Penn Hills Library is now more accessible to local students.

The Allegheny County Library Association teamed up with local school districts to expand library access to students with a free student library card program. The Library Association was able to upload school record information into the Penn Hills Library system and create a library card for every student in every school in Penn Hills School District.

Now, Penn Hills Library provides free library cards to more than 3,000 students across Penn Hills Elementary, Penn Hills Middle School and High School. Charter schools in the district are not included in the program.

The donation-based library, which gets most of its funding from the municipality and the state, along with some federal funding and donations, also went fine and fee-free. That, along with the new student library cards, is part of a concerted effort from the library to expand access for young people.

“We’ve really been trying to bring the classrooms into the library, and they all check out books,” said Christine Garber, one of the youth services librarians at Penn Hills who helps with the library card program. “Even if they don’t have a library card, we just check them out to a classroom card and then we go back to the school and pick up the books.

“All of our kids’ programs are free and do not require registration — and you don’t need a library card. You can show up from anywhere and you can use the computers without having a library card. However, when you are on the computer, there are a ton of resources that you can access only with your library card. It also comes with the benefit of having access to a librarian, and they can point you in the right directions of what resources you can use.”

The deadlines to get school records for the children happen in February and October. Penn Hills had all the students names in by early February, and they expect to have the cards ready for all of the students by the end of April.

“Our students and families very much benefit from this collaboration with our local library. While our PHE library collection is quite extensive, there is no way any one entity can match the interests of all individual students and families,” said district superintendent Dr. Nancy Hines. “Through this shared effort, however, our kids and families are afforded the benefit of tapping into our local library’s extensive collection, too.”

That gives the students access to an almost endless array of books, DVDS, CDs, Japanese anime/manga and video games, including Nintendo Switch, PS4 and Xbox and even some brand new PS5 and Xbox Series 1 games. The library even loans out some non-traditional items, like cake pans for baking, Kindle launch pads, and wonder books, which are books that have a button you can press and audio is played as you read the book.

“Our goal with this is to make people more aware of the library. You don’t need a card to come in and hang out after school, but it puts us in people’s minds that they can walk over here after school and hang out here until they can get picked up,” said Jamie Poland, who also works as a youth services librarian and helps coordinate the program. “But just giving that age group a place to exist because its getting harder and harder to have a space — that’s something that’s really important to us.”

The library will continue to spread to word in the school in order to make the students aware of the access that they have.

“We have ongoing elementary school visits to spread awareness. We have the middle school coming. Students also get an opt-out form just in case they wish to not take part,” Poland said. “We have a bulletin board that we update every month at the middle school with our programs and what’s going on. In April, we’re going to have information on there telling the students that they got a library card and explaining how they can use it.”

”Statistics say that having a library card is proven to increase performance at school,” Garbder said. “I think it’s more about having access to the library and seeing it as kind of a magical place when you’re a child because it paves the way for a lifetime of access to the library and to learning.”

Hines concurs.

“As we know, student engagement is a key element that promotes learning. Similarly, strong literacy skills enhance learning in all other content areas,” she said. “It’s an absolute win-win.”

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