Many of you have checked out books or taken your kids for activities to the Walnut Street West Library at the corner of 40th and Walnut. This Saturday, the library is celebrating its 110th anniversary, and this is a perfect opportunity to visit on this special day – to thank the staff for all the work they’ve been doing and to celebrate with them.

A lot of fun activities are being planned throughout the day, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m., for children, adults, and families, such as live music and singing performances, storytimes, chess coaching, salsa and zumba classes, cake, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream sampling, and more.

Library and city officials will also speak at the event. Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell will read a resolution from City Council, followed by remarks and cake at 2 p.m.

The party will take place rain or shine, with activities outside as weather permits. For more information and event and activities schedule, visit the Friends of Walnut Street West Library website.

The Walnut Street West Library serves the communities of University City and Spruce Hill and is one of the most used Free Library of Philadelphia branches.  Continue Reading

Unfortunately, Walnut Street West Library at 40th and Walnut is closed again due to an unexpected building emergency. The staff are cautiously optimistic that they will be able to reopen by Monday, Aug. 31. The library was closed for a few days earlier this month because of HVAC issues.

Please check the library’s Facebook page for updates.

UPDATE (8/6/2015): Good news for the Walnut Street West Library staff and customers: the AC system has been repaired, and the library is set to re-open on Friday, Aug. 7. Check out the library’s Facebook page for more information.

8/4/2015: Here’s some bad news from the Walnut Street West branch of the Free Library (40th and Walnut). Thanks to some issues with the branch’s heating and cooling system, the library will be closed “until further notice,” according to the Facebook page for the branch.

“We do not have any information at this time regarding when the branch will reopen,” the page reads. “Without the necessary repairs, our building will stay closed until such a time as the interior temperature falls into the 70-degree range.”

Details are still being worked out for picking up holds placed at the branch, and any fines caused by the closure will be waived, the post continued.

You may have seen them cropping up around the neighborhood — Little Free Libraries are tiny libraries installed on posts outside homes or organizations where community members can “take a book, leave a book,” and they are often just the size of large birdhouses.

A Little Free Library is being installed in front of Samuel Huey school (Facebook photo).

The West Philadelphia Alliance for Children (WePAC), which works systematically to reopen closed school libraries in West Philly and around the city (95 percent of Philly public schools lack a functioning school library), is also using the Little Free Library model to get books into the hands of children over the summer and in the evenings.

New research suggests that having books in the home is the single most important factor in future literacy, more important even than the educational attainment or income of parents.

On Martin Luther King, Jr. Day 2014, WePAC organized a build day that produced 11 Little Free Libraries. But only two have been installed so far — one in front of Samuel Huey school, and one inside Y-HEP, a health clinic at 15th and Locust that is part of Philadelphia FIGHT. In addition to allowing the tiny library to be installed on their property, host sites make sure the libraries stay in good condition and re-stock them with books if borrowers neglect to return.

But WePac has nine other libraries still awaiting homes. “The challenge is to find locations where someone can commit to maintaining the library for the long haul,” says Mica Navarro Lopez, WePAC’s Deputy Executive Director.

WePAC is actively seeking sites where the remaining nine libraries will be cared for by a responsible steward—this might be a school, a community organization, or private individual who lives within their service area. If you or your organization is interested in becoming a host site to a WePAC Little Free Library, get in touch with them by filling out their contact form at http://wepac.org/contact-us/.

– Emma Eisenberg

A support group for a great local library is seeking feedback from community members and stakeholders that will help improve their work. The planning committee for the Friends of Walnut St West Library is asking for just five minutes of your time to share your thoughts about their work in bringing library services, programs and events in an online survey. The results of the survey will help shape the Friends’ support of the library over the next three to five years.

“The more we can learn about why or how people use the library (or don’t) and what community interests the library might meet, the better we can assess how to supplement the Friends’ support of the library moving forward,” the Friends of Walnut St West Library president Kathy Wheeler wrote in an email.

Another goal of the survey is to gather information on how folks learn about events so they can not only attend library programs but be able to volunteer their skills and time.  Continue Reading

Mariposa‘s Food Justice and Anti-Racism Working Group (FJAR) is building a library and seeking donations of books, zines and articles relating to food justice, organizing, pedagogy, gentrification, racism, and anti-oppression. Donations of cookbooks and primers about the food system and nutrition for both youth and adults are also welcome.

If you have books you’d like to donate, please drop them off in the store (4824 Baltimore Ave) or contact Mariposa for a pick-up by emailing: mariposa.fjar.library@gmail.com.

The library is expected to open this spring and materials will be available (during designated times) for borrowing by both staff and members.