1D-3 - Harnessing the Power of the Toronto Public Libraries for Eclipse Programming

Abstract: On April 8th, 2024, much of Canada was able to experience either a total or deep partial eclipse. Toronto was just outside the path of totality and experienced a 99.93% partial eclipse. The Dunlap Institute purchased 50,000 eclipse glasses with the goal of distributing them to the city residents. The Toronto Public Library (TPL) system consists of 100 branches, and has a vast mail system that can be used to move materials from one branch to another. We collaborated with the TPL to distribute ~42000 eclipse glasses and educational materials around the city, give workshops at almost 40 branches in the 7 weeks leading up to the eclipse, and to train librarians with the resources to run their own events on the day of the eclipse. Almost 20 volunteers led workshops where library patrons were able to make their own pinhole projector, explore the Earth-Moon-Sun system and eclipses through scale models, and safely look directly at the Sun’s surface with our solar telescopes. All workshops attendees were given information about what eclipses are and how to safely view them. These workshops were developed in collaboration with Discover the Universe, an organization devoted to training educators on how to best teach astronomy. Dozens of librarians were trained on what an eclipse is and how to safely view it, and were able to organize eclipse-viewing events around the city. This was particularly important in the wake of many school closures across the provinces affected by the eclipse. We will describe the development and implementation of the TPL program, what the effects of this program were on the city of Toronto, and how we plan to learn from this experience to continue our collaboration with the TPL to run Astronomy Outreach programs.