From the Las Vegas Sun Article:
Ruth Elliott, 92, teaches a parapsychology course to seniors at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at UNLV Paradise campus in Las Vegas. She is the oldest instructor at Osher, a learning program for retirees who want to continue their education.
Some of the most engaged and frequent users of public libraries are over the age of 50. They may also be the most misunderstood. As Baby Boomers continue to swell their ranks, the behavior, interests, and information needs of this demographic have changed dramatically, and Schull’s new book offers the keys to reshaping library services for the new generations of active older adults. A must-read for library educators, library directors, and any information professional working in a community setting, this important book
The wisdom and insight contained in this book can help make the library a center for positive aging.
From the report’s overview:
“The blossoming field of creative aging promotes opportunities for older adults to engage in the arts
through community-based programs. Evidence supports many benefits of creative aging—for older
adults who participate, the institutions that provide it, and the neighborhoods in which it occurs.
The New York Community Trust funded the New York City Creative Aging Initiative, a two-year collaboration among Brookdale Center for Healthy Aging, Lifetime Arts, and LiveOn NY, to strengthen
and advance the field of creative aging in the city, with a focus on the SU-CASA arts program. SU-CASA
has grown from a seed in 2010 to be the largest public participatory arts program for older adults in
the United States. Funded by the New York City Council and administered by the Department of Cultural Affairs (DCLA) and the Department for the Aging (DFTA), SU-CASA provides grants to artists and cultural organizations to bring stimulating interactive arts programs to senior centers and other seniorserving organizations across the five boroughs. Participants work for weeks on songs, dances, stories, paintings, and more, then share their art with the community through a performance or exhibition.
Brookdale’s team conducted a two-year field analysis of SU-CASA and used the findings to help develop recommendations.”
This report was published on the Creative Aging in NYC website produced by Lifetime Arts.
In this article, Lisa Ortega-Pol, Museum Educator at the Museo de Historia, Antropologia y Arte of the University of Puerto Rico (UPR Museum), shares the overwhelming response she has received from the 55+ community there after the museum launched a creative writing workshop last year, as part of Aroha’s Seeding Vitality Arts in Museums Initiative.
In this article, The Denver Public Library announces that it will begin running Creative Aging programs for its older adult community, funded by the NextFifty initiative, a Colorado-based private foundation dedicated to funding innovative, mission-driven initiatives that improve the lives of older adults and their caregivers.
Lifetime Arts, Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, has received a $125,000 grant from MetLife Foundation to pilot an arts education program in three library systems nationwide. The MetLife Foundation Creative Aging Libraries Project will expand its work through partnerships with Boston Public Library, Dallas Public Library and Miami-Dade Public Library. The program places professional teaching artists with workshops in all disciplines where older adults can learn and engage with each other socially. The project builds on Lifetime Arts’ work with public libraries in New York State.
From the article: “A program aimed at engaging older Americans with the arts in public libraries that began in New York has now rolled out to 18 public libraries in Boston, Dallas and Miami, thanks to continued support from MetLife Foundation.”
Paper describes a long-term ethnography of an adult creative writing class in a major urban art gallery in the UK. It examines the validity of prevailing theories of learning in later life that advocate reminiscence writing a valuable for older adults. The author argues that the value of creative writing for the individuals studied lies in the fact that it is relational (not individual) and a means of being in the present — thereby contradicting traditional concepts about older people as primarily retrospective and the importance of reminiscence in older adult learning.
Friedman, co-founder of Lifetime Arts, provides a progress report on the qualitative research carried out by the Touchstone Center for Collaborative Inquiry regarding the impacts on librarians and participants involved in the national expansion first phase of Lifetime Arts’ Creative Aging in Public Libraries Project. The evaluators examined programming taking place in Boston, Dallas and Miami library systems, especially focusing on the tools, training and technical assistance provided by Lifetime Arts. Where programming had been completed they also did post-program surveys of individual participants. One finding noted by the evaluators was “many librarians found that Creative Aging programming helped both staff and patrons to see a new identity for the library as a community center for lifelong learning.”
Exploring Creativity in a Health Promotion Practice concerning older adults in a Community-Based Professionally Taught Arts Program. Results of this new study supported and expanded our earlier model of improved psychosocial and mental well-being due to creative engagement: impact of class-cognitive focus and outcome of class-cognitive focus, happiness as component of mental and social well-being due to creative engagement, and robust sense of calmness during the creative process.