Library Impact
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Free English Language Programs at the Library to Expand with Significant Carnegie Grant
The Seattle Public Library is excited to announce that it’s received a prestigious $450,000 grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York that will fund a significant expansion of the Library’s free English language learning programs over the next two years. The grant to the Seattle Public Library Foundation is part of Carnegie’s “Libraries as Pillars… Continue reading
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With Wheels Instead of Walls, Mobile Services Delivers Books and Connection
On a rainy morning, residents of Council House, a low-income senior living facility on Capitol Hill, are getting their monthly library fix. Every third Tuesday of the month, The Seattle Public Library’s Mobile Services team unloads the Bookmobile and sets up a pop-up library in the community access room of the building. Residents trickle in… Continue reading
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Building Literacy and Reading Joy for 30 years: the Global Reading Challenge
On Wednesday, April 2, after 60 tense minutes of competition in front of a cheering crowd in the Central Library auditorium, The Library Lynx team from Queen Anne Elementary won the title of 2025 Global Reading Challenge city champion. Wearing orange headbands and purple T-shirts, the seven fourth and fifth graders competed against 10 other… Continue reading
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Caring For Each Other Better: Podcast Features the Library’s Social Services team
Over the past several years, The Seattle Public Library has created an in-house Social Services team. Consisting of two community resource specialists and a Social Services librarian, the team is guided by trauma-informed care principles and the knowledge that you can’t enjoy full access to library services if your basic needs are not met. If… Continue reading
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6 Ways We’re Expanding Access: Fine-Free Anniversary, Part 2
Last week, in honor of the Library’s five-year anniversary of no longer charging overdue fines, we shared stories from our patrons about what fine-free borrowing has meant to them. We wanted to shares other changes the Library has made to expand access and create a more worry-free, inclusive experience. If you have questions about any… Continue reading
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“A Huge Load Off My Shoulders”: 5 Fine-Free Years, Part 1
Five years ago, the Library eliminated overdue fines, a change that was overwhelmingly approved by Seattle voters when they voted in the 2019 levy (thank you!). We also forgave all outstanding fines to give as many people as possible a fresh start. We made this change because decades of research, as well as our daily… Continue reading
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Impact Story: Digital Inclusion in Action at the Delridge Branch
What does it mean to have computer skills for the first time? On a Saturday afternoon in December at the Delridge Branch’s meeting room, 11 newly minted adult graduates of a 13-week basic digital literacy class organized by Villa Comunitaria, reflected on this question. One student, Abel, said that the class has helped prepare him… Continue reading
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“Crash Course in College Life”: UW Magazine Covers Library Internship
We were thrilled to see a recent article in UW Magazine that told the story of a program for high school students that the Library has been involved in since the beginning. The UW Libraries High School Internship serves a small number of teens — 10 a year — but as writer Dan Parry documented,… Continue reading
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Library Impact: A Dementia-Friendly Concert Series at the Memory Hub
On a Monday afternoon in mid-August, a spacious courtyard on Seattle’s First Hill is alive with flowers, music, dancing and quiet conversation. It is cloudy, but the mood is all sunshine at the Memory Hub, a dementia-specific community center on the Frye Museum campus founded by the University of Washington Memory and Brain Wellness Center.… Continue reading
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Cool News: The Final 5 Library Branches Will Get AC, Thanks to City’s FEMA Grant
Yesterday afternoon, Tuesday Aug. 20, Mayor Bruce Harrell, Chief Librarian Tom Fay, and leaders from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) gathered at the University Branch to announce a groundbreaking FEMA grant that will bring air conditioning to the last five Library branches without it. The grant is part of Seattle’s climate adaption efforts, expanding… Continue reading