Resource Sharing

Spotlight on Sharing: Walking Dogs Outside the Lines

By Amy Hitchner: Published on
Resource Sharing

Last week, hundreds of libraries around the world celebrated Outside the Lines (OTL), a campaign to increase public awareness about library innovation and community engagement. Read about the OTL events that happened in Colorado.

Outside the Lines Dog Walking Booth
Visitors gather around the Denver Animal Shelter tent outside the Central Branch of Denver Public Library

One of the many events sponsored by Denver Public Library (DPL) during their Around Denver OTL campaign was the Human Walking Program on September 15, 2016. DPL partnered with the Denver Animal Shelter to give downtown office workers a break from the daily grind—they brought in a cadre of adorable, adoptable shelter dogs take people on walks. It was a heartwarming sight to see, as dozens of people clamored to play with these pups.

OTL Dog Walking NRS Team
Arian, Regan, Mark, Amy, and Babi are all smiles after walking dogs!

Several of my colleagues from the Networking and Resource Sharing team at the Colorado State Library attended the event on this beautiful, sunny day—and made some new friends in the process.

OTL Dog Walking Arian
Arian and her friend Spud
Outside the Lines Babi
Babi and his buddy Jacks
OTL Dog Walking Mark
Mark on a walk with his pal Baron

The Human Walking Program is just one example of how libraries in Colorado and around the world made themselves visible to their communities in fun and interesting ways, often through partnerships with other organizations. The end of OTL 2016 doesn’t mean the end of these partnerships, so let’s continue being visible in our communities and sharing our stories.

This post is part of the Spotlight on Sharing initiative, which aims to increase the visibility of resource sharing in Colorado libraries. Do you have OTL 2016 stories to share? Send them to Amy Hitcher, ahitchner@coloradovirtuallibrary.org, or on Twitter using the hashtags #spotlightonsharing and #getOTL.

Amy Hitchner
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