Trauma-informed Libraries

By Kelley R. Taylor, Oct 9, 2019, Filed in News and Features SLJ A double homicide spurred Janet Damon, then an elementary school librarian, to begin offering whole-child support in the library, focusing on health in partnership with learning. “Our students had to walk past the crime scene, which was a car parked near our playground, right next to the bus stop,” she says. That was more than 10 years ago, but Damon, currently a library services specialist for Denver Public Schools, points to...

By Laura Hagar Rush, Sonoma West Times & News, June 12, 2019. This summer the Sebastopol library will offer a series of free mental health classes for teenagers, thanks to an innovative partnership between the Sonoma County Library system and Social Advocates for Youth (SAY), a nonprofit offering mental health and housing services for youth. The first group will be held on Tuesday, June 18, from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. at Sebastopol Regional Library, 7140 Bodega Ave., Sebastopol. Sebastopol is...

Intent on finding a safe place to spend the day, the elderly woman trudged into the public library, burdened with several bags of precious possessions. She was immediately greeted by the sight of a library worker thrusting out a hand and snapping, “No, you can’t bring those things in here.” “She said she felt like she was being struck,” explains Caroline Sharkey. A licensed clinical social worker (LCSW) on the faculty of the University of Georgia’s School of Social Work in Athens, Sharkey...

Athens-Clarke County now has one of the first “trauma-informed” libraries in the country, where employees are trained to recognize patrons who need help and direct them to services. “Athens is a remarkable city, yet it also faces extraordinary disparities and social risk factors,” says program coordinator Caroline Sharkey. The ACC Library is a hub of activity at any given moment, buzzing with individuals from all walks of life, seeking the library and its resources for any number of reasons.

People may check out fewer books from libraries than they used to, but libraries have continued to grow as their role as community hubs deepens. Here at NPQ , we have profiled libraries that have become maker spaces, supported gardening, and rented out musical instruments . In some cities, librarians have been trained to administer Narcan to interrupt opioid overdoses. In Ferguson and in Baltimore, as those cities were in a state of unrest after the killings of Michael Brown and Freddie...

As fault lines in the US deepen every day around class, race, political party, gender, and education, libraries are quietly p roviding the social glue that society seems to lack. Most have reading programs and career resources. Some have media production studios and maker spaces. Millions use libraries for internet access, and to work. They are a first stop for immigrants, a place for parents to introduce their kids to reading—an essential gateway to learning—and where the the socially...

Libraries as Affordable Housing Partners? Once upon a time, the Internet was expected to lead to the end of libraries. A 2004 Economist article, for example, began with a statement that “Public libraries will be redundant by 2020 [based] on current trends.” But instead, as NPQ has noted , libraries’ importance has gone up, driven largely by their increasingly vital role as community centers. NPQ ’s Ruth McCambridge gave a few examples: “The Chicago Public Library offers a free ‘ Maker Lab ’...