COLUMBUS, Ind. — The Bartholomew County Public Library is using a racial equity collection grant from Indiana Humanities to start a young adult virtual book club.
Following the death of George Floyd and widespread protests, many libraries were flooded with requests for books and other resources regarding racial justice. This led to long wait times on popular titles. In recognition of this, Indiana Humanities invited libraries, schools and community organizations to apply for Advancing Racial Equity Collection Development Grants.
The grants, ranging from $290 to $1,000, were given to help these libraries and other entities “meet increased demand for materials to circulate in their communities.” For some libraries, this meant buying physical books to put back on their shelves or digital resources for patrons to use.
Sandy Allman, outreach librarian for the Bartholomew County Public Library, applied for the grant with a slightly different idea in mind: buying the materials to support a virtual book club on racial equity.
Through the grant, the library was awarded $981 to buy eight copies of 11 different books on the subject. These books will be used for a young adult book club, which Allman has dubbed “Get Lit!”
The club is an official chapter of the Project LIT community. Allman, the chapter’s facilitator, said that Project LIT is a “grassroots movement” that promotes literacy and listening to minority voices.
“Project LIT is normally done in a high school classroom, but I received approval from the Project LIT coordinator to actually start a group in a library for young adults,” she said. “We do have teen librarians here, so I didn’t want to encroach upon that age range. So that’s why I chose the young adults. It’s also an area we don’t really have a lot of programming for.”
The Get Lit! book club is for young adults ages 18-25, Allman said. She said that she came up with its title as a pun on literature.
For more on this story, see Tuesday’s Republic.
