Community Libraries

Where Stories Find Their Readers

Libraries are one of the most natural homes for the Community Story Shelf Initiative.

They are places where people gather, learn, wonder, remember, and discover stories they may not have found anywhere else.

A Community Story Shelf in a library can help celebrate local authors, preserve community voices, encourage young readers, and create a welcoming space where stories are shared across generations.

Libraries already understand something very important:

Stories do not belong to only one person.

They are meant to be found, borrowed, shared, remembered, and passed on.

Together, we may explore opportunities such as:

• Community Story Shelves

• Local author events

• Literacy and storytelling programs

• Community reading initiatives

• Family and children's activities

• Local history projects

• New ideas inspired by each library and its community

Growing Together

Libraries already invest countless hours creating welcoming spaces, encouraging literacy, supporting local authors, preserving history, and bringing communities together.

The Community Story Shelf Initiative isn't here to ask libraries to do more.

It's here to recognize what you're already doing, celebrate your community, and, as the initiative grows, help support your efforts whenever possible.

A Shared Commitment

Participating libraries become part of a growing international network connected by one simple question:

What if We Chose Love Instead?™

Each library remains uniquely its own while becoming part of a community that believes stories have the power to strengthen relationships and bring people together.

Growing Together

As participation in the initiative grows, so will opportunities to give back.

Recognition through What if We Chose Love Instead?™ helps create future opportunities for participating communities while also making it possible to support additional libraries and communities as resources allow.

Because when one community grows stronger...

we all do.

Why It Matters

A library shelf may seem small.

But one Community Story Shelf can hold a child’s first favourite book, a senior’s remembered story, a local author’s beginning, a visitor’s discovery, or a community’s shared history.

That is how stories continue.

That is how communities remember.

Libraries do more than hold books.

They help communities hold onto one another.

Back to Growing Our Communities