The Blossoming of the Library Garden: How One Library Is Engaging Families Outdoors

As twenty-first-century libraries create programming, they are finding innovative ways to engage children and families in lifelong learning through hands-on experiences.Outdoor nature spaces and gardens at public libraries are ideal environments for both formal and informal learning. In underserved, urban communities where greenspace is limited, providing a learning garden as a resource is especially valuable.Using Cuyahoga County Public Library’s (CCPL’s) Warrensville Heights (WVH) branch library as a case study, this article explores how a library in a low-income inner-ring suburb installed a children’s garden that led to numerous positive impacts. In October 2015, Sari Feldman, then executive director of Cuyahoga County Public Library in suburban Cleveland, Ohio, approached the staff of the WVH branch with the idea of developing a children’s garden at the branch. In Warrensville Heights, a community with a population of roughly thirteen thousand, many families live in apartments and lack access to green space. The area is aptly described as a “food desert,” where residents have little access to fresh produce.

School Book Buzz: A Professional Development Collaboration

Schools and libraries have a common mission of serving the local community, especially children and families. So why not bring those specialists together for some professional training? That was the goal behind the School Book Buzz initiative at Cuyahoga County (OH) Public Library (CCPL).

The Evolution of the Opiate/Opioid Crisis in Cuyahoga County

The United States continues to grapple with an epidemic of opiate/opioid drugs. This crisis initially manifested itself in the use and abuse of opioid pain relievers and has since seen an increase in illicit opiate/opioid drug use mortality. Cuyahoga County (metropolitan Cleveland) has been an area where the crisis has been particularly acute; this paper updates our previous experience. Most notable in the evolution of the drug epidemic has been an increase in mortality associated with fentanyl and an alarming rise in overall deaths, largely attributable to the emergence of fentanyl (a 64% increase in total overdose deaths from 2015 to 2016, with fentanyl increasing 324%). Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid with use in medical analgesia and anesthesia; however, most of the current supply is of clandestinely manufactured origin. Also of concern is the recent appearance of illicit fentanyl analogues, which are briefly described in this report. White males continue to be the most frequent overdose victims in the current crisis. A decrease of age appears to have taken place with the emergence of fentanyl with the most common age group being between 30 and 44 years of age. The majority of decedents are nonurban residents. Educationally, most of these decedents have a high school diploma or less schooling and a significant percentage consists of manual laborers. Medical examiners are an important source of information necessary to develop prevention and interdiction strategies. Challenges faced regarding adequate funding, instrumentation, and staffing are being felt.