Library Boards Seeks to Revive Homework Help, Hears About Youth Program, Hope for Art Restoration

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The Franklin Library Board held their monthly meeting at 7 pm at the library Monday evening. Present were Chair Charleen Belcher, members Ginette C. Preto, Kathleen Gerwatowski, Amanda Rabbit, and Barbara G. Steele as well as Library Director Felicia Oti.

The first and longest segment of the meeting was a report on programming from Youth Library Services Librarian Caleigh Keating She touched on many aspects of the programs she runs, serving children in the community through high school age

A major take away is that despite lingering concerns over Covid, most aspects of operations are back to normal. One of the  current after school offerings is an anime club. “We also discovered even before Covid that there is a market for after-nap-and-before-dinner activities and we have filled that with Toe Tappin’ Tuesday at 3 pm on Tuesday,” and other programs on other days of the week, she said.

As far as school age kids Keating said she offers the Idea [inclusion, diversity, and equity are awesome] Club. “We wanted to address an EDI[equity, diversity, and inclusion] component but weren’t sure what the response would be,” she said. Keating said, “We had very engaged school-age children; gender identity was one of the things discussed and it was amazing, their responses were so great, talking about different genders and then we were talking about non-binary people,” said Keating. 

Next month, noted Keating, the library will be focusing on Hispanic Heritage Month.

Another expanding initiative brings the public library to students at the town’s three middle schools once a week, allowing students to return and borrow books on their own. Keating said she is hoping to expand that to include the Charter School.

Other youth oriented initiatives she mentioned included two book clubs for teens (one built around TikTok book programs and the other, World War II themed readings); Halloween-related programming, and then events related to Diwali in November, including making small decorative lanterns.

Preto asked Keating about after school homework help, something she said she hears many parents concerned about, particularly given that many students have fallen behind during Covid. Oti responded and noted that the program had been offered in the past, relying largely on retired teachers. A variety of factors led to its gradual reduction, but she and Keating agreed it would be a good thing to revive.

They told the board they would reach out to people who had been involved in the past and also try to address Covid concerns that might arise with the teachers.

Other business tackled by the library board included a review of the library’s Strategic Plan, which included a few questions from board members about statistical information that was included and a concern expressed by board member regarding the outside ramp, which was actually included in the facilities section of the document.

During the Director’s report section of the meeting, Oti recapped the segment on the library that was recently broadcast on WBZ-TV and expressed appreciation for the on-camera performance by reference librarian Vicki Earls, who was deemed knowledgeable and engaging by Oti and the board.

Oti also mentioned long-term efforts to garner grant support to restore and protect the library’s artwork, in particular the famous Tomaso Juglaris murals. Oti explained that over the years, careless maintenance or poor restoration work had led to parts of the original actually being painted over.

The meeting adjourned at approximately 8:30 pm. 

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