Advancing a Culture of Creativity in Libraries: Programming and Engagement

Today’s library workers have many roles to play: information gatekeepers, connectors, collaborators, and storytellers. The key ingredient is creativity, which acts as the lynchpin of functioning successfully as a team as well as impacting communities in positive ways. This book examines creativity and how it can be applied in library work culture, programming, and outreach. Lotts shows how libraries can encourage staff to approach teaching, learning, and problem-solving in unconventional ways. This invigorating book 

• demonstrates why the challenges of our current historical moment provide us with a unique opportunity to stop and consider our work and our goals;
• dives into several case studies of creative and playful library projects, many of which can be adapted for reuse, investigating how they came to be and the impact they have had on their communities;
• discusses getting buy-in from administrators and funding organizations;
• offers pointers on collaborating with communities;
• guides readers in assessing the impact projects have on communities; and
• talks about how to learn and grow from failure and frustration.

Megan Lotts is the Art Librarian at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, where she regularly embraces creativity when teaching research workshops, building collections, and facilitating programming and events across the New Brunswick campuses. She has presented her research on makerspaces, play, and the work of library liaisons both nationally and internationally and has published articles in Art Documentation, portal: the Libraries in Academia, College and Research Libraries News and more. She earned an MFA (2004) and MLIS (2007) from University of Wisconsin-Madison; and a BFA in Painting (2000) and BFA in Art History (2002) from the University of Illinois- Champaign-Urbana. She currently lives in New Brunswick, NJ where she continues to explore, make, and engage in daily activities involving creativity and play.