December 2024 | Volume XLII, Issue 4 »
You're Never Too Old for the Library: Senior Services at Three Illinois Public Libraries
December 2, 2024
Suzanne Arist, Wilmette Public Library District
One of the best things about public libraries is that they serve the whole community at every life stage. This article is a celebration of the joy of senior services at Illinois public libraries and is the culmination of a survey of senior services librarians conducted in spring of 2024. Illinois libraries provide a vast range and variety of services for their senior patrons. There are libraries that collaborate with senior housing facilities to provide storytimes and book drop-offs. At least one library loans mechanical cats and dogs from a Memory Care Collection to help seniors relax or feel comfortable in group programs. Other libraries offer multilingual programming. While we had several responses, this article focuses on three Illinois public libraries, Jerseyville Public Library, Fremont Public Library, and Gail Borden Public Library, to offer a snapshot of the variety of services Illinois’ senior residents can find at their public library.
Judy Pruitt leads a Senior StoryTime session.
JERSEYVILLE PUBLIC LIBRARY
Jerseyville Public Library (Jerseyville Library) serves the City of Jerseyville, population 8,357, and is about 80 miles southwest of Springfield, IL. Jerseyville Library has 2,407 card holders–2,100 residents, 307 non-residents–and annually circulates 67,762 items including physical and electronic materials. Beth Smilack, Marketing and Communication Specialist, oversees Senior Services at Jerseyville Library with Library Director Judy Pruitt. Smilack began her work with senior patrons by creating a new Senior StoryTime program along with providing digital literacy courses after receiving a Digital Literacy Workshop Incentive through the Public Library Association and supported by AT&T.
Beth and Judy regularly visit three assisted living facilities in the community to conduct storytime programming and provide materials to these facilities and to home-bound patrons.
At the new Senior StoryTime programs, Smilak and Pruitt read a story, lead a group sing-along with ukulele and piano, and do a craft with the seniors. Depending on which facility they’re at, there are usually between 10-20 attendees.
Beth says, “We love it when they help each other find what song we are on by pointing it out on the song sheet and when they assist each other in making the crafts. We love the camaraderie and the chance for them to interact with each other when otherwise they might just be in their rooms by themselves and not socializing.”
The vision and hope for the future of Jerseyville Library’s senior services is “to continue to provide StoryTimes, digital training, and providing materials both educational and entertaining to those who are not able to get out easily in their golden years.” Jerseyville Public Library's ultimate goal is library access for all.
FREMONT PUBLIC LIBRARY DISTRICT
Fremont Public Library District (Fremont Library) provides similar services to Jerseyville Library and more. Fremont Library serves parts of Mundelein, Grayslake, Hawthorn Woods, Round Lake, and Round Lake Park. It serves a population of 38,792, with 12,494 cardholders. The library's physical item circulation the last fiscal year was 349,684.
Zoe Stein is the Adult Services Librarian who oversees Senior Outreach. She became a Senior Outreach Librarian "through a love of helping [seniors]” when she discovered her most fulfilling work was with the senior population. Her favorite example is a seniors’ book club called Senior Connections.
Senior Connections meets once a month at the Fremont Library to discuss fiction and nonfiction. Since Stein has started moderating Senior Connections, participation has increased by 240%! She reports that participants “are opinionated and love to talk about the book whether they loved it or not.” A surprise was the huge success of the discussion of All Boys Aren't Blue, the second most challenged book in America in both 2022 and 2023 according to the American Library Association. All Boys Aren't Blue is George M. Johnson's memoirs about growing up black, queer, and nonbinary. Initially nervous for the discussion, attendees had “fantastic insights and were happy to discuss all the things they learned.”
Fremont Library hosts programs for active seniors such as sessions on Medicare and Social Security, movie screenings, and flower arranging classes.
Stein has begun collaborations with senior residences. She recently started a program “The Librarian is In.” Accompanied by Circulation Department staff, she goes to retirement communities and independent living communities to bring books, offer on-site readers’ advisory, provide tech help and library app tutorials, and sign-up patrons for library cards. Forty-nine people attended her first program. Stein hopes to add an assisted living and memory care facility currently being built at the time of writing to Senior Connections’ rounds.
Stein's hope for the future is “to cultivate a thriving and vibrant community at the library for senior patrons.” She wants "to meet them where they are, whether that is hosting pop-up librarian services at more senior centers, or other places they frequent like local coffee shops.” Also on her agenda is building a collection of activity kits, which would help Alzheimer’s patients, in particular.
GAIL BORDEN PUBLIC LIBRARY DISTRICT
Like Fremont Library, Gail Borden Public Library District (Gail Borden) has a wide array of services and programming for seniors. The library serves 149,907 residents of Elgin, South Elgin, parts of Hoffman Estates, Streamwood, and Bartlett of which 90,693 residents are cardholders. Gail Borden sees 1,003,210 visitors annually and serves the fifth largest library population in Illinois after Chicago, Aurora, Rockford, and Joliet.
Glenna Godinsky is Gail Borden’s Life Enrichment Manager. She oversees services for seniors in the community, outside the walls of the library. Glenna has a team of twelve senior volunteers who assist at over twenty-five memory care, assisted living, developmental, skilled care, supportive living, and independent living locations. They conduct programs; lead craft activities, songs, and poems; and drop off donated library materials. The Life Enrichment Team not only serves the seniors, but offers staff support for how to use the library materials in programming.
Life Enrichment hosts an Elgin Area Memory Café for patrons with dementia and their caregivers while Cafecito entré Amigos serves the Spanish-speaking population in this demographic. Both programs were established in 2018. Participants hear educational speakers, do crafts, converse, and play games to connect and socialize. A Memory Care Collection has been added to the library’s collection and includes medical information, memoirs, and books written for adults living with dementia.
Elgin was the fifth city in Illinois to get a Dementia Friendly Designation from Dementia Friendly America. Godinsky is a Certified Dementia Practitioner which allows her to train business people, first responders, and organizations on dementia awareness. She provides resource materials and information to memory cafés in the community that speak English, Spanish, Cambodian, Laotian, and Vietnamese.
On July 9, 2024, the library celebrated its fifth year as part of Dementia Friendly Elgin Area with Mayor Dave Kaptain. Elgin Memory Café members, Cafecito entré Amigos members, and Chinese Mutual Aid Association members participated. A social event for the three groups has also been planned for September 2024 to help grow trust and strengthen connections.
A surprise success has been the purchase of both a Hasbro Toy for All Animatronic cat and dog. Godinsky uses the cat to help residents feel comfortable leaving their rooms, attending a program with the toy in their lap. The toys help reduce anxiety “quite well.” Several of these robotic toys have since been purchased and now circulate widely through the library's Home Services Department in a library-of-things style.
The library-of-things collection for senior patrons has grown in general at Gail Borden. Specifically, Godinsky grew the Memory Care Collection which now includes puzzles, bingo games, and wooden locks and latches. She states that these items can help “reduce anxiety and help people ‘live in the moment’ while spending time together.”
Godinsky says Gail Borden is “on the cusp of reaching exponentially more people who are at the highest risk of developing dementia–the people of color in our culturally-diverse library district.” Also, the library has “reached the goal of serving each senior/developmental care community in our district with library programs every other month” with “access to library services through Life Enrichment, Home Services, and the Techknow Mobile (which circulates technology such as Wi-Fi hotspots, provides instruction, circulates books, and other items).”
The most popular programs for seniors are on topics relevant to participants when they were teens. Examples are Elvis Presley, big band music, and drive-in movie theater history. Programs on nature such as butterfly migration and ice castles are also popular. For more active seniors, there are programs on investing, downsizing, home health services, and more. Many programs for general audiences also attract a lot of seniors, such as Gail Borden’s Sunday night concert series and craft programs. These are conducted by the library's Community Engagement Team.
The library is also:
- reaching seniors who live in care communities and seniors who are aging in place at home;
- partnered with multiple agencies in the district who serve seniors; and,
- empowering both active seniors and seniors who need extra care to be volunteers for their community through their library.
For the future, Godinsky says, “We must continue to uphold the trust that we have built in seniors throughout our community as we listen to them and design future programs and services.”
Senior Services will continue to thrive at Jerseyville, Fremont, Gail Borden, and other Illinois public libraries with librarians such as Smilack, Stein, and Godinsky leading the charge. Through innovations such as Smilack’s addition of sing-alongs with ukulele and piano to storytimes, Stein's book discussions about current fiction and nonfiction, and Godinsky's programs about Elvis Presley and emphasis on memory care, seniors will continue to be engaged and develop a passion for their libraries. This article is a testimonial to the rich services available for one of our most respected populations.
A special thank you to all those who responded to the questionnaire to share their experience.
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