Page 17 - Baltimore County 2022 Quality of Life Guide & Business Directory

campus, numerous private schools and several farms populate the landscape here. GreenSpring Station is a popular shopping destination, with locally owned boutiques and restaurants.
In the far west of Baltimore County, you’ll find Arbutus, Halethorpe
and Catonsville. Catonsville is also known as Music City Maryland, in honor of the many music shops that populate its downtown business district along Frederick Avenue. The western communities are a terrific home for commuters, due to their proximity
to I-95, I-695 and the BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport.
On the opposite site of the county,
you’ll find White Marsh, Perry Hall and Parkville. These areas have seen tremendous residential and commercial development in recent years, and they boast several amenities that attract visitors from around the greater Baltimore region: the IKEA store in White Marsh and the Angel Park playground in Perry Hall, which is fun and accessible for all children, including those who use wheelchairs.
Rounding out the county’s communities are the eastern enclaves of Dundalk, Essex and Middle River. While parts
of these communities adjoin the Port of Baltimore and other industrial areas, this is also where Baltimore County meets the water. You’ll find pristine natural beauty and stunning Chesapeake Bay views at North Point State Park.
Q&A:
Sonia Alcantara-Antoine,
Director, Baltimore County Public Library
With 19 branches throughout our local communities, the Baltimore County Public Library (BCPL) is one of the most important institutions serving county residents. Director Sonia Alcantara- Antoine shares how BCPL works to serve everyone, including business owners and entrepreneurs.
You took over as BCPL's new director about a year ago. What was your vision for the
institution at the outset? Has it changed in your time on the job?
Alcantara-Antoine: Each of the directors who came before me were groundbreakers and visionaries in their own ways, so my vision was to keep going on the path they laid out for me and to keep the Baltimore County Public Library as the innovative, well-respected institution that it has been. My vision was that we are a bold, innovative, 21st-century public library institution
and that we’re serving everybody in our community; that we continue to
be forward-thinking and progressive and that we’re able to respond to the changing needs of our community.
What are some of the most important ways that BCPL benefits Baltimore County's residents?
Alcantara-Antoine: There are so many ways. We serve everybody in the community, from all walks of life and at all stages of life. Many people associate public libraries with youth services like story times and getting your first library card, and that’s important. We do play a role in serving the youngest among us, but we serve literally everybody. We provide a lot of services to
the business community. We have fantastic services for people looking for information on having a successful business. We have something called the Entrepreneur Academy, which is basically a training program on how to be a successful entrepreneur. If you want to become a small business owner but don’t have foundational knowledge such as how to compile a marketing plan or a business plan or do taxes, we help you. We also just launched that program
in Spanish. We want everyone to be able to be a successful business owner in Baltimore County.
How is BCPL working to continue being a relevant resource for residents in the future?
Alcantara-Antoine: We have a social worker at the library who’s embedded
in our staff. One of the things we find is that the library is a trusted place and sometimes people need help finding access to food, housing and other public resources. Having a social worker embedded really serves our community in ways we haven’t been able to before. We also last year launched our Mobile Library Law Center. It’s a bookmobile, but its focus is exclusively legal resources. It’s in partnership with Maryland Legal Aid. You can hop on board, no appointment necessary, and speak to a lawyer about any issue you’re having — divorce, custody, expungement, landlord-tenant, immigration. It’s a free service we provide. Those are just a couple of examples of how we continue to evolve what our service profile looks like so that we’re relevant to everybody in the community.
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