“One City, One Library”: One Awesome Idea

We like to think we’re pretty tuned in to what’s happening in the wonderful world of libraries - but who are we kidding? We learn something new every day and it’s usually when we talk with librarians. That’s what happened when we recently met with Bonnie Roalsen and Rebecca Meehan,  director and assistant director, respectively, of the Woburn Public Library.

It was the first time we’d heard of One City, One Library (OCOL), a real gem of a program from the Worcester Public Library. What is OCOL? It’s a city-wide effort to make library services available to more of the city’s students and residents by co-locating public library branches in four of Worcester’s public schools.

To learn more about the program, I spoke with Cynthia Bermudez, the Youth Services Coordinator at the Worcester Public Library, and the person who currently oversees the program. In recent years, the school libraries in Worcester (the second-largest city in New England) have been shuttered - or at least the librarians running them were gone. In some cases, volunteers stepped up to help out, but there were no new materials, no instruction, and no library services. This is not good for any community.

OCOL has addressed this situation by making four of the city’s elementary school libraries - Roosevelt Elementary, Tatnuck Magnet Elementary, Goddard School of Science and Technology, and Burncoat Street Preparatory School -  branches of the city’s public library systems. As a result of OCOL, these school libraries got new spaces, brand new collections (which are refreshed on an ongoing basis), and professional staff. 

During the day, the branches serve the schools’ students, with classes coming in for things like story read-alongs, help with research, and access to books and digital resources. Outside of school hours (evenings, weekends, vacations, etc.), these branches serve neighborhoods where people don’t have easy access to the city’s main library. It’s a great idea that can help improve reading skills and increase overall access to public library services. What’s not to love?

There was, naturally, some skepticism in the beginning. Virtually everyone agrees that the best solution is to have fully-funded school libraries staffed by trained school librarians. In the absence of this, OCOL is providing a creative and effective solution by putting books into students’ hands - and providing librarians who are knowledgeable about the materials - to support students and the wider community. 

Worcester’s efforts to bring library services to the city’s students go beyond OCOL. Another bookmobile has been added to the city’s fleet and it stops at additional schools in Worcester. As a result, every student in the city has access to at least some public library services and that’s fantastic.

So far, the results and responses to OCOL have been encouraging. While it may be too soon to assess the program’s impact on reading skills, the feedback from teachers, principals, and parents - and especially kids - has been positive.

The biggest challenge facing the One City, One Library program has been getting the general public to realize that these in-school branches are for them too. But even this is improving as the number of visitors continues to rise and program and circulation figures continue to increase. The more people take advantage of library services at these branches, the better.

Are there challenges? To be sure. Things like staffing, communications, and data collection are always works in progress; but these issues are recognized and all involved are making efforts to improve them. 

The bottom line is that when Worcester’s school libraries struggled - as they are in so many parts of the country - the city’s public library stepped up to the plate. But they went a step further by making these libraries full branches of the city-wide system. The success of this effort has been the result of strong support from the community, the Worcester Library Foundation, and partners and sponsors. It is also due to the close collaboration between the library, the schools, and the city. All involved recognized this as an opportunity to improve access to library services across the board. It’s a really interesting model that other communities should consider as they seek ways to make public libraries more available and accessible to all.