Across the Children's Desk
The library was hopping last Wednesday morning as parents and children listened to and chose books, toured the library and enjoyed refreshments to celebrate the end of Bookstart, a three part workshop to help parents become more aware of the importance and pleasure of sharing books with their children. This program was presented as a joint effort of the Goshen Public Library and the Scotchtown Avenue Elementary School and was made possible by a grant from the New York State Library with funds provided by the Federal Library Services and Technology Act.The purpose of this series of workshops was to provide parents of young children with the opportunity to learn new ways to share books with their children to encourage them to become life-long library users, and to provide them with the skills to choose appropriate books for their children. We read books, looked at books, made books and shared books with each other and with the children and each family received several books to add to their home collections, too. Beyond these goals for parents, Bookstart, which is an initiative of Cornell Cooperative Extension, strives to foster cooperation between public libraries and other community organizations. This goal was definitely achieved here in Goshen, since the program would not have been possible if not for the enthusiasm and encouragement of Daria Murphy, reading specialist at Scotchtown, who graciously agreed to work with me to implement this grant and even provided space at Scotchtown school to hold two of the workshops. I would also like to thank Debbie Matytis for providing child care and Donna Citarelli, who covered for me at the library. Randall Enos, the Youth Consultant at Ramapo Catskill Library System was responsible for writing the grant which provided funds to fifteen libraries in the are~
The parents and children who attended the workshops were not the only ones to benefit from the Bookstart grant; the library received over 100 new picture books, several book character dolls and other interactive matarials to add to the collection for all library users to enjoy. So stop in with your children and enjoy these new additions to our collection and you, took can share you love of books with your child.
Daria and I hope to offer this program again in the future since it was so successful this summer. For more information, stop in at the library. Let's all get started on books!