Baltimore County Public Library

Kylee Piper and Samantha Bozel

The Baltimore County Public Library (BCPL) system is made up of seventeen branches and serves the roughly 785,000 residents of Baltimore County. While the county’s population is not quite as diverse as that of the large city it surrounds, it still boasts a unique collection of languages, races, and ethnicities. One of every ten households in Baltimore County speaks a language other than English, and whites only make up 66 percent of the population (1). As part of its mission statement, BCPL states that it values diversity and strives to “recognize and celebrate the differences that strengthen [its] community and [its] library” (2). It does this by offering programs and resources that serve diverse populations, such as the Korean/Russian/Spanish Language Page on its website or book displays in the library that focus on different ethnicities and their cultures. Information about the library system and links to all its resources and events are available at www.bcpl.info.

As part of our service learning experience we worked closely with Elizabeth Rafferty, the Youth Services Specialist for BCPL. She assigned us to help judge essays for Teen Read Week, a weeklong celebration of reading for teens, and to volunteer at one of the system’s branches, the Randallstown Public Library. We more specifically concentrated on the programs for teens and young children and hoped to learn how those programs attempt to foster literacy and a love for reading in a county in which 7 percent of residents (ages 16 and older) lack basic literacy skills (3).

Teen Read Week

Randallstown Public Library

 

Sources

1. U.S. Census Bureau. “Baltimore County, Maryland.” 7 December 2009. http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/24/24005.html.

2. “Baltimore County Public Library Values.” 7 December 2009. http://www.bcpl.info/libpg/lib_facts.html#bcpl.

3. National Center for Education Statistics. “Baltimore County: Maryland 2003.” State & County
Estimates for Low Literacy. 7 December 2009. http://nces.ed.gov/NAAL/estimates/StateEstimates.aspx#f2