iSchool Capstone

Guitars For Libraries: Community Partnerships and Lifelong Music Education

Project tags:

community engagement & outreach

equity & inclusion

information behavior & user research

Musical instruments are expensive, resulting in many people being unable to afford music education. Musical instrument lending collections can make music education more accessible. Seattle-based nonprofit Music4Life had a surplus of guitars and amplifiers which they wanted to gift to a library. We began a relationship between Music4Life and a public library to start the process of integrating this collection. We also created an informative document about implementing a musical instrument lending collection. Our work will benefit the library’s community, increasing arts accesibility, and could benefit public libraries that are interested in offering musical instruments as well as their communities.
Project participants:

Apollo Battey

MLIS

Nick Passabet

MLIS