Community Outreach and Engagement explores avenues of community partnership in order for Penn Libraries to positively impact both the Penn community and the greater community of West Philadelphia. Our most successful partnerships include those in which we work with public schools in Philadelphia to support the re-opening of their school libraries. Community Outreach also takes pride in its strong relationship to Greenfield Intercultural Center and their innovative programs.
Destiny Library Manager by Follett contains the catalogs of our public school partners and enables us to lend books in those libraries to the students of the school as well as the teachers. Our work-study students spend most of their time working in Destiny keeping the catalog up to date, helping students and teachers find the right books for them, checking books in and out to students, identifying where the school library's collection can grow.
The Homepage the School District of Philadelphia's Destiny Catalogs
https://philasd.follettdestiny.com
Most of the rest of this guide provides goes through the functions of Destiny most heavily used by our work-study team. More on Destiny LM, including their support documents can be found at their community website.
Our hours of operation are during the school day. Because most work happens off-site at local schools travel time should be taken into consideration when planning a work shift. It is expected that a work-study student will work at the same school at the same time every week in order to form strong relationships with the students and teachers and to pick up ongoing projects. Ideally a work shift can happen during at least a 3 hour gap in the student's class schedule during the day.
Paper timesheets are due in the Community Outreach Librarian's office every Thursday by 5pm.
Service to the community underlies all functions of the Community Outreach work-study team. Our first priority is engagement with students and teachers that fosters for teachers and students a sense of ownership and investment in their school libraries. Work-study students are expected to show up for their work-shifts on time and be in good communication with the rest of their team, their group leaders, and the Community Outreach Librarian.
Tasks the work-study team may perform during their time in the library can include, but not be limited to, helping students and teachers find and select books, checking books in and out, shelving books, creating book displays, planning special events, cataloging, and maintaining databases. These tasks may be performed individually or under the direction of a fellow work-study student.
Feel free to download these pdfs and powerpoint slides when leading a training in Destiny LM or for personal reference. Notes for each operation covered in the presentation can be found below or throughout these guide pages.
