and languages and reader advisory and general entertainment programs.
  

Everything old is new again - or is it?

Public libraries have served older clients for decades, catering for their needs with large print, talking books, hearing aid loops and housebound library services. It's easy to think that the ageing of the baby boomers is going to mean more of the same.

But the real question is, will they be like the older adults before them? Will libraries have to adapt to a new type of "older client"?

These are some of the issues that this blog will consider, along with the services, collections, programming, building design and other ways public libraries are catering for the specific needs of older adults.