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 |
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Healthy Pets |
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Therapy Animals for Veterans |
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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. |
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Tattoo Art Exhibit/Tattoo Art Program |
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Book Clubs |
Library/Contact |
Book Club in a Bar |
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Computer Book Group |
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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 |
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Queer Book Group/LGBT Book Club |
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Singles Book Club |
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Stitch n Bitch Bookclub Lunchtime knitters and crocheters can discuss a book, listen to a story. |
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Food Programs |
Library/Contact |
Backyard Homebrewing |
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Books & Bites Food trucks and bookmobile |
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Brown Bag Lunches |
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Cake/Cupcake Decorating |
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Candy-making Workshop |
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Canning “Yes You Can!” Introduction to canning and preserving |
Mountain View Public Library, Candace Bowers, Candace.Bowers@mountainview. gov |
Chocolate Tasting/Talk |
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Coffee Cupping |
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Cooking for Busy People |
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Comparing Popular iets Registered dietician helps people cut through the hype of trendy diets (low carb, paleo, Mediterranean, etc.) and understand healthy food choices. |
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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. |
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“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. |
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Edible Book Contest |
Beaufort County Library, Stacey Edmonds, |
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. |
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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 |
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Fruit – Tasty Desserts with Summer Fruit |
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Gluten-free |
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Herb Workshop: How to Grow and Cook with Herbs Provide participants with plants and recipes. |
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International Food Festival |
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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. |
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No Bake Iron Chef Competition Microwave and blender will be available |
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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 |
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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! |
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Urban Homesteading |
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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. |
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Scrapbooks Seniors bring old pictures of their childhood and younger patrons can help them create scrapbooks |
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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. |
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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 |
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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. |
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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 |
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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 |
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Other Programs |
Library/Contact |
Automotive Repair Basics (learn how to change a tire, check/change oil) |
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Card making |
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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. |
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Clothing Programs Making, Altering, Mending |
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Couponing |
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DIY Home repair, bike repair, soap-making |
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Flash mob at the Library (Theme it! Storm Trooper flash mob for Star Wars Day) |
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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 |
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Jewelry-making |
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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 |
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Living Healthy Workshop: Take Charge of Chronic Conditions |
Liverpool Public Library |
Local History |
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Monthly Movie Program Plan to show mostly classics that are highly rated by the AFI. |
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Poetry Readings/Poetry Workshop |
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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. |
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Reconstructing Sweaters With sewing machines found on Craigslist |
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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 |
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Silk Screening |
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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. |
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Star Wars vs Star Trek Debate |
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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. |
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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. |
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Also available as a PDF file.