[Music] the national medal for Museum and
Library Services is the nation's highest honor for libraries and museums that are
serving their communities in exceptional ways Rancho kukamonga Public Library
director Robert KATU and Community member Christine De traveled to
Washington from Rancho Cucamonga California to receive the national medal
and spoke to imls about how the library impacts the community okay the rancha
kukamonga library is located in rancha kukamonga it's in Southern California
it's about 40 Mi east of Los Angeles the library itself is relatively new as well
it it started around 19 years ago we were part of a county system and then
the city decided they would run the library as a municipal service and
because of that it really gave us I think a lot of flexibility in when we
started creating the library the programs the services as far as just U
you know looking to be maybe a little bit innovative a little bit
entrepreneurial and just maybe doing things that a lot of you know
traditional public libraries U may not be doing the library means so much to me
because um I have spent a lot of time taking my children there since they were
infants the triplets soon as they were old enough to sit upright and sit in a
little semicircle we would go to the library start reading them the picture
books obviously our our first um role and I think our first priority is to the
the people of Rancher camanga and just to you know provide the services and not
just you know for the kids but for the adults we have a after school tutoring
programs for some of the older kids we have adult literacy programs the
cultural arts nights are for All Families um we have a lot of programs
that are targeted for seniors we do by I think you know 10 computer classes a
month they really really love to go they have their favorite authors and their
favorite genres and they like to go see if new books are being released the
library is really good about getting the new books in so as soon as they know new
books getting released they're at the library is it is it available is it
available and they're they're ready to check it out we did A needs assessment
back in 2009 and um the families like Christine and the moms were saying that
they wanted to do things with the kids that would be Hands-On kind of
interactive but it's not like we had a a museum space to do it so we we basically
created these Interactive um exhibits that are you know maybe the size of the
table they call them manipulatives but they're basically toys that um kids
could play and they would be learning at the same time kind of reinforcing you
know hand eye coordination and and the the small motor skills and from that we
just we developed it for ourselves and then we got another Grant and so uh we
were able to start loaning these plan learn Islands to other libraries in the
country and now we're um actually selling them as well so it kind of
created maybe a little cottage industry within our library and it it's become a
self- sustaining uh um program that we're able to do it we did a Play and
Learn Island trip to the library which was neat for the kids to interact and
learn about uh environmental resources as a homeschooling Mom it
means a lot to me because we can go to the library the kids get to learn
research skills and get to explore uh new things through the library and
develop a love of reading which is really important to me that they
understand that uh reading in the library is really their access to the
world and learning about all the places they're going to go to see as they grow
up well a lot of the curriculum I have it gives suggested uh reading materials
to go along with it to kind of reinforce underlying um facets of the curriculum
so I can go to the library and I can check out those books and I can read
them and I can pick from them uh activities that will correlate to my
curriculum you know I I really can't say for a fact you know what came first the
Carter or the horse when it it comes to the the homeschooled because um you know
we're a public library and everyone is welcome to come and I guess at some
point the the homeschooled uh moms realize that okay this is a nice asset
and a good resource that can help them and you know we're really glad that they
are using us for that I can't imagine homeschooling without the Library
without the Librarians with without the facilities that they have without the
activities that they have the cultural nights that they do one of the programs
things they do at cultural history night is they do like an underground railroad
thing and they have a guide and they and the guide leads you around the bookcases
and there's people dressed up to look like helpers or people who don't like
slaves like the different sides and they either will make you leave or they'll
let you in and be nice I like going to the library checking out books and the
library has some books that you could that you can put on your Nook which is
pretty cool because they have a lot of books what I like most about going to
the library other than checking out books is um the Star Wars night is when
they have like charact Librarians just up of Star Wars characters once they had
our 2D2 there it was awesome well I I I think we've realized that at
least in our library just one size did not fit all everyone has a little bit
you know they want something different you know the homeschoolers the the kids
and the the the teens the seniors the adults they're just all very different
and you know again we just have to keep our ears open and you know see what they
want and then we have to figure out how we're going to provide that to them so
that's the kind of direction that we're going in now and um our public has
really responded to that that