KCLS Libraries do more than lend books. They play a central role in our communities as welcoming, friendly places that can inspire and empower everyone.
King County Library System spans 2,300 square miles and serves nearly 1.6 million people through 50 locations and an extensive array of online services and community outreach programs.
In 2024, the KCLS Foundation granted $1.7 million to KCLS programs. New and ongoing 2024 KCLS programs funded by the KCLS Foundation center around four funding priorities: Lifelong Literacy & Learning, Library Innovation, Accessibility & Inclusion, Community Services & Outreach
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion are central among our core values and we are constantly learning and trying new ways to expand access to our programs, resources, and facilities. Learn more about the programs the KCLS Foundation is funding in 2024 below.
LIFELONG LITERACY & LEARNING
StudyZone: A volunteer-led program providing learning support in a consistent and positive environment allowing students to receive tutoring in all subjects. It also gives English language learners the opportunity to practice English conversation and reading with their peers and get homework help from tutors who speak a wide range of languages.
Raising A Reader: A nationally recognized caregiver engagement and book delivery program, built upon research showing that children’s literacy increases when families are engaged in a regular reading routine and have access to high-interest books that are developmentally appropriate with diverse representation. Through partnerships with other agencies, we connect directly with high-priority audiences.
1 Million Reads Challenge: This program is part of KCLS’ Celebrate the Freedom to Read campaign. The goal of this reading challenge is to track one million minutes or pages of reading before the end of the year.
Supporting Grade Level Reading OTTER & Sasquatch Award: A program that helps reluctant and eager readers alike develop and strengthen their love of reading by offering fun books, engaging activities, and the voice to vote for their favorite books of the year. Book sets are distributed using an equity lens prioritizing schools that are under-resourced.
All Ages Summer Reading Program 2024: For low-income youth, simple access to books is the main barrier to reading engagement. This annual summer program provides books for all ages and focuses on habituating reading through challenges, incentives, and programs.
Continuous Imaginative Play at Renton Library: This grant is funding the purchase of toys that support self-guided imaginative play for children under 5 in the Renton Library children’s spaces. This request comes from feedback shared by patrons who have identified a need for more activities for children while caregivers work online, take meetings with social service providers, or do other tasks that require focus. Play is also a critical part of early literacy development. The toys purchased will address a range of early literacy needs including creating opportunities for children who are multi-lingual and neurodivergent.
ACCESSIBILITY & INCLUSION
Writers of Color Author Series: A series of online programs featuring high-profile BIPOC authors. A BIPOC community leader from King County moderates each event. The goal of the series is for adult readers from across King County to see themselves and their lives reflected in KCLS’ author programs.
Memory Labs: Funded by a grant from The Mellon Foundation, KCLS will work with community partners during the Memory Lab project to gather, amplify, and preserve the stories of patrons who have been impacted by systemic inequities, and language and cultural barriers. The five-year project will focus on two key audiences: Asian Americans and their descendants in the Bellevue area who were displaced from their homes and farms during World War II, and immigrants and refugees who now call King County home.
Connecting Older Adults Online: This program takes a holistic approach providing learning opportunities that build the digital skills necessary in today’s world, and art and humanities activities that are necessary for emotional well-being as people age. Older adults and caregivers are served through 40 online digital literacy classes, 100 online arts classes, and an online author series.
Connect: Wi-Fi Hotspots and Laptops: This program makes internet access available to people who would not otherwise be able to access it by distributing laptops and hotspots to partner agencies that serve people who are experiencing housing insecurity, as well as low-income seniors, immigrants, refugees, and students.
LGBTQIA+ Intergenerational Peer Programming: A pilot program in which library staff will collaborate with community organizations to develop a framework for designing intergenerational LGBTQIA+ programming and will host a series of 3 programs based on that framework.
COMMUNITY SERVICES & OUTREACH
Peers in Libraries: This program connects library patrons who have barriers to obtaining basic needs met, are experiencing housing instability or are unhoused, or are living with HIV/AIDS with services and resources to move them toward stability and improved health.
Services to Patrons Experiencing Food Insecurity: This program provides books and programming to ten food bank locations across our service area. Each location receives a $1000 stipend for programming that includes story times, food literacy, and community resource navigation.
The Welcoming Centers: This program’s goal is to facilitate connections and create communities of belonging among immigrants, refugees, and new arrivals. It functions as a point of connection, a suite of wrap-around services, and a resolution that all libraries are places of belonging.
Supportive Services to Unhoused Patrons: This program brings library resources and programs to community locations such as tent cities, shelters, day centers, treatment clinics, food banks, and subsidized housing. Services include book distribution, hotspot lending, activity kits, referrals to public benefits, and early literacy programs.
LIBRARY INNOVATION
Design Thinking Training: This program provides training to KCLS staff on design thinking, a creative mindset based on human-centered design, and developing ideas through empathy-building and iterative processes. This will help KCLS think beyond what we’ve done in the past and build a culture that is not afraid to learn from trying.
Community Creators: A project that builds opportunities for people to visibly influence library services and impact their communities by aiming to amplify community voices through close, responsive, and transparent collaboration with librarian partners to bring patron ideas to life.
Patron Engagement Data, Measurement and Experimentation Enablement: This project furthers KCLS’ position as a leader in patron engagement and library data science by helping fund BiblioCommons’ shared patron engagement data model and measurement system for public libraries. KCLS will immediately benefit from this project as BiblioCommons will use the data model to improve patron engagement through their suite of products we utilize.
Modern Public Library Services Platform Research: A research project in partnership with Equinox Open Library Initiative (EOLI) on the use of metadata management in public libraries. Metadata is key information that helps patrons find and retrieve resources. Public libraries must often adapt to the tools and systems that are developed based on the needs of academic libraries. This project concentrates on the needs of the public libraries. This type of proactive engagement leads to the development of tools and systems that better serve all patrons of public libraries.
Climate Action Plan: Funded in part by a grant from The National Endowment for the Humanities, this project will result in a long-term strategy that includes mitigation and adaptation strategies for lowering KCLS’ carbon footprint which could include placing charging stations at our libraries, and retrofitting heating and cooling systems, among other activities. This work will also become part of a national set of best practices.
