Global Neighbors Series
Howard County Library System
Innovation Synopsis
In Howard County, we live in a community where our neighbors come from various parts of the world, and they bring their culture, food, and traditions to enrich our lives. At Howard County Library System, we celebrate our diversity and highlight the rich cultural heritage of the countries where our neighbors come from to foster better understanding of each other and create a more cohesive community. In the Global Neighbors Series, our audience experiences these heritages and contributions through cultural presentations like dance, music, fashion shows, arts, and crafts.
We research our demography to see where many of our neighbors come from. We highlight one of those countries in each event and invite community members who are originally from that country to showcase their talents by performing music, dance, crafts, and/or martial arts.
We invite a community member to give a short presentation of their country before the cultural portion of the event begins.
Challenge/Opportunity
With growing polarization in the nation and world, our goal was to increase understanding between people from different cultures by creating an opportunity for people to get to know more about each other. In a town hall conducted by the library, people commented that they wanted to know more about their neighbors who had practices and cultures different from their own. This desire inspired us to use the library's unique position to be a bridge for community members who come from different parts of the world. While seeking the talents of community members to perform for this series, the library has created and fostered relationships with different social and cultural organizations. This opened possibilities for future partnerships in programming and sharing library resources with members who did not know about the work that library does to help community members reach their potential.
Key Elements of Innovation
Following the Asset Based Community Development principles that guide our library system’s work, the Global Neighbors Series focused on featuring the talents of community members to perform arts and showcase crafts of the countries that they come from for the broader community to enjoy and learn. We solicit in-kind donations from local businesses like restaurants and grocery stores that sell food and groceries of the country we are highlighting. We raffle off gift certificates of restaurants between performances and have food and drinks donated by grocery stores to sample as long as supplies last. This event was created to be a bridge between different ethnic groups and the community at large.
Achieved Outcomes
Outcomes included getting community members involved, excited, and taking pride in showcasing the culture of their native countries; fostering increased understanding and appreciation of others’ cultures and contributions; and building relationships between the library and social organizations of different ethnic groups to collaborate and lifting the aspirations of community members of different race and ethnicities. Additionally, numerous library cards were issued to people who came into the library for the first time to either participate as performers or as audience members. Last but not least, representation matters. By lifting up a country from which many of our neighbors come from in each of these events in the Global Neighbors series at the library, we encourage a sense of belonging and help make everyone in the community feel seen, heard, and celebrated.
