Hashtag Tiny Library Rolls Into Goleta | Homes & Lifestyle - Noozhawk

By Jaime Shaw for city of Goleta | January 18, 2020 | 1:01 p.m.

Hashtag Tiny Library on Goleta Valley Library front lawn. (Courtesy photo)

Goleta’s newest library is a hashtag. A Tiny Library in the form of a bright yellow hashtag is now in front of the Goleta Valley Library, 500 N. Fairview thanks to a partnership with the Santa Barbara County Office of Arts & Culture.

The hashtag will remain on the front lawn of the library through April 30, and library staff will stock it with books for all ages. These books are free to the public, and people are also encouraged to leave books to donate to other readers.

“I am delighted to have this eye-catching, creative library available for our community members to enjoy," said Library Director Allison Gray. "This is a unique opportunity for those without a library card to have access to free books.

"We encourage anyone who doesn’t yet have a library card to come take a look at the hashtag and then come inside and get a Goleta Valley library card.”

The Tiny Libraries exhibit, by artist Douglas Lochner, is the result of a partnership between the Santa Barbara County Office of Arts & Culture and the city of Santa Barbara. It consists of six bright, life-sized, functional art “libraries” in the shape of punctuation marks.

The city of Goleta worked with the county Office of Arts & Culture to bring the hashtag to Goleta; the other five punctuation marks will be placed throughout the county. All six were originally on State Street.

More information about the Tiny Libraries program is available at www.sbac.ca.gov/tinylibraries.

Other things currently going on at the Goleta Valley Library include the Adult Winter Reading Club, the first children’s Spanish Book Club, and free homework help for elementary students.

The Adult Winter Reading Club runs through Feb. 28. Patrons are encouraged to read or listen to as many books (including magazines and periodicals) as they can over this period and be entered into a weekly raffle to win prizes. Prizes are donated by very generous local businesses.

The new book club is aimed at children in grades 3-6 who speak Spanish and would like to improve their Spanish reading and comprehension skills. Each book will be covered over three meetings where students will get to practice their Spanish vocabulary as they discuss what they've read and theorize what will come next in the book.

The Spanish Book Club meets at 3 p.m. the second and fourth Sunday of every month at the library. Space is limited and registration is required in person or by calling 805-964-7878.

The book club will help children improve their Spanish language skills by:

Deepening their appreciation and understanding of Spanish-language text.
Extending their thinking to process and interpret different perspectives and opinions of their peers.
Expanding their ability to express ideas orally using academic language.
Providing an authentic context for applying norms for listening and speaking.

Free homework is available for kindergarten-5th graders, 3:16-6 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays at the library. Students are paired with library staff and volunteer tutors; the library will try to pair up the same tutor with the same student so they can build a relationship that goes beyond homework help.

For more information, or if you are a senior citizen and would like to volunteer to be a tutor, call the library at 805-964-7878.

Students in higher grades can receive free homework help through the online program Brainfuse HelpNow, which provides access to live tutors who can help answer problematic questions. This program is free and available to anyone with a library card. Live online tutoring is available from 1-10 p.m. daily.