Texas Libraries Provide a Lifeline to Mental Health

May is Mental Health Awareness Month. Libraries play a critical and often overlooked role in helping their patrons and communities address mental health challenges. Libraries in Texas are taking this responsibility to heart, and one did so with help from the American Library Association.

Transforming Access: How Nearly 700 Small and Rural Libraries Are Advancing Accessibility

Since 2022, the American Library Association’s Libraries Transforming Communities: Accessible Small and Rural Communities initiative has awarded grants to 662 small and rural libraries nationwide. In the latest round of funding, 300 libraries will receive money to enhance accessibility to facilities, services, and programs for people with disabilities. Seventy-three percent of these round-three grantees serve populations of 5,000 people or less.

Opening Doors

In Goldthwaite, a small, but vibrant town of approximately 1,700 people in central Texas, Jennie Trent Dew Library fills many voids in a community that is missing essential nonprofit and civic organizations. This made the library an ideal candidate for ALA’s Libraries Transforming Communities: Accessible Small and Rural Communities grant, an initiative to assist small and rural libraries in providing greater accessibility of facilities, services, and programs for patrons with disabilities.

We’ve Made Some Changes

We’ve made some changes here at I Love Libraries, but one thing has remained the same: our dedication to sharing the wonderful world of libraries with you. And the facelift allows us to do that in exciting, new ways.

Making Memories at the Library

Residents of Redding, Connecticut, can now connect with loved ones experiencing memory loss thanks to a program implemented at Mark Twain Library. And it all began with one simple patron request.