To: Board of Supervisors
From: Alison McKee, County Librarian
Report Title: Dean and Margaret Lesher Foundation grant for the Juvenile Hall Library
?Recommendation of the County Administrator ? Recommendation of Board Committee
RECOMMENDATIONS:
RESCIND Board action of June 27th, 2023 (C. 29), which pertained to accepting a grant from the Dean and Margaret Lesher Foundation; and APPROVE and AUTHORIZE the County Librarian, or designee, to apply for and accept a grant in the amount of $30,000 from the Dean and Margaret Lesher Foundation to provide library books and materials at the Juvenile Hall Library for the period April 1, 2024 through March 31, 2027.
FISCAL IMPACT:
No County match is required.
BACKGROUND:
Grant funding from the Dean and Margaret Lesher Foundation will allow the Juvenile Hall Library to purchase new current titles to augment the collection as well as materials to replace worn items. These items will be ordered monthly over the course of the project's three-year time span to ensure a continuous increase of new materials.
All books and materials for the library's collections are purchased from revenue generated entirely through grants and individual donations. Because the Library at Juvenile Hall has been so successful in developing a love of reading for education and pleasure, many of the books in the collection need to be replaced annually due to wear and tear. Additionally, the teens are constantly demanding the newest titles by authors they admire or series they have read. To continue encouraging this special and unique population to develop habits of reading for pleasure and self-directed learning, it is important that the library can provide new titles that refresh the collection and to which the teens can relate.
CONSEQUENCE OF NEGATIVE ACTION:
If the grant is not funded, then the library at Juvenile Hall will not have needed materials for reading.
CHILDREN'S IMPACT STATEMENT:
As well as supplying Contra Costa County's population of...
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