Programs and Pen Pals: You Never Know Your Library’s Reach

Abstract

This is a story of a pandemic, a program, and the pen pal that followed. In short, you never know your library’s reach—who will see or hear about your programs.

This a true story of a fortuitous long-distance friendship—one spawned out of a pandemic pivot that has reaped great rewards.

In 2020, when, as we all know, libraries had to reinvent methods to reach our patrons, I recorded a video about the lost art of letter writing. It’s a topic I’ve always been interested in—I had an international pen pal when I was younger—but was more so during lockdown.