Highwood Library Wins Nation's Top Museum And Library Honor

HIGHWOOD, IL — The Institute of Museum and Library Services awarded the Highwood Public Library its highest honor this week.

The library was one of three in the nation to win the 2021 National Medal for Museum and Libraries. A trio of museums also received the annual award, which since 1996 has recognized the institutions for their outstanding contributions to their towns.

The Highwood Public Library, formed in 1976, implemented a new strategic plan in 2018 dedicated to respond to the needs of the community.

Carmen Patlan was recruited to take over as executive director and began work in February 2019.

"It's incredible what this little library has done over these past two years," Patlan told Patch. "We always like to say that we're small but mighty."

This year marks the second time her work has been recognized by the national award from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, or IMLS, the biggest source of federal support for the nation's libraries and museums, which it provides though grantmaking, research and policy development, according to the institute.

Waukegan Public Library was awarded an IMLS medal in 2013, after Patlan established a team of ambassadors to connect the community to library resources during her time as its community engagement manager. She later became development director for A Safe Place, which provides services addressing domestic violence and human trafficking in Lake County.

When Patlan took the helm in Highwood two years ago, she first set out to identify the needs of the 1,900-household town.

"The first year was to really get to understand and know the community," she said. "Because I don't believe in creating programs that sound like good ideas, I believe in creating programs that are going to be relevant for a community's needs."

Following feedback from the community, the executive director determined that residents were being hindered by low literacy levels and a lack of access to health information.

"If I was talking to a group of five, four of the people that were there didn't get a chance to go to school," said Patlan, who is multilingual and brought on multilingual staff as executive director. "If the adult learners are low literate, their children are not going to be as successful academically."

According to census data, more than half of Highwood residents speak a language other than English at home and more than half identify as Hispanic or Latino.

The library established a literacy initiative called Leamos and began offering a Spanish-language GED program, with more than two dozen students attending when it began in the fall of 2019.

While the coronavirus pandemic pushed library staff to pivot all programming to digital, Patlan said four students in the new GED program have already graduated with a degree. Two are now headed to college.

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The library director said many newer residents are often unaware of the resources that public libraries in the United States can provide.

"Families are not familiar with a library system like ours, so our job as libraries is to really help all families understand who we are," Patlan said. "We are a free resource, and we are a resource that should be, and must be, relevant to all aspects of our community."

Patlan has established a guiding principle for the library called BREAK — Bridging Resources, Education and Access to Knowledge — with all programming aimed at addressing it.

"Ultimately, our goal is to bridge that knowledge to families and to break those barriers of poverty," she said. "And it all starts through education."

Before the first wave of COVID-19 arrived in Illinois last year, Patlan had established a new functional health literacy program Mano a Mano Family Resource Center. It recruited a five-person team of community health ambassadors to help identify families who lack health care resources and provide preventative health education.

"These same individuals, the community health workers, they became the trusted voices to go out into the community and help inform individuals of the important of registering for the Census," Patlan said. "At the time there was a lot of rhetoric from the administration instilling immigrant fear and so our goal was to diminish that fear and get to the hard to count community to really leverage that Census count for Highwood."

Highwood achieved a self-response rate of 70.9 percent for the 2020 Census, half of a percentage point under the state average. That compared to a self-response rate of 56.7 percent in North Chicago and 65.2 percent in Waukegan.

In the early days of the pandemic, when Highwood had one of the county's highest per capita rates of COVID-19 infection, the library secured grants from the Highland Park Community Foundation to distribute personal protective equipment, or PPE, to local families.

It also began offering homework help for students in remote learning, and it partnered with Roberti Community House in Waukegan and Curt's Cafe in Highland Park to distribute food to local families suffering with food insecurity.

At is peak in December, the program was serving 350 households, with about 140 still receiving assistance as of May, Patlan said.

The library also offered COVID-19 testing in its parking lot, conducting more than 800 tests with the help of public health officials.

And since establishing a partnership with Walgreens and State Rep. Bob Morgan, the library has vaccinated 1,400 people since March, its director said, with more than 90 percent from the Highwood and Highland Park area.

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Patlan said today's library administrators need to establish themselves as a trusted resource for everyone they serve.

"One of the biggest lessons that I would say is really being willing to understand all of your community, not just the ones that regularly come into your doors, but really wanting to understand, truly, who your community is," Patlan said. "Then being willing to bridge a relationship with all demographics of your community and understand their needs so that we as a library can be relevant."

And to remain relevant, library administrators need to be willing to be uncomfortable sometimes.

"It wasn't comfortable when we were out there in the midst of the pandemic, but we did it," she added. "Because if not us, who would be that lifeline for the families we were working with?"

This year, Highwood's was the only library in Illinois named among the 30 finalists for the award announced in March. The Brookfield Zoo was a finalist in the museums category.

U.S. Rep. Brad Schneider, who nominated the library for the prestigious award, thanked Patlan and her staff for their commitment to serving Highwood and Lake County.

“Under Executive Director Carmen Patlan’s leadership, the Highwood Public Library has transformed into a vital hub of support for local families and the growing immigrant population in Highwood," Schneider said in a statement. "The Highwood Library’s technology and education services help ensure that local children and families of all backgrounds have the tools they need to succeed."

State Sen. Julie Morrison also congratulated library officials in a statement. She said it served as a place Highwood residents could count on for acceptance, connection and support.

“There is no library more deserving of the honor and recognition than Highwood,” Morrison said. “From educational support to free multicultural and bilingual programs and services, the library is a one-stop shop for all residents’ needs.”

The nonprofit Friends of the Highwood Public Library, established in 2019, allows tax-deductible contributions to support the work of the library.

The library has secured a $671,000 Illinois Public Library Construction Act grant, with the 501(c)3 group looking to raise the remaining $1.32 million to renovate the building and into a state-of-the-art community center.

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The 2021 IMLS awards area due to be presented at a virtual ceremony in July.

"It's a humbling experience to be able to be this resource in this community, to be able to highlight the needs that existing this community and to address those needs," Patlan said. "It's a humbling experience, and it's a validating experience for me to receive an IMLS for this kind of work."