Town-gown collaborations are an ideal way for libraries to connect communities with scholars for humanities programming that would not otherwise be easily accessible to working class communities.

Our collaboration with Drexel University brought a shared reading experience to neighborhoods across Philadelphia. Citizens met in every major library region with professors for university level book discussions. The Central Library hosted a hybrid culinary/literary panel event to draw together communities across the city in a shared investigation of the impact of Hurston.

We connected hundreds of Philadelphians to democratic scholarly experience and have nurtured the connections to build future town-gown collaborations with the Writers Room.