The Gardening in Colorado Public Library Pathfinder was designed specifically to address a known problem in my state of residence: How to garden successfully given the frequently arid and harsh climate, with cold winters? While the gardening and landscaping collection at Old Town Library specifically, and Poudre Libraries more broadly, is comprehensive, it can be difficult to locate resources specific to our microclimate and water-wise gardening concerns within that collection, which made this topic ideal for a pathfinder. This project was shared with library staff at Poudre Libraries in Fort Collins, Colorado, and specifically the staff at Old Town Library, the physical branch collection on which it was based. It has also been requested for use by members of the public who have long sought to improve their gardening skills when faced with the semi-arid Zone 5B gardening climate on the Colorado Front Range. PLO5, which states that we must identify needs and connect individuals with information that engages and empowers them, is clearly met here. RUSA Guideline 4: Searching and RUSA Guideline 5: Evaluation were relied on consistently to develop and deliver an information-dense but very usable pathfinder with very topical, local interest to the library system for which it was created. Finally, ALA Ethics 1 and 3, covering provision of the highest level of service and every user’s right to privacy, were used as guiding principles.

The project may be found here: https://sites.google.com/view/gardeningincolorado

or by clicking on the image to the left of this description.

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