Community Camera Club
Hennepin County Library, Minn.
Innovation Synopsis
At Community Camera Club, patrons at Minneapolis Central Library learn basic photography and photo editing from experts and practice using their phones or devices borrowed from the library. While learning together and going into the community to shoot photos, club members build relationships with each other and with library staff.
Challenge/Opportunity
Community Camera Club’s core membership grew out of engagement with patrons experiencing homelessness and advertised exclusively through social services organizations that serve them. Other patrons, housed and unhoused, have joined the club and learn side by side with original members. One of these new joiners, an 85-year-old woman, said, "This is the best club I have ever been in."
Key Elements of Innovation
The program has helped us reduce the power imbalance that exists between patrons experiencing homelessness and library staff, as staff are club participants and learn alongside and from other members. Thanks to the small size of the camera club and regular meetings, staff now have relationships with patrons who may have been in the library regularly, but typically had little to no contact with library staff.
Achieved Outcomes
Club members appreciate the "one on one time with peers, faculty and staff" and "the cheerful attitude of other photographers." We value the improved one-to-one relationships with patrons, and we are proud of the patron engagement that went into development of the program, as well as our work to provide an opportunity to explore arts in a community-building setting.
