Welcome To Your Library Videos
Watch these fun short videos about each of our 9 locations!
All Yours Just Ask
Watch these fun short videos about each of our 9 locations!
The Springfield City Library joins many organizations across the country in observing the 2021 National Day of Racial Healing on Tuesday, Jan. 19.
SPRINGFIELD, MA — The Springfield City Library joins many organizations across the country, including The American Library Association (ALA) and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, in observing the 2021 National Day of Racial Healing on Tuesday, Jan. 19. On this day, thousands will celebrate our common humanity and take collective action toward a more just and equitable world.
The day was established in 2017 by leaders across the United States who wanted to have a day to take action together. It is a day where people of all ages can come together to (adapted from healourcommunities.org):
Visit our Facebook or Instagram on Tuesday, Jan. 19th for a recorded video storytime read by Children’s Services Supervisor, Ellen Sulzycki, that you can share with your family at your convenience. She will be reading Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness by Anastasia Higginbotham, a picture book about racism and racial justice, inviting white children and parents to become curious about racism, accept that it’s real, and cultivate justice.
We also have additional reading suggestions for all ages:
And here is a guide to help get these very important conversations started:
The American Library Association also has issued a proclamation about the National Day of Racial Healing, which you can read here.
You can see virtual events happening all around the country at this link, including a national livestream event at 3 p.m. ET.
The Springfield City Library is dedicated to continuing its work in these efforts and has ongoing community programming to reflect this.
Molly Fogarty, Library Director, notes that, “The National Day of Racial Healing is one important day, but the Springfield City Library is committed through its programming for all ages, including library collections and programs emphasizing economic and civic engagement, to support the critical work needed for racial healing in our community.” The Director and Board of Library Commissioners previously made a statement affirming the importance of Black Lives, which can also be seen on the library’s website.
Statement from the Library Director and the Springfield Library Commission on Racial Justice
June 5, 2020
On behalf of the Springfield Library Commission and the Library Administration, we are writing to share our personal sense of heartbreak and devastation at the events surrounding the killing of George Floyd by a white police officer in Minneapolis. And we join you and the Springfield Community in your grief and justified anger. As we witness repeated episodes of violence and killings perpetrated against our Black Community by rogue police officers, it is impossible not to experience a deep sense of outrage, disbelief and grief. We honor the lives of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and so many others. We are reaching out to you to share the grief and anger that we know you also feel, but also to reaffirm our common resolve. Both as private citizens and as members of this great institution, we must all do what we can to ensure that we foster a culture of inclusion, equity, and respect for one another. We promise to keep our resolve and strengthen our combined efforts against systemic racism until we can all see that this time justice will prevail and endure. We need to look to each other for strength and hope, and recommit ourselves to our shared goals of making the world a better place for all, especially black and brown people. Now is the time for us to come together as we serve together. Our work has never been more critical. Our concern for each other has never been more important.
We saw a young woman at a recent protest holding a sign with a quote from Angela Davis. It reads, “I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept” This quote is a perfect nest of powerful words to reflect about George Floyd’s death and a call to justice. These words beg people and organizations to change this unacceptable and systemic racism.
The Springfield Library Commission cherishes the work that library staff perform to address literacy challenges, the digital divide, to provide a place where everyone can share ideas and gain knowledge. We believe the incredible mission of the Springfield City Library serves as a powerful force to counter many inequities including racism.
The Springfield City Library is proud to have signed the Urban Library Council’s Statement on Race and Social Equity through which we, along with 167 other Urban Libraries have steadfastly committed to:
It is our collective responsibility to examine what we are doing now in light of our commitments that we signed onto, to reevaluate our services and internal culture and to constantly improve and stand with our communities of color.
In the words of the great Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr:
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
Sincerely,
Stephen Cary: Chair, Springfield Library Commission
Molly Fogarty: Library Director
Molly Fogarty, Director
Springfield City Library – All Yours, Just Ask
220 State St.
Springfield, MA 01103
413-263-6828 ext. 290
lfogarty@springfieldlibrary.org
Stephen Cary
scary@focusspringfield.com
MassLive highlights Springfield kids’ summer reading totals so far – join our Summer Reading Club to contribute!
From the article at MassLive:
So far this summer, Springfield children have read 27,919 times at 20 minutes a session, amounting to 558,380 minutes of page-turning as part of the Springfield Reads to Build a Better World summer reading project. The results were announced at an assembly Tuesday at Central High School.
“We’re more than halfway there, and we have a few weeks left of the summer,” said Goren-Watts, a principal planner and manager of data, education and municipal technology at the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission. “We need you all to keep reading, tell all your friends to keep reading.”
Springfield Reads to Build a Better World started in 2017. It is made up of 13 summer reading programs throughout the city along with the city’s summer schools.