This summer the Metropolitan New York Library Council (METRO), alongside our consulting team BKS Studio, will host a series of community gatherings aimed at bringing together a diverse and creative group of cultural institution workers from New York City and Westchester County. Together participants will share their needs, inspiration, and ideas for the future Library Field project and outdoor site!
To kick things off, METRO members are invited to the following Social Happenings and Imaginings, a series of community-building events.
Social Happenings are three introductory meet-and-greet gatherings that will explore questions and ideas of working with/in different METRO member groups with an emphasis on developing trust and conviviality. For each Happening (duration 2 hours) activities will include: food and artifact sharing, social and cultural grounding techniques, place-centered storytelling, and community dialogue circles.
Imaginings are two in-depth nature learning, interagency demonstrations, and brainstorming sessions in outdoor spaces. We will focus on bringing together METRO’s current members and potential partners to explore the benefits of place-based programming, learning, and sharing. Participants will be invited to sift through their temporal memories of the region using native-to-space/native-to-place based techniques that center the past, present, and future of the Library Field initiative.
Now for the ask. For these Social Happenings and Imaginings we want to invite current METRO members, leaders and workers at cultural heritage institutions and other spaces to meet and share with each other their vision for the Library Field. This would include not only your expertise in the fields of galleries, archives, libraries, and museums but also your insights as inhabitants and enjoyers of the local environments, land, and resources found in New York City and Westchester County. Your views will help craft the future of the project!
So then when can we meet you? The following three opportunities will be open for participant registration from May 27th to June 21st, 2024 on a first-come, first-serve basis. If you cannot make these events, check back in June as we will be sharing details on the next series of events for the project.
Invitations will be sent out via email. Please get in contact with libraryfield@metro.org for more information.
- Register for June 24, 2024 from 6:00pm to 8::00pm at Ossining Public Library
- Register for June 27, 2024 from 5:30pm to 7:30pm at Greenpoint Library Demonstration Garden
- Register for June 28, 2024 from 11:00am to 1:00pm on Zoom
If you can’t make these events, check back in June as we will be sharing details on the next series of events for the project.
If you can’t make these events, check back in June as we will be sharing details on the next series of events for the project.
The Library Field is a new project for METRO. We are looking for a nonurban, semi-rural outdoor location that our network of libraries, archives, museums, and other organizations can use as a shared programming space. During the COVID-19 pandemic, METRO took part in a nationwide initiative that revealed some of the implications of moving library programs and services outside of buildings. Cultural institutions all over the country refocused their efforts on safe outdoor programming through environmental education, storywalks, community gardening, nature connectedness work, citizen science projects, and more. Based on what we learned during that difficult time, METRO plans to open a permanent facility that will serve our region and become a prototype for a new service model for libraries, their partners, and their communities. With activities situated somewhere between those of a park, a preserve, a museum, and a library, the Library Field will be a shared environment that will deepen the community’s understanding of the natural world and the way that we study it, find inspiration in it, and are responsible for its protection.