Programs and Strategies for Community Resilience in a Metropolitan Area Public Library: A Case Study

This paper reports a case study on community-oriented public library programs in a metropolitan Texan city. A main purpose of the paper is to report the findings from this explorative case study on the relationship of a public library system with its communities from a community resilience perspective. The study is a part of a research project aiming at creating empirically-based knowledge on the role of public libraries in forming community resilience. The description of specific library programs is a basis for further study of the mechanisms contributing to community resilience. Community resilience enables communities to face major environmental change not only in the form of sudden specific disasters but also in meeting the big, slow-moving change processes shaping communities in the long run. This building of what is called generalized resilience in the community resilience literature is what is needed facing the processes of demographic change concerning aging and migration, paradigmatic change in technology, and unpredictable public policies. Communities are different, and this means that different tools and strategies are needed for building community resilience. This fact calls for multiple case studies on the roles of public libraries in the development of communities

A Note on Resilience Perspectives in Public Library Research: Paths Towards Research Agendas

Resilience is the ability to cope with change. The concept of resilience originating in the natural sciences has been applied in a variety of disciplines, from physics through ecology and social ecology to psychology and cultural studies. In public library research, very little resilience research has been conducted. The derived concepts of community resilience and information resilience have been applied to a very limited extent, and primarily in relation to the role of public libraries in disasters and in information literacy initiatives toward refugees. This short paper provides a condensed overview of concepts of resilience, asserts that public libraries are suitable arenas for resilience research, points to areas of research necessary for resilience theory development within the public library sphere, and engages with resilience concepts such as community resilience, information resilience, and cultural resilience

Rising together: Community resilience and public libraries

This dissertation explored the phenomenon of community resilience and how public libraries, as FEMA-designated essential community organizations, enhanced community resilience. These phenomena were studied by answering the following research questions: 1. What actions have public libraries taken during and after extreme events to support their communities? 2. What services have public libraries provided to their communities during and after extreme events? 3. What roles have public libraries played in their communities during and after extreme events? 4. How do public library directors/managers think public libraries enhance community resilience and build adaptive capacities? 5. How do disaster responders think public libraries enhance community resilience and build adaptive capacities? Through a multi-method qualitative approach, this work utilized content analysis and interviews to determine the actions, roles, and services public libraries provided throughout disasters; as well as, how public libraries enhanced community resilience. This work bridges the gap between research and practice by being the first qualitative study in community resilience investigating the role of public libraries across multiple disasters types and settings. The results of this project identified and then verified the adaptive capacities public libraries exhibit to enhance community resilience. A couple of highlights from the findings include: · The actions of libraries often shifted when faced with a disaster: hours of operation, policies about computer use, and changes in patron privileges. · Every library director believed public libraries added to community resilience in four areas: economic development, social capital, information and communication, and community competence

The Tweets Heard Around the World: Ferguson Municipal Public Library's Twitter Use Around the 2014 Civil Unrest and its Role in Supporting Community Disaster Resilience

In 2014, Ferguson, Missouri experienced multiple waves of civil unrest in response to the fatal shooting of Michael Brown and the grand jury decision not to indict Darren Wilson, the police officer responsible for the shooting. During this time, the Ferguson Municipal Public Library served a crucial role in responding to this community crisis. The actions of this library supported Ferguson's community resilience by limiting the impact and helping residents respond, recover, and heal from the civil unrest. A content analysis of the library's tweets reveals how the library used Twitter to communicate with the public and support its resilience around both waves of civil unrest. This case study highlights the importance of library disaster planning, roles libraries can play in helping communities plan, respond, and recover from crises, and explores how a library can employ social media to communicate with patrons and support community resilience.Master of Science in Library Scienc

Libraries in lockdown: Scottish public libraries and their role in community cohesion and resilience during lockdown.

The research examines Scottish Public Libraries and their response to the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020-21 and in particular the way in which they have, through their digital offering, helped to support community resilience and cohesion. The research also explores the issues that library services have had to contend with during lockdown. The methods deployed in this study included the gathering and analysing of social media and other web-based content from library services over the months March-September 2020 (amounting to over four thousands snips of content) and 19 interviews with service managers. Findings are presented in respect of the lessons to be learned from the closure of physical services and the migration to digital only provision, the contribution made to supporting communities, health and wellbeing, the importance of the balance of physical and digital library services, around governance models for library services, and the process of reopening services. Recommendations are offered around the need for a national conversation about digital content provision in public libraries and the exploration of possibilities of a national approach, the role libraries have as digital enablers (in supporting effort to overcome the digital divide in society), the crucial nature of continued strong advocacy for public libraries, the importance of the library as a physical space, and on how to maintain the flexibility, agility and autonomy which emerged during lockdown

Palaces for the People: Mapping Public Libraries\u27 Capacity for Social Connection and Inclusion

Public libraries are trusted community hubs that foster connections with individuals of different socioeconomic statuses; ages; ethnic, linguistic, religious, and cultural backgrounds; and sexual and gender identities. Located in diverse settings, library branches offer resources and programs that meet the specific needs of their communities who are navigating the effects of our increasingly asocial society. Libraries have been shown to cater to individuals contending with higher levels of social isolation and loneliness, as well as increased rates of mental illnesses and antisocial behaviours. The shift to online environments during COVID-19 has exacerbated feelings of disconnection. During these times of change, public libraries facilitate resilience, helping communities withstand and adapt to difficult circumstances. While several individual studies have separately examined libraries’ outreach efforts, what remains unknown is the broader knowledge landscape regarding public library practices, spaces, and activities that collectively create and reinforce social connections in an increasingly asocial society. We examined scholarly literature to answer the following questions to to bridge existing knowledge gaps: How do public libraries help patrons create or maintain connections in their communities? What population groups are included in public library research and in what ways are they differently impacted by public library services, materials, and/or spaces? How are public library virtual programming and services (especially prominent during COVID-19) changing the ways in which patrons engage with public libraries? In what ways does the Canadian public library research landscape compare or differ from that in European and Australasia countries, and what lessons can we glean from these differences?Underlying a majority of the included articles is an acknowledgement that the role of public libraries is changing, from operating as information repositories to now also operating as community hubs. The ways in which public library systems and branches engage with their communities and patrons are therefore also shifting. Focusing in particular on the current state of public library-related research knowledge on issues related to growing feelings of disconnection, isolation and loneliness, articles explored the multiple ways in which public libraries afford connection for and among their patrons. Public libraries draw on their spaces, their staff, their collections and materials, their programs, and relationships with community organizations to bolster feelings of connection. Given the distribution of public libraries across the country, in urban and rural locales and in neighbourhoods of high and low poverty, the ways in which public libraries both connect with and provide connection manifest differently depending on their contexts. Research on this topic is indicative of the many different population groups that public libraries engage with and support on a daily basis. Research focuses on a myriad of population groups, including: children, youth, older adults, parents, unhoused populations, differently abled individuals, immigrants and non-permanent residents, among others. This breadth of population groups, each with their own unique circumstances, needs, and expectations, is indicative of the range of factors and contexts library workers need to consider and incorporate in their programs, collections, arrangement of physical and virtual spaces, and administration. Across published research, public libraries fostered connection through the following means: Encouraging feelings of belonging Creating connections through technology Reinforcing cultural identities Creating safe physical spaces Addressing issues of accessibility Creating new educational programming Creating new recreational/social programmin

Toward a Library Renaissance

For centuries, librarians have tried to safeguard information, sometimes in the face of destruction. Think of the great Library of Alexandria, the burning of which symbolizes the irretrievable loss of knowledge. Think also of Umberto Eco\u27s novel, The Name of the Rose, and the (fictitious) 14th-century story about the search for a lost volume of Aristotle that no one is allowed to read—but yet must be preserved—because it might reveal that Jesus could and did laugh, contrary to the death-obsessed zeitgeist of the time. Fast-forward to the age of the internet, when some fear libraries are again being destroyed and many ask: Who wants libraries when you have Google? This is not an easy question to address but one need not yield to pessimism. This paper argues that identifiable trends direct to a promising future: in light of these, one should be able to circumscribe plausible scenarios. Approaches to strategic planning that count on ownership should make a big difference and point to desirable skills for librarians. If they also invest in resilience and give unequivocal attention to branding, libraries can enjoy a renaissance

Living Shorelines & Resilience in Southern California: A Summary of a Series of Workshops held as part of The Resilient Coastlines Project of Greater San Diego

In 2016, a series of workshops were held to discuss living shorelines in SouthernCalifornia. The workshops specifically focused on the unique benefits, challenges andopportunities for implementing living shorelines in the region, and the nexus betweennature-based solutions and ongoing local adaptation planning. Approximately 140participants partook in these dialogues, and some of the key themes that emergedinclude: Letting nature do the work for you Designing for the future Integrating nature into shoreline management projects Project goals distinguishing living shorelines Engineering and urban living shorelines Space constraints along urban coastlines Permitting pathways to support demonstration projects Living shorelines and phased sea level rise planning Designing with watersheds and sediment management in mind Exploring emerging commercial opportunities Public access and project success Planning for living shorelines alongside the community Sharing monitoring and best practices to ensure future success Citizen science and socio-ecological monitoringThe workshops provided the first ever opportunity for Southern California stakeholdersto outline what is unique about designing living shorelines in the context of SouthernCalifornia shorelines for state and federal entities