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The following are adult programming ideas generated from participants in the April/May 2013 session of Infopeople's Adult Programming 2.0, taught by instructor Ann Awakuni.

Animal Programs

Library/Contact

Emergency preparedness for your pets

San Francisco Public Library, Bernal Heights, Melissa Gooch, [email protected]

Greyhounds in the Library

Palmdale, Debbie Melin [email protected]

Healthy Pets

 

Therapy Animals for Veterans

 

Art Programs

Library/Contact

Mehndi and Henna

Harris County Public Library, http://www.hcpl.net/content/learn- about-mehndi-and-henna

Performance Art Workshop

Based on themes from the StoryCorps book, Listening is An Act of Love. The non-profit StoryCorps records stories as an oral history of people.

Alexandria City Library, Tina McPherson, [email protected]

Tattoo Art Exhibit/Tattoo Art Program

 

Book Clubs

Library/Contact

Book Club in a Bar

 

Computer Book Group

 

Cookbook Discussion Group

"If you love to cook and share recipes, this is the group for you! We will meet the 3rd Monday of each month--bring a dish from the selected author's cookbooks and talk about your experience in the kitchen."

 

Kent Free Library

Mommy & Daughter Book or Craft Time

 

Queer Book Group/LGBT Book Club

 

Singles Book Club

 

Stitch n Bitch Bookclub

Lunchtime knitters and crocheters can discuss a book, listen to a story.

 

Food Programs

Library/Contact

Backyard Homebrewing

 

Books & Bites

Food trucks and bookmobile

 

Brown Bag Lunches

 

Cake/Cupcake Decorating

 

Candy-making Workshop

 

Canning “Yes You Can!” Introduction to canning and preserving

Mountain View Public Library, Candace Bowers, Candace.Bowers@mountainview. gov

Chocolate Tasting/Talk

 

Coffee Cupping

 

Cooking for Busy People

 

Comparing Popular iets

Registered dietician helps people cut through the hype of trendy diets (low carb, paleo, Mediterranean, etc.) and understand healthy food choices.

 

Culinary Gnome

Variation on the "literary gnome," library could display a small kitchen gadget or accessory (such as a cookie jar). Patrons would be invited to provide their favorite COOK BOOK on a card with a short explanation of why it's recommended.

 

Winner, chosen at random, wins the kitchen goodie. The library gets a collection of recommendations for its cook book collection.

 

San Diego, Liz Tarnove, [email protected]

“Downtown” Abbey High Tea

In the park adjacent to our library we’ll be holding a Downton Abbey inspired tea for the close of Summer Reading. We plan to invite people to bring a picnic, and we’ll offer tea sandwiches, scones, shortbread and lemon curd, tea and lemonade. There will be croquet, vintage (possibly live orchestra) music and dance, a steampunk tea service display, a hat contest, Downton trivia contest, Edwardian paper dolls and a scavenger hunt for the kids. As a prize, we’ll give away the Downton Abbey Cookbook.

Mountain View Public Library, Ann Awakuni, [email protected]

Dumpling-making program

Interactive dumpling-making program with Andrea Nguyen, author of Asian Dumplings (among other cookbooks). She'll be teaching

everyone how with one dough & one filling, we can make dumplings at least 3 ways.

Menlo Park Library, John Weaver, [email protected]

Edible Book Contest

Beaufort County Library, Stacey Edmonds,

[email protected]

Egg Tart Demonstration

Steve Smith

Fake Food Fest!

Participants will be able to stop at different stations to learn how to make fimo food, food-shaped felt sachets, knitted food, and we’ll also print out food-shaped items on our 3D printer.

 

Mountain View Public Library, Ann Awakuni, [email protected]

Fear Factor

 

We'll have bright yellow "barf buckets" for each contestant (hopefully mostly for theatrical purposes!). The teens will not know exactly WHAT they are eating (except for what it looks/smells/tastes like), but the audience will, because we will project what the item is on the screen behind the teens. With this, we're also hoping to get audience participation, so the contestants are even *more* grossed out when the audience groans at a particular item.

 

Buena Park Library, Phyllis Nisle, [email protected]

Food Film Series

Santa Cruz Public Library, Jeanne O'Grady, [email protected]

Food Issues for Teens and Adults

Santa Cruz Public Library,Jeanne O'Grady, [email protected]

Food Olympics

Competitions using food

Buena Park Library, Phyllis Nisle, [email protected]

Fruit – Tasty Desserts with Summer Fruit

 

Gluten-free

 

Herb Workshop: How to Grow and Cook with Herbs

Provide participants with plants and recipes.

 

International Food Festival

 

Molecular Gastronomy

Using a molecular gastronomy kit that we ordered and a volunteer with a food science background that we found on Volunteer Match we are doing demos of how to create apple juice “pearls”, strawberry foam and dark chocolate pasta!

Mountain View Public Library, Ann Awakuni, [email protected]

Multinational Cooking Demos

Invite several local chefs to do a cooking demo at the front of the room with a digital camcorder overhead feeding to a screen.

 

No Bake Iron Chef Competition

Microwave and blender will be available

 

Buena Park Library, Phyllis Nisle, [email protected]

Pineapple Bun Demonstration

County of Los Angeles Public Library, Steve Smith, [email protected]

Rootbeerfest

One of our libraries did a take-off on Oktoberfest by doing a Rootbeerfest. They offered six different root beers for tasting and also passed out root beer candy. About 120 people showed up for this hour- long program. The cost for the root beer and for Bavarian decorations was about $175.00 and four teen volunteers helped to decorate and pour the root beer. Outdoor program.

 

County of Los Angeles Public Library, Robert Johnston, [email protected]

Smoothies

I collaborated with the department of food science at San Jose State University. The students from SJSU came to the library to share the nutrition information of various fruits and demonstrate how to make fresh healthy smoothies.

Santa Clara County Library District, Shu-Hua Liu, [email protected]

Tea Appreciation

Santa Clara County Library District, Shu-Hua Liu, [email protected]

Vegetarian/Vegan Cooking

 

Gardening Programs

Library/Contact

Edible Flowers

Learned how to frost edible flowers (violas, rose petals, borage) and decorated cupcakes with the frosted flowers at a later program.

Los Angeles Public Library, Annie Cipolla, [email protected]

Green Garden Academy

Santa Monica Public Library hosted the Green Garden Academy for several years (they recently stopped). It was a 10 week series led by Russell Ackerman, who works in the city's Sustainability department. Various experts were invited to discuss topics like soil, irrigation, beneficial pests, eliminating lawns, growing vegetables. Also included were off-site visits to demonstration gardens and beekeepers' homes. Green Garden Academy "graduates" then ascended to the Honor Green Garden Academy and are invited to work on city projects to transform public green spaces.

Los Angeles Public Library, Annie Cipolla, [email protected]

How to revive spent orchids

Los Angeles Public Library, Annie Cipolla, [email protected]

Plant Exchange

Bring plants, take plants – free!

Mountain View Public Library, Emily Weak, [email protected]

Urban Homesteading

 

Worm bin

Los Angeles Public Library, Annie Cipolla, [email protected]

Intergenerational Programs

Library/Contact

Green Saturdays at Bernal

San Francisco Public Library, Bernal Heights, Melissa Gooch, [email protected]

Living Library – Check out a person

Santa Monica Public Library, http://www.smgov.net/Content.as px?id=1837

Oral History – Teens interview Seniors

We paired up teen volunteers to interview seniors about their stories of Fullerton. If another library was interested in doing a similar project, I would contact Cal State Fullerton's Center for Oral and Public History to find out what they would need to do, b/c it's pretty labor intensive although really cool. It was great for the teens to meet up with seniors and hear about what Fullerton was like 60+ years ago and when they were teens.

 

Fullerton, Shirley Ku, [email protected]

Scrapbooks

Seniors bring old pictures of their childhood and younger patrons can help them create scrapbooks

 

Multicultural Programs

Library/Contact

Asian Dance

County of Los Angeles Public Library, Steve Smith, [email protected]

Bento Box Workshop

The workshop included a powerpoint about the ingredients and supplies one would need to create a bento box with sample photos of completed bento boxes and recipes. We then had the teens create their own bento box using the supplies and ingredients we had provided. This event is a multicultural program and could be a multigenerational program if families were invited to create bento boxes together.

There are pictures of some of the finished boxes in the photo folder on the Library's facebook page. Under albums, scroll down to the Bento Box Workshop May 2011.

 

Buena Park Library, Phyllis Nisle, [email protected]

Chinese Brush Painting

County of Los Angeles Public Library, Steve Smith, [email protected]

Chinese Cooking

County of Los Angeles Public Library, Steve Smith, [email protected]

International Music Festival/Performances

 

Italian Day

A lively duo performed traditional Italian songs with accordion music. A music professor, who also gives pre-performance talks at the SF Opera, spoke on the history of opera. In between programs I set up photos from my trip to Italy to run as a slideshow. Of course we also had food, including delicious pizza bread and cookies.

San Francisco, Kate Brown [email protected]

Japan Day

A koto player performed and we had a craft program where participants created marbled paper using the suminagashi technique. Lots of veggie sushi was eaten!

San Francisco, Kate Brown, [email protected]

Japanese Art of Kanzashi flowers

Canton Public Library http://www.cantonpl.org/blog/arts- and-crafts/kanzashi-flower

New Americans workshops

 

Origami

County of Los Angeles Public Library, Steve Smith, [email protected]

Programs in other language (Chinese, Vietnamese): Housing/tenant rights, Immigration workshops, Labor rights, Voting registration

County of Los Angeles Public Library, Steve Smith, [email protected]

Washi Tape

 

Other Programs

Library/Contact

Automotive Repair Basics (learn how to change a tire, check/change oil)

 

Card making

 

Chautauqua Program

We’ve had performances by Johnny Appleseed, Margaret Blennerhassett, Chief Logan, York and Oliver Hazard Perry. The actual performances take place at the City Park but we provide the space for the workshops. I also put up a display of books related to each workshop, flyers and word games, and refreshments.

Ohio Public Library, Lynn Pauley [email protected]

Clothing Programs Making, Altering, Mending

 

Couponing

 

DIY

Home repair, bike repair, soap-making

 

Flash mob at the Library (Theme it! Storm Trooper flash mob for Star Wars Day)

 

Genealogy Lock-in

From 6 p.m. until 10 p.m. those interested in learning about genealogy resources can come to an after-hours event at the library.

Jonesboro Public Library, Ben Bizzle

Hair-cutting

Santa Clara County Library District, Shu-Hua Liu, [email protected]

Halloween Horrible Horror Movie Film Fest

 

Jewelry-making

 

Language Café

People sign up the language they want to learn and the language in which they are fluent. The library provides a space and pairs people. For example, patron A is fluent in Russian but wants to learn English. Patron B is a native English speaker who wants to learn Russian. These two persons can meet at the library and exchange language learning. They can either use our library language collection or plan their own. Shu-Hua Liu

Santa Clara County Library District, Shu-Hua Liu, [email protected]

Literary Speed Dating/Senior Speed Dating

 

Living Healthy Workshop: Take Charge of Chronic Conditions

Liverpool Public Library

Local History

 

Monthly Movie Program

Plan to show mostly classics that are highly rated by the AFI.

San Francisco, Kate Brown [email protected]

Poetry Readings/Poetry Workshop

 

Rain Barrel Program

We have a non-profit in GR who teaches people how to set up a rain barrel to collect rain and then use in your gardens. They even provide barrels for a small fee and who you how to do the rest and how to conserve water.

 

Kent District Library, Kip O’Dell, [email protected]

Reconstructing Sweaters

With sewing machines found on Craigslist

San Francisco, Donya Drummond [email protected]

Self Publishing

The Sacramento Public Library is offering a self publishing program of their own http://www.saclibrary.org/Services/I-Street-Press/ Popular questions at reference, "how can I publish my book?", "how can I safeguard my work?", " What is the best company to go with?" There is also the question of ebooks vs print books. - Shonda Graham

 

Silk Screening

 

Spread Happiness

One of my coworkers developed a program model similar to this based on the book The Happiness Project by Gretchin Rubin. Our system, 18 branches in all, has worked together each quarter to find a way to "spread happiness" and give back to various causes. So far this year the community has helped us collect hygiene kits for local homeless children as well as collect juice boxes for an organization that fights hunger, Kids Food Basket. We will also be working with a local humane society in the future. It has been great to see the interactions with the staff and the patrons as the organizations are promoted.

Kent District Library Janna Slot , [email protected]

Star Wars vs Star Trek Debate

 

Telescope Night

A local amateur astronomy group (The Sidewalk Astronomers) comes and sets up telescopes to look at the moon and whatever planet is currently in view. They answer questions and talk to the interested. I always get a huge turnout and it runs the gamut as far as age goes. We are, of course, limited to doing it in winter when the sun goes down early enough to make it feasible.

Los Angeles Public Library, Sarah Moore, [email protected]

3-D Printing

Mountain View Public Library, Ann Awakuni,ann.awakuni@mountain view.gov

Travel Club

Powerpoint slide presentation of a particular place of interest (June is Alaska, July is Hawaii, and August is Belgium and the Netherlands). We will share travel tips, places of interest, etc. We will incorporate the food theme by having refreshments related to the place we are visiting.

 

Buena Park Library, Phyllis Nisle, [email protected]

Also available as a PDF file.