"I am anxious to get to work in my own state." "I think we really `got' the concept and embraced the potential."
These and many similar comments on the evaluation forms of participants in the Library-Head Start regional workshop, held in Richmond on March 18-19, heartened the workshop sponsors, the Virginia Center for the Book and the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress. An overflow crowd of 79 participants from 21 Eastern states and the District of Columbia shared ideas for developing and strengthening the library-Head Start partnership.
This was the second of three regional workshops administered through a joint agreement between the LC center and the Head Start Bureau of the Department of Health and Human Services (see LC Information Bulletin, Jan. 24, 1994, for a report on the first workshop).
Implemented in collaboration with the Association for Library Services to Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association, the Library-Head Start Partnership Project is designed to demonstrate in communities nationwide how libraries that serve children and Head Start programs can combine resources and work together in family literacy programs.
"School and public libraries are family literacy centers," said John Y. Cole, the center's director. "The Library of Congress and the American Library Association are pleased to emphasize and strengthen this vital connection through the Library-Head Start Partnership Project. It is an important contribution we can make toward the nation's first educational goal -- all children in America will start school ready to learn." A third regional workshop will be hosted by the Kansas Center for the Book in Topeka on May 13-14.
Virginia State Librarian John Tyson, LC's John Cole, and Beverly J. Bagan, coordinator of the Virginia Center for the Book, opened the workshop. The program leaders were project coordinator Virginia H. Mathews and Susan Roman, ALSC executive director. The starting point for the discussion was a viewing of a 40-minute video produced during the first phase of the partnership project. The video, which describes how to form a library-Head Start partnership, is accompanied by a printed guide.
In addition to sharing experiences about library-Head Start partnerships under way, participants discussed topics such as creating statewide networks; how to develop a memorandum of agreement between libraries and Head Start programs; the use of volunteers; obtaining parental and family involvement; and how partnership programs at the local level might be funded. There were two special presentations: "What We've Learned: Experiences in Partnering," a panel of Head Start and library leaders led by Maria Salvadore, director of children's services, D.C. Public Library System; and "How to Operate a Library-Head Start Partnership," which was led by Carol Talon, family literacy specialist, California State Library.
Workshop participants were:
Alabama: Annie Lucas Brown, Macon County/Tuskegee Public Library; Jasweida McCann, Jefferson County Committee for Economic Opportunity.
Connecticut: Susan Draper Cormier, Willimantic Library Service Center; Lana Ferguson, Guilford Public Library; Judy Stoughton, Middletown Public Library.
Delaware: Rebecca Fisher, Concord Pike Library, Wilmington; Leslie John, Wilmington Head Start; Elizabeth Simmons, Wilmington Public Library; Deborah Thomas, Parent Involvement Center, Wilmington.
District of Columbia: Maxine Ashford, Mazique Parent and Child Center; Maria Salvadore, Martin Luther King Memorial Library; Matila Bailey, Head Start, D.C. Public Schools.
Florida: Carol Fiore, State Library; Sylvia Mavrogenes, Miami-Dade County Library System; Maria Redburn, Naples-Collier County Public Library.
Georgia: Tom Patterson, Head Start, Clark-Atlanta University; Valerie Jackson, Atlanta-Fulton County Public Library; Carol King, Harambee Child Development Council, Albany.
Kentucky: Sue Bane, Licking Valley Community Action, Flemingsburg; Karen James, Louisville Free Library.
Maine: Mary Peverada, Portland Public Library.
Maryland: Kathy Dodson, Head Start, Montgomery County Schools; Carla Hayden, Enoch Pratt Free Library; Katherine Meizner, Bethesda Regional Library; Sandra Peyser, Head Start, Montgomery County Public Schools.
Massachusetts: Emily Bader, Springfield Public Library; Carolyn Noah, Central Massachusetts Regional Library System, Worcester; Lynne Piotrowski, Franklin Community Action Agency, Greenfield.
Mississippi: Yolande Allen, Friends of the Children of Mississippi, Jackson; William Martin, Neshoba County Public Library, Philadelphia; Carol McCullum and Charlotte Moman, Jackson Hinds Library System, Jackson.
New Hampshire: Rebecca Albert, State Library.
New Jersey: Ming Bao, Paterson Public Library; Suda Rahaja, Concerned Parents for Head Start, Paterson; Jean Fairhurst, Gloucester County Public Library; Audrey Gorman, State Library; Esther Lee, Jersey City Child Development Centers.
New York: Sari Feldman, Onondaga County Library System; Kathie Labombard, Clinton-Essex Franklin Library System; Ellen Loughran, Brooklyn Public Library; Maureen Read and Ann Simon, State Library; Margaret Tice, Brooklyn Public Library; Caroline Ward, Nassau Library System; Alberta Williams, Cardinal Spellman Head Start, New York City.
North Carolina: Mary Thompson, Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Head Start; Janice Del Negro, State Library; Jane Gable and Linda Holden, Goldsboro; Pat Siegfried, Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County; Gail Terwilliger, Cumberland County Public Library.
Pennsylvania: Mary Ellen Hoover, Cambria County Community Action Council; Shahnaz Mondanipour, Lycoming-Clinton Head Start; Mary Moses and Elizabeth Segal, Preschool Development Program, Pittsburgh; Helen Mullen, Free Library, Philadelphia; Wilhelmina Stewart, Philadelphia Parent Child Center; Barbara Rogers, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh; Georgia Tiffany, Cambria County Community Action Council.
Rhode Island: Melody Allen, State Library Services; Maureen McCardle and Sonia Murphy, C.H.I.L.D. Inc.; Virginia McKee, Providence.
South Carolina: Jane Conner, State Library; Barbara Cooper, Pee Dee Community Action Agency.
Tennessee: Donald Reynolds, Nolichucky Regional Library.
Vermont: Grace W. Greene, Department of Libraries; Sarah Mehegan, Central Vermont Community Action Program.
Virginia: Dee Braxton and Joyce Cosby, Richmond Public Schools; Gloria Nottingham, Richmond Public Library; Lynn Sawyer, Shirlington Branch Library; Portia Taylor and Sheila Taylor, Richmond Head Start; Ann Theis, Chesterfield County Public Library.
West Virginia: Donna Calvert, State Library Commission; Judy Rule, Cabell County Public Library.
