Happy New Year from the Aurora Public Library (APL)! With a new year, we have a new one-year strategic plan. Here’s what you can expect from us in the New Year:
We will focus on the following pillars: School success, express creativity, feed your imagination, and welcome to America. Sound familiar? We decided to keep the same pillars from our previous strategic plan, and we’ve formulated goals within each pillar. Let me tell you more about our 2020 strategic plan.
School Success is all about helping students succeed from early literacy through high school. Not only is this pillar dedicated to the learner, but on the parents, as well. We want to make sure parents have the resources to help their student along their educational journey from early literacy with our 1,000 books prior to kindergarten program all the way through high school with financial aid for college workshops. We focus on the educator: We want to help educators become more aware of the library resources available to them and how they can use these resources to enrich the teaching and learning experience.
Express Creativity is the pillar focused on making sure Aurora residents, schools, and businesses have the services and support to create, share, and enjoy content in a variety of media. From providing technology in our Makerspace to the programs and events that support the performing arts, we want to make sure you have an outlet to express your creativity. Whether you are an expert in 3D printing or you’re exploring new hobbies, we want to make sure your Library is a place to be creative.
One of our continued efforts is to amplify and strengthen community efforts to aid immigrant and refugee families through our Welcome to America pillar. We know that as a Library we are a hub of information you need on everything from health to employment. Therefore, our goal includes offering classes, programs, and information on social services in multiple languages. In addition, we will provide support to help customers obtain skills necessary to successfully pass the U.S. citizenship exam and celebrate the diversity in our community through our programs.
Finally, what kind of library would we be if we did not focus on our collection? From books to audiobooks to E-books, we want you to have access to collections of interest to you, when and where you want them. This pillar, Feed Your Imagination, works on providing timely access to popular collection that meets, anticipates and drives your needs. Our goal is to continue to build a reading culture in Aurora and to make sure our library staff members are your go-to people to reconnect with reading. From supporting book clubs to community-wide reading programs such as Aurora: United We Read to reducing the box to shelf time, we want to continue meeting your reading needs.
There you have it folks! Our 2020 strategic plan. Stay tuned for updates on our website at www.aurorapubliclibrary.org/visionstrategicplan.
Miriam Meza-Gotto is communications manager for Aurora Public Library.