Highlights

Eclipse Fever

It started with the library's plan to give away safe viewing glasses for the historic total solar eclipse on August 21. It ended with a fevered frenzy of people coming to the library to get eclipse glasses. Thanks to the Topeka Police for helping control the line of cars that backed-up to Gage Blvd to receive 1,000 pair of safe viewing glasses.

Summerfest

You surpassed the summer reading goal of 3 million minutes by reading 3,626,821 minutes. We challenged babies, kids and adults to read at least 20 minutes a day for eight-weeks, library events brought more than 18,000 people to the library.

Our annual art exhibit for children in the Alice C. Sabatini Gallery included a climbing wall, a kid-created garden, a rocket launcher and Minecraft™ exploration.

The library was a site for the kids' summer meal program serving 3,814 meals, averaging 73 kids each weekday.

Facility Master Plan Progresses

We made a few changes to the library building this year by improving the entry with a beautiful pedestrian plaza with raised flower beds and seating. A new entrance connected the Millennium Café to the New Books, Movies & Music room with new seating along the west windows. The most popular improvement happened in the center of the library with eight rooms for small groups, dubbed "Team Rooms." Another popular change relocated the magazines and newspapers to the CoreFirst Bank and Trust Reading Room. The building on the 1001 SW Garfield property, which was donated to The Library Foundation by St. Francis Health, was demolished to make way for additional parking for the library.

Here comes the "Play Bus"!

Two years ago, we identified five community impact goals that the library would help achieve. Our number one priority is that every child would be ready for kindergarten. In just one year, the library has implemented strategies to address learning needs for the birth to 6 year olds and the community is benefitting from our work.

With only 31 percent of Shawnee County children having access to a formal preschool experience, the library worked in partnership with area educational and health organizations to address this learning gap. Nine months of planning delivered a 40-foot mobile classroom named the Learn & Play Bus (kids call it the "play bus" or "library bus"). Traveling to targeted areas of need, the Learn & Play Bus provides vital literacy skills through playing, talking, reading, singing and writing to prepare kids to enter school. The bright mural-clad bus travels to eight locations across the community. From Feb to Dec 2017, nearly 3,000 children and their families were learning from purposeful play.

Imagine if every child had books at home

It takes more than one strategy to have every child ready for kindergarten and research makes it clear that brain development is very important in a child's first three-years of life. Further research suggests that the number of books in the home predicts later success in school. In April the library, in partnership with United Way of Greater Topeka, initiated Dolly Parton's Imagination Library so that children ages birth to 5 years will receive a book delivered by the U.S. Postal Service each month. By the end of 2017 more than 3,500 children or 20 percent of the eligible children in Shawnee County were receiving books at no cost to their family. An annual donation of $25 provides a child with 12 books a year.

When everyone reads 2Books

Another community impact goal is that Topeka and Shawnee County will be an engaged community of readers.

If you are curious about why it's important that everyone reads the same book, the NEA's Big Read initiative engaged thousands in our community to read the same book, talk about it with friends and attend events relating to the book topic. Our readers loved the community read but always wanted it done more often. In June we launched 2Book Topeka, which gives readers the opportunity to read two featured books. 2Book Topeka is offered three-times a year (Feb-March, June-July and Oct-Nov).