The Waukegan Public Library is passionate about providing opportunities for Waukegan residents to learn, grow, and achieve their goals. We believe that education – the classroom kind, and the ‘school of life’ kind – are equally valuable. Most importantly, we believe that lifelong learning is essential to happier, healthier living. The Waukegan Public Library sees itself as instrumental in the fight against low literacy and joblessness, because the Library is in a unique position of being able to offer instructional assistance to adults. To that end, the Library is committed to developing programs like our GED preparation, English language learning, and life skills courses. The Library offers similar programming for children, to enrich and supplement the literacy education they receive at school, with a view towards improving overall educational achievement, increasing the high school graduation rate, and nurturing a lifelong love of learning. Our 2015 renovation completely transformed our main floor into a learning-focused library ready to meet the needs of our patrons. We’ve increased our classroom space, enabling us to enroll more residents in our classes. We’ve created spaces for collaboration and for quiet study. This new configuration supports our award-winning Literacy Suite downstairs, where we will continue to hold adult tutoring and group classes. Computer workstations provide ready access to the internet and to essential software, and we are happy to report that the Friends of the Waukegan Public Library have been able to reopen their book sale. The main floor renovation also features a small café space, encouraging patrons to view the library as a space to come together, as well as to work. The award-winning Early Learning Center in our children’s department is currently themed around fairy tales. In addition to themed programming, we’re excited to offer ‘Once Upon a Fairy Tale,’ our summer reading program which encourages children to read and interact with our immersive, dual-language exhibit. The library maintains a secondary location at the Hinkston Park Field House, where residents can browse for books and pick up requested items.
