Library and afterschool partnerships: How afterschool providers are working together with public libraries

How do afterschool programs view their local public libraries? Are they working with them, and in what ways? These are the questions that the Afterschool Alliance, along with its partners at the Space Science Institute’s National Center for Interactive Learning (NCIL) and the American Library Association, wanted to answer. Overall, our goal is to build bridges between the afterschool and library fields, so that both can share knowledge and resources to better serve our youth. While our work together has primarily focused on science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education through NCIL’s project, STAR_Net (Science-Technology Activities and Resources Library Education Network) the questions posed in our survey of afterschool providers offers a broader glimpse into the many types of partnerships happening with public libraries, as well as ideas for future growth. Note that we kept our discussion of the findings brief, but you can find the full set of survey results in the Appendix, starting on page 12.