Virtual Event: What’s YOUR Santa Barbara? Community Asset Mapping

As part of the library’s Book to Action programming this year, SBPL invites all community members to learn about and participate in a community built asset map. In this introduction, attendees will learn about community asset maps and how to contribute to an online map for the Santa Barbara region.

Jointly led by CAUSE’s Frank Rodriguez and SBPL’s Jen Lemberger, both self-proclaimed map geeks.

Asset mapping, drawing a map of what is valuable in our communities, is an exercise in community development. Assets are the resources and strengths within our neighborhoods and communities. These include organizations/associations, businesses, institutions, cultural groups, physical spaces, local services, transportation, expertise/skills, networks and relationships. They are anything that improves the quality of the community.

About Frank Rodriguez:

Frank Rodriguez is born and raised in Santa Barbara as the son of Mexican immigrants from Degollado, Jalisco, Mexico. After finishing his B.A. at UCLA, Frank worked as a labor, community and electoral organizer throughout southern California.  Frank recently completed his Masters in Latin American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, focusing on how mapping has and can become an empowering tool for organizing Latinx communities. Frank is a hip hop head, who is more likely to be found listening to R&B or cumbia. He loves all sports, but understands life is a game and soccer is serious, especially when it comes to the chivas ralladas de guadalajara. You will most likely find him skating or biking to meetings around town.

This event is part of SBPL’s Book to Action programming around the book The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom. The book explores family history, environmental impacts on place and people, racial justice, housing insecurity, and community investment/divestment. We hope you will join and participate in many of SBPL’s scheduled Book to Action events. The full list of events is forthcoming.

Free community copies of The Yellow House will be available on a first come, first served basis for those who register for this event. Please email JLemberger@SantaBarbaraCA.gov to request a copy.

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Book to Action is a grant-funded program through the California Center for the Book that takes the basic book club concept and expands it to create a dynamic series of events for adults and multigenerational groups. In 2021, 35 library jurisdictions were selected to create a Book to Action series. Librarians work closely with community partners in engaging community members to read and discuss a book on a current topic, attend author or speaker events, and put their new-found knowledge into action by participating in a community service project or civic engagement activity related to the book.

California Center for the Book is a program of the California Library Association, supported in whole or in part by the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act, administered in California by the State Librarian.