Dr. Noah Lenstra (LIS), the 2019-2020 ITI Faculty Fellow, continues to develop and expand his Let’s Move in Libraries (LMiL) initiative. LMiL began with a focus on public libraries’ support of physical activity, active lifestyles and physical literacy. With the support of Impact Through Innovation, LMiL is now expanding to include nutrition, healthy eating, food security, and holistic wellness, particularly as it involves engagement in nature and the outdoors.
Dr. Lenstra facilitated a wellness brown bag among SOE faculty in April 2020. He published a book in June 2020 titled Healthy Living at the Library: Programs for All Ages which addresses the central issue of health equity and the equalizing role that libraries can play in offering programs regardless of patrons’ socioeconomic status.
LMiL is being shared in spaces outside of librarianship to promote accessible wellness programs (America Walks is just one example) and is even receiving requests from the larger public health sector for expert reviews on how they can best interface with public libraries to promote public health.
All of these activities and new directions have deepened Dr. Lenstra’s perspectives on innovation. Whether your discipline is Library & Information Science or another field, there is much to learn about innovation from this engaging interview, facilitated by Dr. Scott Young. Watch as he discusses his innovation journey, how social media can be an integral component of collaborative knowledge sharing, how to scale a project, the transformative effects of putting an idea out into the world, best practices for faculty innovators, and unexpected opportunities due to COVID-19.
