Collection Equity Award

With a Collection Equity Award, the D. A. Hurd Library will develop and expand our resources by purchasing books and items related to health literacy and health and medical issues.  Our library supports North Berwick, a rural Maine town with a population of 4,978 (https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/northberwick.) For the purpose of this Award, we will focus on developing our resources for our aging adult community and our LGBTQIA+ community.

We will provide additional resources for our older community members, their caregivers, and those who want to learn more about this aging community. This Award would allow us to expand our catalog to include more books focusing on Dementia, Alzheimers, Cancer, Cooking (for medical issues), Caregiving, and Grief. It would also allow us to increase from one to three Memory Kits patrons can borrow.  (Kits contain items such as a dementia quilt/pillow/fidget item, Reminisce type books, large-piece puzzle/game/large print coloring book, caregiver resources.)   

We will provide expanded resources to support our LGBTQIA+ community (all ages), their allies, and those who want to learn more about this community.  We currently offer books related to this community. This Award will allow more diverse content supporting various ages. While we strive to provide equity and representation in our collection, this Collection Equity Award would also allow us to add books providing mental health support for our LGBTQ community as everyone faces mental health challenges at some point regardless of gender, race, or socio-economic status.