Prince George's County Memorial Library System briefs council on youth literacy, Books from Birth and mobile workforce services
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Summary
The county library system reported 1.5 million visits in 2025, described growth in early-literacy programs (17,617 enrolled in Books from Birth), and said a $2.2 million federal grant will fund a mobile Library-to-Go career connector to serve jobseekers.
Prince George's County Memorial Library System officials told the Education and Workforce Development Committee on Feb. 9 that the system is expanding early-literacy and workforce services while seeking partnerships to scale teen and after-school programming.
"We had 1 and a half million people entering our buildings within a calendar year," said Colin Kim, the library system's business analytics manager, describing 2025 door counts collected with Tableau under a state grant. He said the library uses branch-level metrics and a customer-satisfaction Net Promoter Score (82.4 in January from nearly 9,000 responses) to guide programming and performance measures.
The system reported 7,143 programs in 2025 with 154,896 attendees and said it conducted nearly 300 outreach events that reached more than 24,000 people. For youth literacy, library leaders highlighted Ready to Read story times, the Kids Achieve Club (serving roughly 2,000 children last year across specified branches), and the Books from Birth program administered through the Dolly Parton Imagination Library: 17,617 children ages 0–5 were registered as of January, with an average cost of about $2.60 per book and more than 1.2 million books mailed since 2017. Library staff said program enrollment is increasing by about 150 participants per month and that two county hospitals enroll newborns before discharge.
On workforce services, the library described a Library-to-Go Career Connector funded by a $2,200,000 U.S. Department of Labor grant under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. The grant paid for a mobile workforce vehicle, materials and four grant-funded staff members in partnership with Employ Prince George's; presenters said technical delays have occurred but they anticipate scheduled stops in the coming weeks and that information is posted on the library website.
Presenters emphasized that capacity constraints — staff, budget and branch space — limit scaling at some locations, and they described pilot programming at the Bowie branch that leverages Bowie State University mentors and city grants. The system also noted multilingual offerings (English, Spanish, French and ASL conversation clubs), paired family programming that pairs adult language learning with children's homework help, and collaborations with PGCPS infant and toddler programs to serve families with special needs.
Library staff confirmed the system has been fine-free since July 2020 and said the county and state provide grant support for key literacy efforts, though some programs are outpacing funding and may require ongoing support.
